De Conjugio (Whitehead) n. 4

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4. IN LOVE TRULY CONJUGAL THERE IS NOTHING WHATEVER OF LASCIVIOUSNESS. Those who do not know what love truly conjugial is, and who are not in it, may think that it is not given without lasciviousness, but yet the difference is such as is between heaven and hell; for their delight appears in externals as if the same, but every external derives its quality and its essential nature from internals. The internal of conjugial love is from the Lord, and thence from heaven, and from everything auspicious and happy there; but the internal of lasciviousness or of adultery is from the devil, thus from hell and from everything inauspicious and unhappy. Every external derives its essence from internals; therefore neither are the external of conjugial love and the external of adultery alike. The external of conjugial love is filled with all the delights of heaven, and the enjoyment of heaven which is in that love expels all the enjoyment of hell; hence those two enjoyments in external form are, because of their internals, altogether dissimilar. The angels also clearly perceive from the sphere of the love of two consorts whether what is lascivious is in it, and its quality and quantity, and so far remove themselves from them. The reason that the angels so far remove themselves is, that the lasciviousness of adultery communicates with the hells, but the chastity of marriage with heaven.


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