igin of the church and of conjugial
love are in the same place of abode, and in mutual embrace there, and
that hence they must needs be conjoined.

239. From what has been said above it follows, that where there is no
religion, there is no conjugial love; and that where there is no
conjugial love, there is cold. That conjugial cold is the privation of
that love, maybe seen above, n. 235; consequently that conjugial cold is
also a privation of a state of the church, or of religion. Sufficient
evidence of the truth of this may be deduced from the general ignorance
that now prevails concerning love truly conjugial. In these times, who
knows, and who is willing to acknowledge, and who will not be surprised
to hear, that the origin of conjugial love is deduced hence? But the
only cause and source of this ignorance is, that, notwithstanding there
is religion, still there are not the truths of religion; and what is
religion without truths? That there is a want of the truths of religion,
is fully shown in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED; see also the MEMORABLE
RELATION, n. 566 of that work.

240. V. OF INTERNAL CAUSES OF COLD THE FIRST IS THE REJECTION OF
RELIGION BY EACH OF THE PARTIES. Those who reject the holy things of the
church from the face to the hinder part of the head, or from the breast
to the back, have not any good love; if any proceeds apparently from the
body, still there is not any in the spirit. With such persons goods
place themselves on the outside of evils, and cover them, as raiment
glittering with gold covers a putrid body. The evils which reside
within, and are covered, are in general hatreds, and thence intestine
combats against everything spiritual; for all things of the church which
they reject, are in themselves spiritual; and as love truly conjugial is
the fundamental love of all spiritual loves, as was shewn above, it is
evident that interior hatred is contrary to it, and that the interior or
real love with such is in favor or the opposite, which is the love of
adultery; therefore such persons, more than others, will be disposed to
ridicule this truth, that every one has conjugial love according to the
state of the church; yea, they will possibly laugh at the very mention
of love truly conjugial; but be it so; nevertheless they are to be
pardoned, because it is as impossible for them to distinguish in thought
between the marriage embrace and the adulterous, as it is for a camel to
go through the eye of a n