Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/563

Rh origin of conjugial love, which is from the marriage of good and truth. When conjugial love descends from this it is heaven itself with man. This [heaven] is destroyed when a married pair are dissimilar in heart from a dissimilar faith. Now it is on this account that a maid-servant of the daughters of Israel, that is of those who are of the church, might not be sold to a strange people, that is to those who are out of the church; for they would afterwards betroth her, that is be conjoined to her, and so profane those things which pertain to the church. It is therefore said (Ex. xxi. 8) that this is to act perfidiously. (A. C. n. 8998.)

For those who desire love that is truly conjugial the Lord provides similitudes; and if they are not granted on earth He provides them in the heavens. And how they are provided in the heavens I have heard thus described by the angels:—That the Divine Providence of the Lord respecting marriages, and in marriages, is most particular and most universal; for the reason that all the enjoyments of heaven stream forth from the enjoyments of conjugial love, as sweet waters by the streamlet of a fountain. And it is therefore provided that conjugial pairs be born, and that they be educated for their marriage, both the boy and the girl being unconscious of it, continually under the auspices of the Lord. And after the required time they somewhere meet, as if by chance, and see each other,—she then a maiden and he a youth, fit for marriage; and then at once, as by a certain instinct, they recognise that they are mates, and from a kind of inward dictate, as it were, think within themselves, the young man "She is mine," and the maiden, "He is mine." And when for some time this has been settled in the minds of both, they deliberately speak to each other, and betroth themselves. It is said, as if by chance, instinct, and dictate; but the meaning is, by the Divine Providence, because when it is unknown this so appears. In reality the Lord opens the internal similitudes, that they may see themselves. (C. L. n. 229.)

That conjugial pairs are born, and, both being unconscious of it, are educated for marriage, the angels confirmed by the conjugial similitude visible in both their faces; as well as by the eternal union of their inner and outer minds (animorum et mentium), which could not be, as it is in heaven, unless foreseen and provided by the Lord. (ib. n. 316.)

Marriages that are interiorly conjunctive can with difficulty