Conjugial Love (Chadwick) n. 140

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140. The reason why chastity and unchastity are attributed to matters relating to marriages is that both sexes have a tendency towards marriage imprinted on them, from the inmost to the outermost, and on this depend a person's thoughts and affections, and so inwardly their actions and bodily behaviour. It is easier to see the truth of this by looking at the unchaste. They have unchastity resident in their minds, and it can be heard in their tone of voice, and the way they put a lewd interpretation on everything that is said, even a chaste remark. The tone of voice derives from the affection of the will, and what they say from the thinking of the intellect. This is a sign that the will and everything to do with it, and the intellect and everything to do with it, that is, their whole mind, and thus everything in their bodies, from inmost to outermost, is teeming with unchastity.

I have heard from angels that unchastity can be detected in the most consummate hypocrites by listening to them, however chaste their conversation, and it can be felt from the sphere which emanates from them. This too is a sign that unchastity is resident in the inmost parts of their minds, and so in the inmost parts of their bodies, but this is covered over like a shell painted with pictures in various colours. The emanation of a sphere of lewdness from the unchaste is plain from the laws among the Children of Israel, that every single object merely touched by the hand of such people was unclean. From this example the conclusion can be drawn that the same applies to the chaste; that is to say, with them every single thing, from inmost to outermost, is chaste, and this is the result of the chastity of conjugial love. This is why there is a saying in the world that to the clean all things are clean, and to the unclean all things are unclean.


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