Page:Arcana Coelestia (Potts) vol 1.djvu/45

N. 54] Word was lost among their posterity, this arcanum also perished. Their marriages were their chief sources of happiness and delight, and whatever admitted of the comparison they likened to marriage, in order that in this way they might perceive its felicity. Being also internal men, they were delighted only with internal things. External things they merely saw with the eyes, but thought of what was represented. So that outward things were nothing to them, save as these could in some measure be the means of causing them to turn their thoughts to internal things, and from these to celestial things, and so to the Lord who was their all, and consequently to the heavenly marriage, from which they perceived the happiness of their marriages to come. The understanding in the spiritual man they therefore called male, and the will female, and when these acted as a one they called it a marriage. From that church came the form of speech which became customary, whereby the church itself, from its affection of good, was called "daughter" and "virgin" as the "virgin of Zion," the "virgin of Jerusalem"—and also "wife." But on these subjects see the following chapter, at verse 23, and chapter iii., verse 15.

. Verse 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth. As the most ancient people called the conjunction of the understanding and the will, or of faith and love, a marriage, everything of good produced from that marriage they called "fructifications," and everything of truth, "multiplications." Hence they are so called in the Prophets, as for instance in Ezekiel:—

By "man" is here meant the spiritual man who is called Israel; by "ancient times," the Most Ancient Church; by "beginnings," the Ancient Church after the flood. The reason why "multiplication," which is of truth, is first mentioned,