Conjugial Love (Chadwick) n. 229

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229. (xx) The Lord provides a likeness for those who desire truly conjugial love, and if this is impossible on earth, He provides for it in the heavens.

This is because all marriages based upon truly conjugial love are provided by the Lord. It was shown above (130, 131) that they are from Him. I have been told by angels how this happens in the heavens.

The Lord's Divine providence, they said, is at its most detailed and its most universal on the subject of and in marriages, because all the pleasures of heaven pour forth from the pleasures of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a spring. Provision is therefore made for couples to be born who are well matched in marriage for each other. Under the Lord's continual guidance they are brought up with a view to their marriage, though neither the boy nor the girl is aware of this. When in due course the young woman, as she is then, is of an age to be married, and the young man, as he is then, is ready for marriage, they meet somewhere as if by fate and see each other. Then by some instinct they at once recognise that they are well matched, and they think to themselves, as if by some inward prompting, the young man 'She is the one for me,' and the young woman, 'He is the one for me.' After allowing this to sink into their minds for a while, they resolve to speak to each other, and they become engaged. We say as if by fate, by instinct and by prompting, but we mean by Divine providence, because when it is not known, it looks like this. For the Lord opens up their inward likeness, so that they see each other.


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