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their love of adultery. In the spiritual world the delights of marriage love are represented to the sense by odors from fruits and flowers of various kinds, while the delights of the love of adultery are there represented to the sense by the stenches from excrements and putridities of various kinds. Moreover, the delights of the love of adultery are actually turned into such things, since all things pertaining to adultery are spiritual filth. Therefore from the brothels in the hells stenches pour forth that excite vomiting. (A.E., n. 986.) How holy in themselves, that is, from creation, marriages are can be seen from the fact that they are the nurseries of the human race; and as the angelic heaven is from the human race they are also the nurseries of heaven; consequently by marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants; and as the end of the entire creation is the human race, and thus heaven, where the Divine itself may dwell as in its own and as it were in itself, and as the procreation of mankind according to Divine order is accomplished through marriages, it is clear how holy marriages are in themselves, that is, from creation, and thus how holy they should be esteemed. It is true that the earth might be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as well as by marriages, but not heaven; and for the reason that hell is from adulteries but heaven from marriages. Hell is from adulteries because adultery is from the marriage of evil and falsity, from which hell in the whole complex is called adultery; while heaven is from marriages because marriage is from the marriage of good and truth, from which heaven in its whole complex is called a marriage. That is called adultery where its love, which is called a love of adultery, reigns, whether it be within wedlock or apart from it, and that is called marriage where its love, which is called marriage love, reigns. When procreations of the human race are effected by marriages in which the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reigns, then it is on earth as it is in the heavens, and the Lord's kingdom on earth corresponds to the Lord's kingdom in the heavens. For the heavens consist of societies arranged according to all the varieties of celestial and spiritual affections, from which arrangement the form of heaven springs, and this pre-eminently surpasses all other forms in the universe. There would be a like form on
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