ters; and as they are then the chief witnesses,
it is expedient that the consent of the parties to the covenant be also
heard, accepted, confirmed, and thereby established by them.

309. XIII. THE NUPTIALS ARE TO BE CELBRATED WITH FESTIVITY. The reasons
are, because ante-nuptial love, which was that of the bridegroom and the
bride, on this occasion descends into their hearts, and spreading itself
thence in every direction into all parts of the body, the delights of
marriage are made sensible, whereby the minds of the parties are led to
festive thoughts and also let loose to festivities so far as is
allowable and becoming; to favor which, it is expedient that the
festivities of their minds be indulged in company, and they themselves
be thereby introduced into the joys of conjugial love.

310. XIV. AFTER THE NUPTIALS, THE MARRIAGE OF THE SPIRIT IS MADE ALSO
THE MARRIAGE OF THE BODY, AND THEREBY A FULL MARRIAGE. All things which
a man does in the body, flow in from his spirit; for it is well known
that the mouth does not speak of itself, but that it is the thinking
principle of the mind which speaks by it; also that the hands do not act
and the feet walk of themselves, but that it is the will of the mind
which performs those operations by them; consequently, that the mind
speaks and acts by its organs in the body: hence it is evident, that
such as the mind is, such are the speech of the mouth and the actions of
the body. From these premises it follows as a conclusion that the mind,
by a continual influx, arranges the body so that it may act similarly
and simultaneously with itself; wherefore the bodies of men viewed
interiorly are merely forms of their minds exteriorly organized to
effect the purposes of the soul. These things are premised, in order
that it may be perceived why the minds or spirits are first to be united
as by marriage, before they are also further united in the body; namely,
that while the marriages become of the body, they may also be marriages
of the spirit; consequently, that married partners may mutually love
each other from the spirit, and thence from the body. From this ground
let us now take a view of marriage. When conjugial love unites the minds
of two persons, and forms them into a marriage, in such case it also
unites and forms their bodies into a marriage; for, as we have said, the
form of the mind is also interiorly the form of the body; only with this
difference, that the latter form is outw