Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/538

442 love which is the love of wisdom, and is meant by the good of truth, or good from that truth. With man there are therefore two loves, of which the one that is prior is the love of being wise; and the other, which comes after, is the love of wisdom. But this if it remains with a man is an evil love; and is called pride, or the love of his own intelligence. It was therefore provided from creation that this love should be taken out of the man, lest it destroy him, and be assigned to the woman; that it might become conjugial love, which makes him whole again. (C. L. n. 88.)

How holy marriages are in themselves, that is from creation, may be seen from the fact that they are the seminaries of the human race, and as the angelic heaven is from the human race, are also the seminaries of heaven; that consequently by marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants. And as the human race and a heaven therefrom wherein the very Divine may dwell as in its own, and as it were in itself, is the end of the whole creation, and their procreation according to Divine order is established by marriages, it is manifest how holy they are in themselves, thus from creation, and how holy they ought therefore to be kept. The earth indeed may be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as well as by marriages; but not heaven. The reason is that hell is from adulteries, and heaven from marriages. . . . When the procreations of the human race are effected through marriages in which the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reigns, then it is done on earth as in the heavens, and the kingdom of the Lord on earth corresponds to the kingdom of the Lord in the heavens. For the heavens consist of societies arranged according to all varieties of affections, celestial and spiritual; from which arrangement arises the form of heaven, which pre-eminently surpasses all the forms in the universe. A similar form would exist on earth if the procreations there were effected by marriages in which love truly conjugial reigns; for then how many families soever should successively descend from one father, they would come forth so many images of the societies of heaven, in a similar variety. Families would then be as fruitful trees of various species, from which there should spring as many gardens, in each its own species of fruit, which gardens taken together should present the form of a heavenly paradise. But this is said comparatively, because trees signify men of the church, gardens intelligence, fruits the good of life, and a paradise heaven. It has been told me from heaven that with the most ancients, of