Page:The Gist of Swedenborg.djvu/54

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38
MARRIAGE

THE HEIGHT OF SERVICE

CONJUGIAL love is the love at the foundation of all good loves, and is inscribed on all the least life of the human being. Its delights therefore surpass the delights of all other loves, and it also gives delight to other loves, in the measure of its presence and union with them. Into it all delights from first to last are collected, on account of the superior excellence of its use, which is the propagation of the human race, and from it of an angelic heaven. As this service was the supreme end of creation, all the beatitudes, satisfaction, delights, pleasantnesses and pleasures, which the Lord the Creator could possibly confer upon man, are gathered into this love.

Conjugial Love, n. 68


ITS WHOLE ESTATE

THE states of conjugial love are Innocence, Peace, Tranquillity, Inmost Friendship, full Confidence, and mutual desire of mind and heart to do each other every good. From all of these come blessedness, satisfaction, agreeableness and pleasure; and as the eternal fruition of them, heavenly happiness. These states can be realized only in the marriage of one man with one wife.

Conjugial Love, nn. 180, 181