From
these considerations it may be seen that the states of the minds of each
of the parties proceeding in successive order flow into the state of
marriage. But married partners after marriage are altogether ignorant of
the successive things which are insinuated into, and exist in their
minds (_animis_) from things antecedent; nevertheless it is those things
which give form to conjugial love, and constitute the state of their
minds; from which state they act the one with the other. The reason why
one state is formed from one order with such as are spiritual, and from
another with such as are natural, is, because the spiritual proceed in a
just order, and the natural in an unjust order; for the spiritual look
to the Lord, and the Lord provides and leads the order; whereas the
natural look to themselves, and thence proceed in an inverted order;
wherefore with the latter the state of marriage is inwardly full of
unchasteness; and as that unchasteness abounds, so does cold; and as
cold abounds so do the obstructions of the inmost life, whereby its vein
is closed and its fountain dried.
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