Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/121

 For Divine good and Divine truth, from which all intelligence, wisdom, and happiness are derived, flow principally into conjugial love; consequently conjugial love is the very plane itself of the Divine influx. The reason is, because conjugial love descends, as before said, from the conjunction of good and truth; and the conjunction of good and truth has its origin in the Divine love of the Lord towards all who are in the heavens and on earth. From Divine love proceeds Divine good, and Divine good is received by angels and men in Divine truths, truth being the only receptacle of good: wherefore nothing from the Lord and from heaven can be received by any one who is not in truths. So far, then, as the truths pertaining to man are conjoined to good, so far man is conjoined to the Lord and to heaven. Hence is the origin of conjugial love; wherefore it is the very plane of the Divine influx. And hence it is, that the conjunction of good and truth in the heavens is called the heavenly marriage; and that heaven, in the Word, is compared to a marriage, and is also called a marriage, and that the Lord is called the Bridegroom and Husband, and heaven, with the church, is called the bride and wife."

From this view, now, of the holiness of marriage, and of its Divine and heavenly origin, may be seen, by contrast, the detestable and abominable nature of adultery, and why it is said, that as the chaste love of marriage is heaven with man, so the love of adultery is hell with him. "As soon as a man commits