Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 311
delights. That they are heinous he might know from the fact
that marriages are the seminaries of the human race, and thus
also the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom; consequently they
must on no account be violated, but must be esteemed holy.
This he might know from the fact, which he ought to know
because of his being in the other life and in a state of
perception, that marriage love descends from the Lord through
heaven, and from that love, as from a parent, mutual love,
which is the foundation of heaven, is derived; and again from
this, that if adulterers merely draw near to heavenly societies
they perceive their own stench and cast themselves down
therefrom toward hell. At least he must have known that to
violate marriages is contrary to Divine laws, and contrary to the
civil laws of all kingdoms, also contrary to the genuine light of
reason, because it is contrary to both Divine and human order;
not to mention other considerations. But he replied that he
had not so thought in the life of the body. He wished to reason
about whether it were so, but was told that truth does not
admit of such reasonings; for reasonings defend what one
delights in, and thus one’s evils and falsities; that he ought first
to think about the things that had been said because they are
truths; or at least think about them from the principle well
known in the world, that no one should do to another what he
is unwilling that another should do to him; thus he should
consider whether he himself would not have detested adulteries
if anyone had in that way deceived his wife, whom he had
loved as everyone loves in the first period of marriage, and if in
his state of wrath he had expressed himself on the subject; also
whether being a man of talent he would not in that case have
confirmed himself more decidedly than others against
adulteries, even condemning them to hell.
386. I have been shown how the delights of marriage love
advance toward heaven, and the delights of adultery toward
hell. The advance of the delights of marriage love toward
heaven is into states of blessedness and happiness continually
increasing until they become innumerable and ineffable, and
the more interiorly they advance the more innumerable and