Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 140

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140. Chastity and a lack of chastity are terms that apply only to things that have to do with marriage, because the conjugial impulse is engraved on each sex from the inmost elements to the outmost, and it determines accordingly what a person is in his thoughts and affections, consequently what he is inwardly in respect to the behavior and actions of his body. The truth of this is quite evident from people who are unchaste. The unchasteness inherent in their minds is heard in the sound of their speech and in the appeal to libidinous thoughts in everything they say, even when chastely put. The sound of their speech comes from the affection of their will, and their speech comes from the thought of their intellect. It is a sign that the will with all its qualities and the understanding with all its qualities, in other words, the whole mind, and therefore all the elements of the body - from the inmost elements to the outmost - are overflowing with unchaste desires. I have been told by angels that the unchasteness in most accomplished hypocrites is perceived on hearing them, however chastely they may speak, and is also felt from the atmosphere exuding from them. This, too, is a sign that unchasteness resides in the inmost elements of their minds and therefore in the inmost elements of their bodies, and that these things are covered over outwardly, like a nutshell painted with various kinds of colors. That an aura of lasciviousness exudes from unchaste people is apparent from the statutes among the children of Israel declaring that each and every thing which people defiled by unclean things simply touched with their hands was rendered unclean. One may conclude from this that it is the same with chaste people, namely, that each and every thing in them is chaste, from the inmost elements to the outmost. Also that the chastity of conjugial love is responsible for this. That is why it is said in the world that to the clean all things are clean, and to the unclean all things are unclean.* * From Titus 1:15.


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