Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/565

Rh is such love. It is otherwise with those who are spiritual. With them the first state is the initiation to perpetual happinesses; which are progressive in proportion as the spiritual-rational of the mind, and from this the natural-sensual of the body, of the one and the other conjoin and unite themselves. But these instances are rare. (C. L. n. 59.)

There is a certain resemblance of conjugial love with some; but yet there is not conjugial love if they are not in the love of good and of truth. It is a love that appears like conjugial love, but is from causes relating to the love of the world, or of self; such as, that they may be served at home; that they may live in security; that they may live in ease; that they may be ministered to in sickness and in old age; for the sake of the care of children whom they love. With some it is constrained, by fear,—in respect to the married partner, to reputation, to adversities. With some it is the love of lasciviousness that induces it. This in the first period appears like conjugial love; for then they emulate something of innocence, sport like little children, and perceive a joy as a something of heavenly origin. But in process of time they are not united more and closer like those who are in conjugial love, but separated. Conjugial love also differs in married partners; with one there may be more or less, with the other little or none. And since it differs, to one it may be heaven, to the other hell. Affection and reception determine this. (A. C. n. 2742.)

There are marriages in which conjugial love does not appear, and yet exists; and there are marriages in which conjugial love appears, and yet does not exist. The reasons are many on either hand,—knowable in part, from what has been said above concerning love that is truly conjugial, and the causes of coldnesses and separations; and concerning the causes of apparent love and friendship in marriages. But appearances in the externals determine nothing as respects the ascription. The one only thing that determines is the conjugial [principle], which has its seat in one's will, and is protected in whatsoever state of marriage a man may be. This conjugial principle is as the balance in which that love is weighed; for the conjugial [union] of one man with one wife is the jewel of human life, and the repository of the Christian religion. And because it is so, that love can exist in one consort, and at the same time not in the other. And that love may lie more deeply hidden than that the man (homo) himself shall observe any thing of it; and it may also be