ire to destroy their
souls. It is, therefore, the delight of hatred which, becoming a fire
in the extremes and being injected into the lusting flesh, becomes for
the moment the delight of adultery,--the soul in which the hatred lies
concealed then withdrawing itself. It is for this reason that hell is
called adultery, and also that adulterers are desperately unmerciful,
savage, and cruel. This, then, is the infernal marriage. (A.E., n.
991.)

It has been said that the love of adultery is a fire enkindled from
impurities that soon burns out and is turned into cold, and into an
aversion corresponding to hatred. But the reverse is true of the love of
marriage. This is a fire enkindled from a love of good and truth and
from a delight in well-doing, thus from love to the Lord and from love
toward the neighbor. This fire, which from its origin is heavenly, is
full of innumerable delights, as many, in fact, as are the delights and
blessednesses of heaven. It has been told me that the charms and
pleasantnesses of that love, which are manifested from time to time, are
so many and such that they cannot be numbered or described. Moreover,
they are multiplied with continued increase to eternity. These delights
have their origin in the fact that the married pair wish to be united
into one in respect to their minds, and into such a union heaven
breathes from the marriage of good and truth from the Lord in heaven.
(A.E., n. 992.)

That true marriage love contains in itself ineffable delights that can
neither be numbered nor described can be seen from the fact that this is
the fundamental love of all celestial and spiritual loves, since through
that love man becomes love; for from it each of the married pair loves
the other as good loves truth and truth loves good, thus
representatively as the Lord loves heaven and the church. Such a love
can come forth only through a marriage in which the man is truth and the
wife is good. When a man through marriage has become such a love he is
also in love to the Lord and in love toward the neighbor, and thus in a
love for all good and in a love for all truth. For from man as a love
loves of every kind must proceed; therefore marriage love is the
fundamental love of all the loves of heaven. And as it is the
fundamental love of all the loves of heaven it is also the foundation of
all the delights and joys of heaven, since every delight and joy is of
love. From this it follows that heavenl