Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/559

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MARRIAGE.
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three heavens. For intellisrence and wisdom are nothing else than the reception of light and heat from the Lord as a sun; that is, the reception of Divine truth conjoined with Divine good, and Divine good conjoined with Divine truth; thus it is the marriage of good and truth from the Lord. It was clearly apparent that this is so from the angels in the heavens. Separated from their consorts they are in intelligence it is true, but not in wisdom; but when they are with their consorts they are in wisdom also. And what surprised me, they are in a state of wisdom just in proportion as they turn their faces towards their consorts; for the conjunction of truth and good in the spiritual world is effected by the look, and the wife there is good, and the husband is truth; therefore as truth turns itself to good, so it is vivified. By intelligence and wisdom is not meant ingenuity in reasoning about truths and goods, but the faculty of seeing and understanding truths and goods; a faculty which man has from the Lord. (A. E. n. 998.)

The reason why the capability of being wise increases with those who are in love that is truly conjugial, is that this love with the married is from wisdom and according to it; and also because the sense of this love is the touch, and this sense is common to all the senses, and is also full of delights. It therefore opens the interiors of the mind as it opens the interiors of the senses, and with them the organic forms of the whole body. It follows from this that they who are in that love, love nothing more than to be wise; for a man is wise in proportion as the interiors of his mind are opened. (C. L. n. 211.)

The Qualifications for receiving Conjugial Love.

None can be in love which is truly conjugial but those who receive it from the Lord; who are those that directly come to Him, and from Him live the life of the church. The reason is, that viewed from its origin and its correspondence that love is heavenly, spiritual, holy, pure, and clean, beyond every love that exists among the angels of heaven and among the men of the church; and these its attributes cannot be given except to those who are conjoined to the Lord, and are consociated by Him with the angels of heaven. For these shun extra-conjugial loves, which are conjunctions of one with others than his or her own consort, as injuries to the soul, and as they would the lakes of hell; and in so far as consorts shun such conjunctions, even as to the lusts of the will and intentions from them, in so far this love is purified in them, and gradually becomes spiritual,—first while they live on earth, and afterwards in heaven. No love can