The Gist of Swedenborg | Page 8

manner acquire a
melancholy life, unreceptive of heavenly joy. To receive the life of
heaven a man must by all means live in the world and engage in its
duties and affairs and by a moral and civil life receive the spiritual life.
That it is not so difficult to live the life of heaven, as some believe, may
be seen from this: when a matter presents itself to a man which he
knows to be dishonest and unjust, but to which he inclines, it is only
necessary for him to think that it ought not to be done because it is
opposed to the Divine precepts. If a man accustoms himself to think so,
and from so doing establishes a habit of so thinking, he is gradually
conjoined to heaven. So far as he is conjoined to heaven the higher
regions of his mind are opened; and so far as these are opened he sees
whatever is dishonest and unjust; and so far as he sees these evils they
can be dispersed--for no evil can be dispersed until it is seen.
--_Heaven and Hell, nn._ 528, 533
THE DECALOGUE
"Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that
shall not be forgotten."
--_Jeremiah_, L, 5
The conjunction of God with man, and of man with God, is taught in
the two Tables which were written with the finger of God, called the
Tables of the Covenant. These Tables obtain with all nations who have
a religion. From the first Table they know that God is to be
acknowledged, hallowed and worshipped. From the second Table they
know that a man is not to steal, either openly or by trickery, nor to
commit adultery, nor to kill, whether by blow or by hatred, nor to bear
false witness in a court of justice, or before the world, and further that
he ought not to will those evils. From this Table a man knows the evils
which he must shun, and in the measure that he knows them and shuns
them, God conjoins him to Himself, and in turn from His Table gives
man to acknowledge, hallow and worship Him. So, also, He gives him
not to meditate evils, and, in so far as he does not will them, to know
truths freely.
--_Apocalypse Explained, n._ 1179
As one views the two tables, it is plain that they are so conjoined that
God from His table looks to man, and that in turn man from his table
looks to God. Thus the regard is reciprocal. God for His part never

ceases to regard man, and to put in operation such things as are for his
salvation; and if man receives and does the things in his table,
reciprocal conjunction is effected, and the Lord's words to the lawyer
will have come to pass, "This do, and thou shalt live."
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 287

MARRIAGE
"Jesus said: 'Have ye not read that He who made them at the beginning
made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave
father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be
one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh. What,
therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.'"
--_Matthew_, XIX, 4, 5
A PRICELESS JEWEL
The conjugial inclination of one man to one wife is the jewel of human
life and the depository of the Christian religion.
--_Conjugial Love, n._ 457
THE PROGRESSIVE CHASTITY OF MARRIAGE
The love in marriage is from its origin and correspondence heavenly,
spiritual, holy, pure and clean above every other love which the angels
of heaven or men of the Church have from the Lord. It is such from its
origin, which is the marriage of good and truth; also from its
correspondence with the marriage of the Lord and the Church. If it be
received from its Author, Who is the Lord, sanctity from Him follows,
which continually cleanses and purifies it. Then, if there be in man's
will a longing for it and an effort toward it, this love becomes
continually cleaner and purer. All who are in such love shun
extra-conjugial loves (which are conjunctions with others than their
own conjugial partner) as they would shun the loss of the soul and the
lakes of hell; and in the measure that married partners shun such
conjunctions, even in respect of libidinous desires of the will and any
intentions from them, so far love truly conjugial is purified with them,
and becomes successively spiritual.
--_Conjugial Love, nn._ 64, 71
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