This spiritual purification may be
compared with the purification of natural spirits, which is effected by
the chemists, and is called defecation, rectification, castigation,
acution, decantation, and sublimation; and wisdom purified may be
compared with alcohol, which is a highly rectified spirit. 3. Now as
spiritual wisdom in itself is of such a nature that it becomes more and
more warmed with the love of growing wise, and by virtue of this love
increases to eternity; and as this is effected in proportion as it is
perfected by a kind of defecation, castigation, rectification, acution,
decantation, and sublimation, and this by elevating and abstracting the
intellect from the fallacies of the senses, and the will from the
allurements of the body; it is evident that conjugial love, whose parent
is wisdom, is in like manner rendered successively more and more pure,
and thereby chaste. That the first state of love between married
partners is a state of heat not yet tempered by light; but that it is
successively tempered in proportion as the husband is perfected in
wisdom, and the wife loves it in her husband, may be seen in the
MEMORABLE RELATION, n.
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