142. (3) Only a Christian conjugial relationship is chaste. This is because truly conjugial love advances in a person in the same degree as the state of the church in him and because that love is from the Lord (as we showed in the preceding chapter, nos. 130, 131, and elsewhere). Furthermore, a church in possession of its genuine truths is a church that possesses the Word, and it is there in those truths that the Lord is present. It follows from this that a chaste conjugial relationship does not exist except in the Christian world, and if it does not exist, that still it is possible. By a Christian conjugial relationship we mean a marriage of one man with one wife. We will see in its own place* that this conjugial state can become implanted in Christians, and that it can be passed on hereditarily to offspring by parents who are in a state of truly conjugial love. We will see also that from it is born at the same time both a capacity and an inclination to become wise in things that have to do with the church and heaven. If Christians marry more than one wife, they commit not only natural adultery but spiritual adultery as well, as we will show in the chapter on polygamy.** * See nos. 202ff. ** See nos. 332ff.