But he replied
that he had not so thought in the life of the body. He wished to
reason about whether it were so, but was told that truth does not
admit of such reasonings; for reasonings defend what one delights in,
and thus one's evils and falsities; that he ought first to think
about the things that had been said because they are truths; or at
least think about them from the principle well known in the world,
that no one should do to another what he is unwilling that another
should do to him; thus he should consider whether he himself would
not have detested adulteries if any one had in that way deceived his
wife, whom he had loved as everyone loves in the first period of
marriage, and if in his state of wrath he had expressed himself on
the subject; also whether being a man of talent he would not in that
case have confirmed himself more decidedly than others against
adulteries, even condemning them to hell.
386. I have been shown how the delights of marriage love advance
towards heaven, and the delights of adultery towards hell. The
advance of the delights of marriage love towards heaven is into
states of blessedness and happiness continually increasing until they
become innumerable and ineffable, and the more interiorly they
advance the more innumerable and more ineffable they become, until
they reach the very states of blessedness and happiness of the inmost
heaven, or of the heaven of innocence, and this through the most
perfect freedom; for all freedom is from love, thus the most perfect
freedom is from marriage love, which is heavenly love itself.
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