,
acution, decantation, and sublimation; and wisdom purified may be
compared with alcohol, which is a highly rectified spirit. 3. Now as
spiritual wisdom in itself is of such a nature that it becomes more and
more warmed with the love of growing wise, and by virtue of this love
increases to eternity; and as this is effected in proportion as it is
perfected by a kind of defecation, castigation, rectification, acution,
decantation, and sublimation, and this by elevating and abstracting the
intellect from the fallacies of the senses, and the will from the
allurements of the body; it is evident that conjugial love, whose parent
is wisdom, is in like manner rendered successively more and more pure,
and thereby chaste. That the first state of love between married
partners is a state of heat not yet tempered by light; but that it is
successively tempered in proportion as the husband is perfected in
wisdom, and the wife loves it in her husband, may be seen in the
MEMORABLE RELATION, n. 137.

146. It is however to be observed, that there is no conjugial love
altogether chaste or pure either with men (_homines_) or with angels;
there is still somewhat not chaste or not pure which adjoins or subjoins
itself thereto; but this has a different origin from that which gives
birth to what is unchaste: for with the angels the chaste principle is
above and the non-chaste beneath, and there is as it were a door with a
hinge interposed by the Lord, which is opened by determination, and is
carefully prevented from standing open, lest the one principle should
pass into the other, and they should mix together: for the natural
principle of man from his birth is defiled and fraught with evils;
whereas his spiritual principle is not so, because its birth is from the
Lord, for it is regeneration; and regeneration is a successive
separation from the evils to which a man is naturally inclined. That no
love with either men or angels is altogether pure, or can be pure; but
that the end, purpose, or intention of the will, is principally regarded
by the Lord: and that therefore so far as a man is principled in a good
end, purpose, or intention, and perseveres therein, so far he is
initiated into purity, and so far he advances and approaches towards
purity, may be seen above, n. 71.

147. VII. THE CHASTITY OF MARRIAGE EXISTS BY A TOTAL RENUNCIATION OF
WHOREDOMS FROM A PRINCIPLE OF RELIGION. The reason of this is, because
chastity is the removal of unch