Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/300

204 adulterous generation" (Matt. xii. 39; xvi. 4; Mark viii. 38), and "the seed of the adulterer" (Isa. lvii. 3). Besides which there are many other places where by adulteries and whoredoms adulterations and falsifications of the Word are meant.

In the celestial sense, to commit adultery means to deny the holiness of the Word, and to profane it. That this is meant in this sense follows from the former, the spiritual sense, which is to adulterate its goods and to falsify its truths. They deny and profane the holiness of the Word who in heart laugh at everything of the church and of religion; for all things of the church and of religion in the Christian world are from the Word. (T. C. R. n. 314, 315.)

Who at this day can suppose that the love of adultery is the fundamental love of all diabolical and infernal loves? and that the chaste love of marriage is the fundamental love of all heavenly and Divine loves? and consequently that in proportion as a man is in the love of adultery in the same proportion he is in every evil love, if not in act yet in disposition? and on the other hand that in proportion as a man is in the chaste love of marriage in the same proportion he is in every good love, if not in act yet in disposition? Who at this day can think that he who is in the love of adultery does not believe anything of the Word, nor therefore anything of the church? nay, that in his heart he denies God? and on the other hand, that he who is in the chaste love of marriage is in charity, and in faith, and in love to God? and that the chastity of marriage makes one with religion, and the lasciviousness of adultery makes one with naturalism? The reason that these things are unknown at this day is because the church is at its end, and is devastated as to truth and as to good; and when the church is in such a condition the man of the church, by influx from hell, comes into the persuasion that adulteries are not detestable, nor abominations. And therefore he also comes into the belief that marriages and adulteries do not differ in their essence, but only in respect to order; when yet the difference between them is such as that between heaven and hell. That there is this difference between them will be seen in what follows. Hence now it is that in the Word, in the spiritual sense, heaven and the church are meant by nuptials and marriages; and that hell and the rejection of all things of heaven and the church are meant by adulteries and fornications. (A. E. n. 981.)

That adultery is hell, and therefore an abomination, any one may conceive from the idea of a commixture of diverse semen in the womb of one woman; for it is the semen of man in which lies hidden the inmost of his life, and therefore the rudiment of