Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/204

198 of one mind out of two. Consequently it destroys interior conjunction, which is that of good and truth, from which is the very essence of conjugial love." (Ibid. 379.)

"It has been shown me how the delights of conjugial love progress toward heaven, and the delights of adultery toward hell. The progression of the delights of conjugial love toward heaven, was into blessednesses and felicities continually increasing in number, until they became innumerable and ineffable; and the more interiorly they progressed, the more innumerable and ineffable they became, until they reached the very blessedness and happiness of the inmost heaven which is the heaven of innocence, and this with the most perfect freedom. For all freedom is from love; and therefore the most perfect freedom is from conjugial love which is heavenly love itself. But the progression of adultery was toward hell, and by degrees to the lowest where there is nothing but what is direful and horrible. Such is the lot which awaits adulterers after their life in the world." (Ibid. 386.)

The church in Swedenborg's day believed in the soul's immortality, yet had no clear conception of the soul as a substantial entity, or as existing in any definite form. The prevailing belief was, that it is something ethereal, subtle, shadowy,—a kind of breath or vapor which would, at some