Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/566

470 in the course of life. The reason is that that love accompanies religion in its steps; and religion, because it is the marriage of the Lord and the church, is the rudiment (initiamentum) and inoculation of that love. Conjugial love is therefore ascribed to every one after death according to his spiritual rational life; and for him to whom that love is ascribed marriage is provided after death in heaven, of whatsoever quality his marriage may have been in the world. From these considerations, now, there results this conclusion: — That it is not to be concluded respecting anyone from the appearances of marriage, nor even from the appearances of fornication, that he has or has not conjugial love. Wherefore Judge not, that ye he not condemned (Matt. vii. 1). C. L. n. 531.)

Second Marriages.

[Whether] to marry again after the death of a consort depends on the preceding conjugial love. Love that is truly conjugial is as the scale of the balance in which the inclinations to repeated marriages are weighed. In so far as the preceding conjugial love approaches that love, inclination to another marriage recedes; and in so far as the preceding love recedes from conjugial love the inclination to another marriage is wont to approach. The reason is obvious: — Because conjugial love is in a like degree a conjunction of minds, which remains in the bodily life of the one after the death of the other; and this holds the inclination as a balance, with two scales, and causes a preponderance according to the appropriation of true love. But as at this day no approach is made to this love, except for a few paces, the scale of preponderance of inclination at the utmost raises itself to an equipoise; and from this wavers, — and inclines to the other side, that is to marriage. The contrary is the case with those whose preceding love, in the former marriage, receded from love that is truly conjugial. The reason is, that recession from this is in like degree a disjunction of minds; which also remains in the bodily life of the one after the death of the other; and this enters into the will disjoined from the other, and causes an inclination to a new conjunction, — in favour of which the thought excited by the inclination of the will induces the hope of a more united, and so more delightful cohabitation. (C. L. n. 318.)

With those who had not a truly conjugial love there is no obstacle or hindrance to their marrying again. There is no spiritual or internal bond, but only a natural or external bond, between those who have not had a truly conjugial love; and if