Hence comes the
opposition of adultery and marriage.
481. That it may be further known how gross is the stupidity of this
age, in that those who have the reputation of wisdom do not see any sin
in adultery, as was discovered by the angels (see just above, n. 478), I
will here add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. There were certain
spirits who, from a habit they had acquired in the life of the body,
infested me with peculiar cunning, and this they did by a sottish and as
it were waving influx, such as is usual with well-disposed spirits; but
I perceived that they employed craftiness and similar means, to the
intent that they might engage attention and deceive. At length I entered
into conversation with one of them who, it was told me, had while he
lived in the world been the general of an army: and as I perceived that
in the ideas of his thought there was a lascivious principle, I
conversed with him by representatives in the spiritual language which
fully expresses what is intended to be said, and even several things in
a moment. He said that, in the life of the body in the former world, he
had made no account of adulteries: but it was granted me to tell him,
that adulteries are wicked, although from the delight attending them,
and from the persuasion thence resulting, they appear to the adulterer
as not wicked but allowable; which also he might know from this
consideration, that marriages are the seminaries of the human race, and
thence also the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom, and therefore that
they ought not to be violated, but to be accounted holy; also from this
consideration, that he ought know, as being in the spiritual world, and
in a state of perception, that conjugial love descends from the Lord
through heaven, and that from that love, as a parent, is derived mutual
love, which is the main support of heaven; and further from this
consideration, that adulterers, whenever they only approach the heavenly
societies, are made sensible of their own stench, and throw themselves
headlong thence towards hell: at least he might know, that to violate
marriages is contrary to the divine laws, to the civil laws of all
kingdoms, also to the genuine light of reason, and thereby to the right
of nations, because contrary to order both divine and human; not to
mention other considerations.
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