2619. They said to me several times that this had been commanded, but I was prompted to reply to them that it was not commanded, but permitted because that was their character, just as the devil is permitted, because he has that nature, to torment people. These permissions, because they had been of that character ever since Jacob, seemed to them to have been commanded. For such people do not take it any other way than that they were commanded, so in these matters they were also spoken to in accordance with the appearance and fallacy of their sense. That this was not a Divine, or the Lord's command, is most clearly obvious from the fact that it is contrary or opposite to Heavenly Love, and that of one human being toward another, about which love the Lord spoke so often. And the Lord is Love Itself, from Whom Alone is all Heavenly Love in the Heavens, and marriage Love, and the love of parents toward their children. 1748, 16 July.