the minds of men. And so in innumerable other instances.
The reason why such perversions and corruptions in the Church are compared to adulteries and whoredoms, is because the Church, as before shown, is called in the Word the Lord's Bride and Wife. When, then, the Church turns from the worship of him to the worship of idols, as was the case in the Jewish Church,—or when she turns away from the love of goodness and truth (which are the Lord) to the love of evil and falsity, then she turns from her true husband, and so is said to commit adultery. Moreover, as already explained, the union of goodness and truth constitutes the true heavenly marriage, from which true earthly marriage descends. When, therefore, goodness is divorced from truth, by the falsification of the Word, as is the case now, in great part, throughout the Protestant Church, by means of the establishment of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, then there exists what may be called spiritual whoredom, for there can be no true marriage or union between goodness and falsity. And when, as in the Romish Church, the good of the Word is adulterated by being made the means of cherishing the evil loves of wealth and dominion, then there exists in men's minds a state of spiritual adultery, which, as the Doctrine of the New Church teaches, actually results in the sin of natural adultery, flowing as an effect from its spiritual cause. And it is a remarkable fact, that in those countries where the Romish religion prevails, as in France and Italy, the crime of adultery, as is well known, is
