ners, we have perpetual
vigor: if therefore you can invert the state, you may be able to
comprehend this. Does not he who perpetually loves a married partner,
love her with the whole mind and with the whole body? for love turns
every thing of the mind and of the body to that which it loves; and as
this is done reciprocally, it conjoins the objects so that they become a
one." He further said, "I will not speak to you of the conjugial love
implanted from the creation in males and females, and of their
inclination to legitimate conjunction, or of the faculty of
prolification in the males, which makes one with the faculty of
multiplying wisdom from the love of truth; and that so far as a man
loves wisdom from the love thereof, or truth from good, so far he is in
love truly conjugial and in its attendant vigor."
356. When he had spoken these words, the angel was silent; and from the
spirit of his discourse the novitiates comprehended that a perpetual
faculty of enjoyment is communicable; and as this consideration rejoiced
their minds, they exclaimed, "O how happy is the state of angels! We
perceive that you in the heavens remain for ever in a state of youth,
and thence in the vigor of that age; but tell us how we also may enjoy
that vigor." The angel replied, "Shun adulteries as internal, and
approach the Lord, and you will possess it." They said, "We will do so."
But the angel replied, "You cannot shun adulteries as infernal evils,
unless you in like manner shun all other evils, because adulteries are
the complex of all; and unless you shun them, you cannot approach the
Lord; for the Lord receives no others." After this the angel took his
leave, and the novitiate spirits departed sorrowful.
* * * * *
ON JEALOUSY.
357. The subject of jealousy is here treated of, because it also has
relation to conjugial love. There is a just jealousy and an unjust;--a
just jealousy with married partners who mutually love each other, with
whom it is a just and prudent zeal lest their conjugial love should be
violated, and thence a just grief if it is violated; and an unjust
jealousy with those who are naturally suspicious, and whose minds are
sickly in consequence of viscous and bilious blood. Moreover, all
jealousy is by some accounted a vice; which is particularly the case
with whoremongers, who censure even a just jealousy. The term JEALOUSY
(_zelotypia_) is derived from ZELI TYPUS (the type of zeal),
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