(ML) - Wisdom's Delight in Marriage Love: Followed by Insanity’s Pleasure in Promiscuous Love

ML 48

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48. II. THAT CONJUGIAL LOVE LIKEWISE REMAINS SUCH AS IT HAD BEEN WITH THE MAN INTERIORLY, THAT IS, IN HIS INTERIOR WILL AND THOUGHT, IN THE WORLD. Since love of the sex is one thing, and conjugial love another, therefore both are named, and it is said that the latter also remains with man after death such as it had been in his internal man while he lived in the world. But because few know the difference between love of the sex and conjugial love, therefore, at the threshold of this treatise, I will premise something respecting it.
Love of the sex is love towards many of the sex and with many; but conjugial love is love towards one of the sex and with one. Love towards many and with many is a natural love, for man has it in common with beasts and birds, and these are natural; but conjugial love is a spiritual love and peculiar and proper to men, because men were created and are therefore born to become spiritual. Therefore, so far as a man becomes spiritual, he puts off love of the sex and puts on conjugial love. In the beginning of marriage, love of the sex appears as if conjoined with conjugial love; but in the progress of marriage, they are separated, and then, with those who are spiritual, love of the sex is expelled and conjugial love insinuated, while with those who are natural, the opposite is the case. From what has now been said, it is evident that love of the sex, being a love shared with many and in itself natural, yea, animal, is impure and unchaste; and being a roving and unlimited love, is scortatory; but it is wholly otherwise with conjugial love. That conjugial love is spiritual and properly human, will be clearly evident from what follows.

48a. III. THAT AFTER DEATH, TWO MARRIED PARTNERS, FOR THE MOST PART, MEET, RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER, [AGAIN] CONSOCIATE, AND FOR SOME TIME LIVE TOGETHER; WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE FIRST STATE, THAT IS, WHILE THEY ARE IN EXTERNALS AS IN THE WORLD. There are two states through which man passes after death, an external and an internal. He comes first into his external state and afterwards into his internal. If both married partners have died, then, while in the external state, the one meets and recognizes the other, and if they have lived together in the world, they again consociate and for some time live together. When in this state, neither of them knows the inclination of the one to the other, this being concealed in their internals; but afterwards, when they come into their internal state, the inclination manifests itself, and if this is concordant and sympathetic, they continue their conjugial life, but if discordant and antipathetic, they dissolve it. If a man has had several wives, he conjoins himself with them in turn while in the external state; but when he enters the internal state, in which he perceives the nature of the inclinations of his love, he either takes one or leaves them all; for in the spiritual world as in the natural, no Christian is allowed to take more than one wife because this infests and profanes religion. The like happens with a woman who has had several husbands; women, however, do not adjoin themselves to their husbands but only present themselves, and their husbands adjoin them to themselves. It must be known that husbands rarely know their wives, but wives readily know their husbands. The reason is because women have an interior perception of love, and men only an exterior perception.

48b. IV. BUT THAT SUCCESSIVELY, AS THEY PUT OFF THEIR EXTERNALS AND COME INTO THEIR INTERNALS, THEY PERCEIVE THE NATURE OF THE LOVE AND INCLINATION WHICH THEY HAD FOR EACH OTHER, AND HENCE WHETHER THEY CAN LIVE TOGETHER OR NOT. This need not be further explained since it follows from what has been set forth in the preceding article. Here it shall only be shown how, after death, a man puts off his externals and puts on his internals.
After death, every one is first introduced into the world which is called the world of spirits--which is in the middle between heaven and hell--and is there prepared, the good for heaven and the evil for hell. This preparation has for its end, that the internal and external may be concordant and make a one, and not be discordant and make two. [2] In the natural world they make two, and only with the sincere in heart do they make a one. That they are two is evident from crafty and cunning men, especially from hypocrites, flatterers, dissemblers, and liars. In the spiritual world, a man is not permitted thus to have a divided mind, but he who had been evil in internals must be evil also in externals; so likewise the good must be good in both; for after death every man becomes what he had been internally, and not what he had been externally. [3] To this end, he is then let into his external and his internal alternately. While in his external, every man, even the evil, is wise, that is, wishes to appear wise, but in his internal, an evil man is insane. By these alternations, the man is able to see his insanities and repent of them; but if he had not repented in the world, he cannot do so afterwards, for he loves his insanities and wishes to remain in them, and therefore brings his external to be likewise insane. Thus his internal and his external become one, and when this is the case, he is prepared for hell. [4] With a good man, it is the reverse. Because in the world he had looked to God and had repented, he is wiser in his internal than in his external. Moreover, in his external, by reason of the allurements and vanities of the world, he sometimes became insane. Therefore, his external must be brought into concordance with his internal, which latter, as was said, is wise. When this is done, he is prepared for heaven. This illustrates how the putting off of the external and the putting on of the internal is effected after death.

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