497. (16) And this to the point that they finally cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion. Purposeful and deliberate adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the reason that the love in marriage and the love in adultery are opposed to each other (no. 425), and the love in marriage goes hand in hand with the church and religion (no. 130 and elsewhere throughout Part One). Consequently, because the love in adultery is opposed to that love, it goes hand in hand with stances that are contrary to the church. Such adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the reason that the love in marriage and the love in adultery are opposed to each other in the way that the marriage of good and truth is opposed to the connubial alliance of evil and falsity (nos. 427, 428); and the marriage of good and truth is the church, while the connubial alliance of evil and falsity is anti-church. Such adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the reason that the love in marriage and the love in adultery are opposed to each other in the way that heaven and hell are (no. 429); and in heaven one finds a love for anything connected with the church, while in hell one finds a hatred toward anything connected with the church. [2] Such adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the further reason that their delights arise from the flesh and are delights of the flesh even in the spirit (nos. 440, 441); and the flesh is against the spirit, which is to say, against the spiritual things of the church. That, too, is why we call the delights of licentious love pleasures of insanity. If you wish to have this demonstrated, go, please, to those whom you know to be such adulterers and inquire of them privately what they think in regard to God, the church and eternal life, and you will hear. The real reason for it is that, as conjugial love opens the inner faculties of the mind and so elevates them above the sensual elements of the body even into the light and warmth of heaven, so conversely the love in adultery closes the inner faculties of the mind and impels the mind itself in respect to its will down into the body, even into all the appetites of its flesh; and the deeper it impels it, the more it draws it away and distances it from heaven.