305. IX. THAT DURING THE TIME OF BETROTHAL IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO BE CONJOINED CORPOREALLY, for thus the order which is inscribed on conjugial love perishes. In human minds there are three regions, the highest of which is called celestial, the middle spiritual, and the lowest natural. It is into this lowest region that man is born. He ascends into his higher region, which is called spiritual, by a life according to the truths of religion; and into the highest, by the marriage of love and wisdom. In the lowest region, which is called natural, reside all the concupiscences of evil and lasciviousness, but in the higher region which is called spiritual, are no concupiscences of evil and lasciviousness, for man is led into this region by the Lord when he is born again; and in the highest region called celestial, is conjugial chastity residing in its own love. Man is elevated into this region by the love of uses, and since the most excellent uses are from marriages, by love truly conjugial. [2] From this it can be seen in brief, that from the first periods of its heat, conjugial love, if it is to become chaste, must be elevated from the lowest region into the highest,* that from what is chaste it may then be let down through the middle and lowest region into the body. When this is done, this lowest region is purified of its unchastities by the descent of what is chaste, and then the ultimate of that love also becomes chaste. If then the successive order of this love be precipitated by corporeal conjunctions before their due time, it follows that the man acts from the lowest region which is unchaste from birth. That from this region, cold in respect to marriage and neglect of the married partner together with loathing, has its beginning and origin, is well known. Yet there are various differences in the results of premature conjunction, as also of an over-prolonging and likewise of an over-hastening of the time of betrothal; but on account of their number and varieties, these can hardly be adduced.
* The Latin is superiorem (higher), but the context indicates that this is an error for supremam, as in the translation.
