Forms of goodness related to the commandment on adultery:

• Devotion to marriage

• Love marriage.

• Love marriages as being heavenly.

• Be in the chaste love of marriage.

• [Editorial note: Emanuel Swedenborg suggests that chastity in marriage has mainly to do with devotion to one and only one.]

• Support and preserve married love.

• Support and preserve the marital relationship, and let its love burn.

• Be faithful to marriages from favor and consent of your will, and turn away from adulteries.

• In this way enter heaven.

• In this way open heaven to yourself.

• In this way come to believe all good and true things of the church and of the Word of God.

• In this way become a completely spiritual person, and after death an angel of heaven.

• Note: A person who loves marriage and turns away from adultery is an angel in form.

• Attitude toward marriage

• Come into a settled belief that marriages are holy and praiseworthy.

• Marriage is holy.

• Note: The love of marriage is holy and heavenly because it has its beginning in the deepest reaches of a person from the Lord Himself, and it descends according to order to the outmost parts of the body.

• Note: How holy marriages are in themselves can be seen from the fact that they are seminaries of the human race and also of heaven. By marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants.

• Uphold marriages as being holy.

• Come into a settled belief that marriages and adulteries differ in their essence.

• Note: The difference between marriages and adulteries is like the difference between heaven and hell.

• Note: Marriage and adultery are as opposite as heaven and hell.

• Confirm yourself in marriages.

• Embrace marriages and turn toward them as heavenly.

• In this way open up heaven to yourself and receive influx from there.

• Afterward, reason with yourself in the following ways:

• Marriages and adulteries are not alike.

• Marriages are lawful and good, adulteries are not.

• Marriages must be maintained in kingdoms for the sake of their goodness.

• Marriages are lawful and good, and by them heaven is populated.

• Note: These and other forms of reasoning in favor of marriages descend from the pure and sweet waters of heaven.

• Attract and embrace these and other like matters of reason with delight.

• Feelings of delight associated with marriage

• Take delight in marriages.

• Be in the delight of married love.

• Be in the delight of marriage.

• Be in the delights associated with the love of marriage, in other words…

• Be in the delights of performing good and useful services.

• Be in the delights of doing well.

• Good qualities

• Note: Let the following qualities to reign in you:

• Love of the Lord

• Mutual love

• Innocence

• Peace

• Wisdom

• Chastity in marriage

• Love of the Lord

• Love God.

• Love the Lord.

• Acknowledge the Divine.

• Do the Lord’s commandments.

• Note: Loving the Lord means doing His commandments.

• Note: The Lord’s commandments are the truths in which angels receive Him.

• Let love of the Lord reign in you.

• Love of the Lord from the Lord.

• Be in love of the Lord and love of your neighbor.

• Note: The love of marriage is a fire kindled from love of the Lord and love of your neighbor.

• Be united to the Lord.

• Become the love that is the image or likeness of God.

• Note: Married love is the precise means by which people become the love that is the image or likeness of God.

• Be in spiritual love—the love of truth.

• Be an image of God in this way.

• Be in heavenly love—the love of what is good.

• Be a likeness of God in this way.

• Let yourself be filled with heavenly love.

• Mutual love

• Be one through mutual love from love of the Lord.

• Married partners…

• Love each other mutually and reciprocally.

• Love each other mutually and reciprocally from the heart, thus from their deepest selves.

• Note: The love of marriage has its beginning in the deepest reaches of a person from the Lord Himself, and it descends according to order to the outermost parts of the body.

• Love each other inwardly, that is, as to your minds.

• Note: This is the way to love each other mutually and reciprocally.

• Acknowledge each other mutually and reciprocally.

• Each partner acknowledge the other as his or her mutual and reciprocal partner.

• Each partner acknowledge the other as an agent recognizes its reagent, each in its turn.

• Regard each other mutually from married love.

• Hold your married partner in high regard.

• Turn toward your spouse.

• Turn your face to your spouse.

• Note: The union of truth and good is effected in the spiritual world by looking.

• Be accepting of your spouse.

• Work together and get along in marriage.

• Be in a life of mutual communication and dialogue.

• Look to what is mutual in the mind and body of your spouse.

• Love each other mutually and reciprocally as to your bodies.

• Let each and all things in the body of the one look to what is mutual in the body of the other.

• Note: This is genuine marriage.

• Innocence

• Be innocent.

• Note: Innocence is loving the Lord as your Father,

• By doing the Lord’s commandments,

• And by wishing to be led by Him and not by yourself.

• Thus like an infant.

• Note: The love of marriage is portrayed in the spiritual world as a beautiful virgin.

• [Editorial note: Swedenborg suggests that for people whose physical virginity has been lost or given away outside the context of marriage, a state of spiritual and emotional virginity can still exist or be regained. Virginity is state of mind first and a state of the body second.]

• Peace

• Married love is peace.

• Peace has its seat mainly in married love.

• All the delight of married love descends and derives its essence from heavenly peace.

• Peace is the very being of all joy between a married pair.

• Peace is happiness of heart and soul arising from the union of the Lord with heaven and the church,

• As well as from the union of good and truth,

• Which exists when all conflict and combat of evil and falsity with good and truth has ceased.

• Peace is inmost joy of heart,

• Which is the result of complete safety from the hells,

• And also protection against the infestations of evil and falsity from them.

• This peace shines forth in the heavens as heavenly happiness from the faces of a married pair who are in married love.

• Wisdom

• A person has such and as much intelligence and wisdom as he or she has of married love.

• Note: By intelligence and wisdom is meant the faculty of seeing and understanding what is true and good.

• Chastity in marriage

• Let chastity descend into you from above.

• Be in the chaste love of marriage.

• Live in chaste marriage.

• Cherish clean thoughts respecting such things as relate to marriage.

• Entertain chaste and clean thoughts.

• Note: Such thoughts are marriages.

• Note: There is, in the delight associated with marriage,…

• Nothing impure.

• Nothing unchaste.

• Nothing lustful.

• From this it follows that the love of marriage, even in its outmost act, is purity itself and chastity itself.

• Devote the genital organs only to chaste and pure married love.

• Further information on chastity:

• The chaste love of marriage is the foundational love of all heavenly and divine loves.

• The chastity of marriage makes one with [true] religion.

• Chaste marriages are the delights, seminaries, and supports of heaven.

• Chaste marriages supply delights to heaven by communication with it.

• Chaste marriages are the seminaries of heaven through the production of offspring.

• Chaste marriages are supports to heaven by their power against the hells.

• Note: From true married love there is power and protection against the hells.

• Note: At the presence of married love diabolical spirits become furious, insane, and mentally impotent, and cast themselves into the deep.

• The goods of chastity that are done by a person who shuns adulteries as sins against God are goods that relate to the following:

• Spiritual and heavenly loves.

• Intelligence and wisdom.

• Innocence and peace.

• Power and protection against the hells and against the evils and the falsities that come from them.

• Many joys and happiness to eternity.

• Note: Those who live in chaste marriages have all of these things.

• Union of goodness and truth in life

• Acceptance of all good and true things of the church is meant by marriages in the spiritual sense of the Word of God.

• Preserve good and truth.

• Be in the love of everything good and truth.

• Note: The love of marriage is a fire kindled from the love of goodness and truth.

• Note: A person has everything good from this source.

• Let the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reign in you.

• Note: When the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reigns, then it is on earth as it is in the heavens.

• Be in the love that good has for truth and that truth has for good.

• Be in the delight of the love of what is good.

• Be in the delight of the love of good and truth.

• Be in what is good and true.

• Note: This is the heavenly marriage.

• Be in the love of uniting goodness and truth.

• Let goodness and truth be united in yourself.

• Be in a union of good and truth from the Lord.

• Be in this heavenly marriage.

• Be in the heavenly marriage of goodness and truth.

• Enter the marriage of good and truth.

• In this way be a form of heaven.

• Note: Goodness and truth love each other most deeply,

• And they ardently long to be united that they may be one.

• Let good and truth be joined into one.

• Let good be in truth and truth in good.

• Let truth come forth from good, and let good be the outcome of truth.

• Let this union be reciprocal.

• Let each acknowledge the other as its mutual and reciprocal partner.

• Let each acknowledge the other as an agent recognizes its reagent, each in its turn.

• Note: This universal marriage is the source of married love between husband and wife.

• Receive light and heat from the Lord as a sun, that is,

• Receive divine truth united to divine good, and divine good united to divine truth.

• Be in truths and a life according to them.

• Live in the marriage of good and truth by…

• Thinking what is good and true from a delight in them.

• Doing what is good and true from a love for them.

• Be in truths as to doctrine and in goods as to life.

• Unite faith with good works both in doctrine and life.

• Be in goodwill and faith.

• Be in the act or effort of every good love.

• Be in the love of doing what is good.

• Be in the delight of doing good.

• Note: The love of marriage is a fire kindled from a delight in doing well.

• Be in the love of bearing fruit, in other words,

• Be in good through truth and truth from good.

• Be in the love of producing offspring, earthly and/or spiritual.

• Be in the act of producing useful services.

• Love the things of heaven.

• Love heaven.

• Love those who are from heaven and who worship the Lord.

• Support them.

• Be in heaven.

• Note: Heaven is meant by marriages in the spiritual sense of the Word of God.

• Become a form of love, thus a form of heaven, through marriage.

• Note: This is the image and likeness of God.

• Let yourself be brought into…

• A form of the divine love.

• The form of heaven.

• An image of the Lord.

• Be a form of heaven.

• Mercy, gentleness, and kindness

• Be merciful.

• Be gentle.

• Be kind.
  

Forms of goodness related specifically to wives:

• Note: Married love can exist only through a marriage in which the man is truth and the wife is good.

• Be a desire for good.

• Be a will for good.

• Be goodness.

• Note: Husbands have been created to be truth and wives good, so that both [together] may be truth and good in form, which form is a [completed] person and an image of God.

• Love truth constantly.

• Be the heart of your husband.

• Receive your husband’s soul in your heart.

• Note: This is how two married partners become one.

• Look to what is mutual in the mind and body of your husband.

• Will to be united.
  

Forms of goodness related specifically to husbands:

• Note: Married love can exist only through a marriage in which the man is truth and the wife is good.

• Be an understanding of truth.

• Be truth.

• Note: Husbands have been created to be truth and wives good, so that both [together] may be truth and good in form, which form is a [completed] person and an image of God.

• Be the soul of your wife so to speak.

• Love good constantly.

• Communicate and unite your soul to your wife through lovemaking.

• Notes:

• A husband’s soul is in his seed.

• The deepest part of a man’s life (his soul), and thus the rudiment of a new life, is in his seed.

• For this reason it (the seed) is holy.

• In chaste marriages the life of the husband adds itself through his seed to the life of his wife.

• By means of this there is deepest union, by which the two partners become not two but one flesh.

• From this the two become one.

• And according to union by this means, married love increases, and with it every good of heaven.

• Turn your face to your spouse.

• Notes:

• The union of truth and good is effected in the spiritual world by looking.

• In the spiritual world wives are good and husbands are truth. Therefore, to the extent that truth turns itself to good, truth becomes living.

• Look to what is mutual in the mind and body of your wife.

• Will to be united.
  

Forms of goodness related to wives and husbands together:

• Let married love reign in you.

• Let married love reign within you.

• Be in married love from the Lord.

• Let chastity descend into you from above.

• Love each other.

• Have a life of love

• Will to be united.

• Will to become one flesh.

• This is married love.

• Such as the willing is, such is married love.

• Live in chaste marriage.

• Let internal bonds exist.

• Let yourselves to be joined together most deeply, that is, as to your very hearts.

• Let the understanding of truth that is with the man make one with the desire for good that is with the woman.

• Note: Between men and women a union of good and truth is possible.

• Love each other inwardly, that is, as to your minds.

• In this way love each other mutually and reciprocally.

• Desire to be united into one as to your minds.

• Let there be a union of the two minds into one.

• Let two minds be so united as to be one mind.

• Note: Married love descends from this.

• Note: Then there is love between husband and wife.

• Work toward a marriage of two minds into one.

• Let there be a union of minds as well as a union of bodies.

• Be united internally as well as externally.

• Let the love of spiritual marriage descend into the body.

• Note: There it becomes the love of earthly marriage.

• Note: All love descends into the body from a desire in the mind, and apart from such an origin no love exists.

• Work toward a marriage of two minds and two bodies.

• Let each and all things in the body of the one look to what is mutual in the body of the other.

• Note: This is genuine marriage.

• Function together as one.

• Be one through mutual love from love to the Lord.

• Let your two minds act as one.

• Although you are apparently two, be one actively.

• Be one.

• Have one life.

• Be like the life of good in truth and truth in good.

• Be two as to your bodies, but one as to life.

• Be one in regard to life and the activities of life, which are useful services.

• Be like the pairs of organs or parts in the human body.

• Be like two eyes—be one as to sight.

• Be like two ears—be one as to hearing.

• Be like two arms—be one as to action.

• Be like two feet—be one as to walking.

• Be like two arms and two feet—be one as to useful service.

• Although you are two partners (and in heaven, two angels) be as though one.

• Notes:

• All these pairs (and other similar pairs in the body) are related to goodness and truth, the organ or part on the right relating to what is good, and the one the left to what is true.

• It is the same with a husband and wife between whom there is true married love: they are two as to their bodies but one as to life.

• Consequently in heaven two partners are not called two angels but one.

• Have joy and delight.

• Welcome new forms of delight.

• Let playfulness be in your marriage.

• Put on the liveliness, happiness, and freshness of youth.

• Entertain joy in your marriage.

• Have a life of joy together.
  

Forms of goodness related to the bearing of offspring:

• Let procreations be effected by marriages in which true married love reigns.
  

The origin of married love:

• The origin of married love is the Lord’s love for people.

• The origin of true married love is the Lord’s love for the church.

• Married love is derived from the Lord’s love for the church.

• The origin of married love is the Lord’s union with individuals.

• The origin of true married love with a person of the church is the Lord’s union with that person.

• Note: It is from this marriage that the church is the church in general and in particular.

• The origin of married love is the marriage of goodness and truth.

• Married love is derived from the love of what is good and true.

• Married love descends from the love of goodness and truth, which is spiritual.

• Married love descends from the love of good and truth as the very love of the heavens.

• Married love is from the marriage of good and truth.

• A desire and favor for marriage flow in from heaven through teachings of truth united to good.

• The union of good and truth is spiritual marriage.

• Marriage on earth exists from this by way of correspondence.

• The love of a married pair corresponds to their love for what is good and true.
  

Information about married love:

• Married love is only from the Lord.

• True married love comes from the Lord alone.

• True married love in its first essence is love of the Lord from the Lord.

• Married love is an image of the Lord.

• True married love is an image of the Lord.

• Married love is an image of an angel.

• In the spiritual world married love appears in form like an angel.

• Married love is an image of heaven.

• Marriage is heaven with a person.

• The delight felt in marriage is heaven with a person.

• Marriage is an image of heaven.

• Note: Heaven is a marriage.

• Married love is the foundational form of all love.

• The chaste love of marriage is the foundational love of all heavenly and divine loves.

• Married love is the foundational love of all the loves of heaven.

• Married love is the foundational love of all heavenly and spiritual loves.

• It is also the foundational of all the delights and joys of heaven, since every delight and joy belongs to love.

• Therefore heavenly joys have their origins and causes from married love.

• The love of marriage is full of countless forms of delight.

• Note: These forms of delight can’t be numbered or described.

• Note: What’s more, they are multiplied with continual increase to eternity.

• Married love is related to true religion and spirituality.

• The chastity of marriage makes one with religion.

• The purity of marriage makes one with spirituality.

• Married love is innocence.

• Married love is innocence.

• Note: Innocence is loving the Lord as your Father by doing the Lord’s commandments and wishing to be led by Him and not by yourself, thus like an infant.
  

Relationship of married love to the Lord’s Word:

• Married love and the organs of generation correspond to the Word of God.

• The reason is that the Word is the divine truth united to the divine good that come forth from the Lord.

• There is a marriage of good and truth in every detail of the Word.

• Note: It is the heavenly marriage.

• From this it is clear how holy and heavenly marriages are in themselves.

• Therefore:

• Acknowledge the importance of divine truths.

• Acknowledge the importance of the Word.

• Uphold the holy things that are in the Word from the heart.

• Believe that sins are remitted by repentance of life.

• Study the Word for the sake of useful service.
  

Effects of married love on a person:

• A person has union with the Lord through married love.

• A person has heaven from married love.

• People have just as much of heaven in themselves, or they are just as much in heaven, as they are in married love, because they are to that extent in innocence.

• A person has heaven and the church [in him- or herself] through married love.

• Marriages close hell and open heaven.

• From true married love there is power and protection against the hells.

• Everything delightful and happy increases, even to the delights and happiness of the inmost heaven, from marriages in which there is true married love.

• Through married love a person becomes love.

• From married love each partner loves the other as good loves truth and truth loves good.

• People have the kind and amount of intelligence and wisdom as they have of married love.

• Note: By intelligence and wisdom are meant the faculties of seeing and understanding what is true and good.

• A person has peace through married love.

• True married love is innocence.

• Because of this, the playfulness between a married pair is like the play of infants together.

• This is so to the extent that they love each other.

• There is nothing of lasciviousness, and thus nothing of shame, between a married pair, any more than between little children when they are naked together.

• In the heavens the angels are beautiful according to the quality of married love between them.

• Angels have all their beauty from married love;

• Thus each angel is beautiful in the measure of that love.

• The angels of heaven have life in their faces, in the movements of their body, and in their speech according to their married love.

• Angels in heaven never lack sexual potency.

• There is a constant channel open to lovemaking with angels.

• The ability to make love is never lacking when angels desire it.

• Without these things their love would be like a fountain stopped up.

• Lovemaking opens that channel and causes a continuation of their love, and also union between them, that they may become as one flesh.

• The delights associated with lovemaking [between angel partners] cannot be described in the expressions of any language in the natural world.

• With angels there is never any weariness after lovemaking, still less any sadness, but eagerness of life and cheerfulness of mind.

• Married pairs in heaven pass the night in each other’s bosoms as if they had been created into one.

• The vitality of an angel husband adds itself to the vitality of his angel wife and binds the two of them together.