the giants, the guards of your
heaven, and afterwards the region of villages; from which circumstances
you may conclude, that we have not come here of ourselves, but by
direction of the God of heaven. The business on which we are come is, to
be instructed concerning your marriages, whether they are monogamical or
polygamical." and they said, "What are polygamical marriages? Are not
they adulterous?" And immediately the bench of judges deputed an
intelligent person to instruct us in his own house on this point: and
when we were come to his house, he set his wife by his side, and spoke
as follows: "We are in possession of precepts concerning marriages,
which have been handed down to us from the primeval or most ancient
people, who were principled in love truly conjugial, and thereby
excelled all others in the virtue and potency of that love while they
were in the world, and who are now in a most blessed state in their
heaven, which is in the east. We are their posterity, and they, as
fathers, have given us, their sons, rules of life, among which is the
following concerning marriages: 'Sons, if you are desirous to love God
and your neighbour, and to become wise and happy to eternity, we counsel
you to live married to one wife; if you depart from this precept, all
heavenly love will depart from you, and therewith internal wisdom; and
you will be banished.' This precept of our Fathers we have obeyed as
sons, and have perceived its truth, which is, that so far as any one
loves his conjugial partner alone, so far he becomes celestial and
internal, and that so far as any one does not love his married partner
alone, so far he becomes natural and external; and in this case he loves
only himself and the images of his own mind, and is doating and foolish.
From these considerations, all of us in this heaven live married to one
wife; and this being the case, all the borders of our heaven are guarded
against polygamists, adulterers, and whoremongers; if polygamists invade
us, they are cast out into the darkness of the north; if adulterers,
they are cast out into fires of the west; and if whoremongers, they are
cast out into the delusive lights of the south." On hearing this, I
asked, "What he meant by the darkness of the north, the fires of the
west, and the delusive lights of the south?" He answered, "The darkness
of the north is dulness of mind and ignorance of truths; the fires of
the west are the loves of evil; and the delusive lig