Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 310
commits adultery from delight; and when heaven is closed man
no longer acknowledges the Divine nor anything of the faith of
church. 248
That all who are in hell are antagonistic to marriage
love I have been permitted to perceive from the sphere exhaling
from hell, which was like an unceasing endeavor to dissolve
and violate marriages; which shows that the reigning delight in
hell is the delight of adultery, and the delight of adultery is a
delight in destroying the conjunction of good and truth, which
conjunction makes heaven. From this it follows that the delight
of adultery is an infernal delight directly opposed to the delight
of marriage, which is a heavenly delight.
385. There were certain spirits who, from a practice acquired
in the life of the body, infested me with peculiar craftiness, and
this by a very gentle wavelike influx like the usual influx of well
disposed spirits; but I perceived that there was craftiness and
other like evils in them prompting them to ensnare and
deceive. Finally, I talked with one of them who, I was told, had
been when he lived in the world the leader of an army; and
perceiving that there was a lustfulness in the ideas of his
thought I talked with him about marriage, using spiritual
speech with representatives, which fully expresses all that is
meant and many things in a moment. He said that in the life
of the body he had regarded adulteries as of no account. But I
was permitted to tell him that adulteries are heinous, although
to those like himself they do not appear to be such, and even
appear permissible, on account of their seductive and enticing
248. Adulteries are profane (n. 9961, 10174). Heaven is closed to
adulterers (n. 2750).
Those that have experienced delight in adulteries cannot come into
heaven (n. 539, 2733, 2747–2749, 2751, 10175). Adulterers are unmerciful
and destitute of religion (n. 824, 2747, 2748). The ideas of adulterers are
filthy (n. 2747, 2748).
In the other life they love filth and are in filthy hells (n. 2755, 5394,
5722).
In the Word adulteries signify adulterations of good, and whoredoms
perversions of truth (n. 2466, 2729, 3399, 4865, 8904, 10648).