Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/557

Rh nonsense, or mysteries that are incomprehensible. It is evident from this that the earliest love of marriage emulates love which is truly conjugial, and causes it visibly to appear in a certain image. This takes place because the love of sex, which is unchaste, is then cast away, and the love of one of the sex, which is a love truly conjugial and chaste, sits implanted in its place. Who does not then look on other women with indifference, and upon his only one with love? (C. L. n. 58.)

The reason why conjugial love viewed as to its essence is the fundamental love of all the loves of heaven and the church, is that its origin is from the marriage of good and truth, and from this marriage all the loves which constitute heaven and the church with man proceed. The good of this marriage constitutes love, and the truth of it constitutes wisdom; and when love draws near to wisdom or conjoins itself therewith, love becomes love, and when in its turn wisdom draws near to love, and conjoins itself therewith, wisdom becomes wisdom. Love that is truly conjugial is nothing else than the conjunction of love and wisdom. A married pair between whom or in whom together this love exists, are an image and form of it. And in the heavens, where the faces are genuine types of the affections of their love, all are similitudes of it; for it is in them in general, and in every part. Now since a married pair are this love in image and in form, it follows that every love that proceeds from a form of the love itself is a representation of it. If therefore conjugial love is heavenly and spiritual, the loves proceeding from it are also heavenly and spiritual. Conjugial love is therefore as the parent, and other loves are as its offspring. Hence it is that from the marriages of angels in the heavens spiritual offspring are generated, which are [generations] of love and wisdom, or of good and truth. (ib. n. 65.)

All delights whatsoever that are felt by man are of his love; through them the love manifests itself, yea, exists and lives. It is well known that delights are exalted in the degree that the love is exalted, and also as the incident affections touch the ruling love more nearly. Now, as conjugial love is the fundamental of all good loves, and as it is inscribed on the very least things of man, as was shown before, it follows that its delights exceed the delights of all loves, and also that it imparts delight to them according to its presence and at the same time its conjunction with them; for it expands the innermost things of the mind, and at the same time the innermost things of the body, as the delicious current of its fountain flows through and opens them. It is because of the superior excellence of its use above all others that all delights from first to last are gathered into this love. Its use is the propagation of the human race, and an