566 of that work.
240. V. OF INTERNAL CAUSES OF COLD THE FIRST IS THE REJECTION OF
RELIGION BY EACH OF THE PARTIES. Those who reject the holy things of the
church from the face to the hinder part of the head, or from the breast
to the back, have not any good love; if any proceeds apparently from the
body, still there is not any in the spirit. With such persons goods
place themselves on the outside of evils, and cover them, as raiment
glittering with gold covers a putrid body. The evils which reside
within, and are covered, are in general hatreds, and thence intestine
combats against everything spiritual; for all things of the church which
they reject, are in themselves spiritual; and as love truly conjugial is
the fundamental love of all spiritual loves, as was shewn above, it is
evident that interior hatred is contrary to it, and that the interior or
real love with such is in favor or the opposite, which is the love of
adultery; therefore such persons, more than others, will be disposed to
ridicule this truth, that every one has conjugial love according to the
state of the church; yea, they will possibly laugh at the very mention
of love truly conjugial; but be it so; nevertheless they are to be
pardoned, because it is as impossible for them to distinguish in thought
between the marriage embrace and the adulterous, as it is for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle.
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