iritual and natural adulterers."

80. THE SIXTH MEMORABLE RELATION. As the angel said this, I looked to
the western boundary, and lo! there appeared as it were lakes of fire
and brimstone; and I asked him, why the hells in that quarter had such
an appearance? He replied, "They appear as lakes in consequence of the
falsifications of truth; because water in the spiritual sense signifies
truth; and there is an appearance as it were of fire round about them,
and in them, in consequence of the love of evil, and as it were of
brimstone in consequence of the love of what is false. Those three
things, the lake, the fire, and the brimstone, are appearances, because
they are correspondences of the evil loves of the inhabitants. All in
that quarter are shut up in eternal work-houses, where they labor for
food, for clothing, and for a bed to lie on; and when they do evil, they
are grievously and miserably punished." I further asked the angel, why
he said that in that quarter are spiritual and natural adulterers, and
why he had not rather said, that they were evil doers and impious? He
replied, "Because all those who make light of adulteries, that is, who
commit them from a confirmed persuasion that they are not sins, and thus
are in the purpose of committing them from a belief of their being
harmless, are in their hearts evil doers and impious; for the conjugial
human principle ever goes hand in hand with religion; and every step and
movement made under the influence of religion, and leading to it, is
also a step and movement made under the influence of the conjugial
principle, and leading to it, which is peculiar and proper to the
Christian." On asking what that conjugial principle was, he said, "It is
the desire of living with one wife; and every Christian has this desire
according to his religion." I was afterwards grieved in spirit to think
that marriages, which in the most ancient times had been most holy, were
so wretchedly changed into adulteries. The angel said, "The case is the
same at this day with religion; for the Lord says '_In the consummation
of the age there will be the abomination of desolation foretold by
Daniel. And there will be great affliction, such as there has not been
from the beginning of the world_,' Matt. xxiv. 15, 21. The abomination
of desolation signifies the falsification and deprivation of all truth;
affliction signifies the state of the church infested by evils and
falses; and the consummation of th