Category — Opposites to Conjugial Love

It is needful for the Church to consider the interior causes of the laws of divorce given in the Word. By this all may come to a deeper understand­ing and love of the Conjugial, and of the uses of marriage, and hy this the Church may he protected against doubts and false reasonings about those laws. Doubts may arise because the laws of divorce are very strict, and in some cases their severity appears to bring much hardship on men. False reasonings about those laws may arise especially from this, that the laws of divorce in the World of Spirits are altogether different from those given for this world; from this some may suppose that in an interior state of the Church with man, the laws which apply there should take the place of the laws which apply in this world. An understanding of the interior causes of the laws of divorce will protect the Church from such doubts and such reasonings.

First we would draw your attention to the distinction between the Conjugial which must be received from the Lord in every man of the Church and the Corljugial union which may be formed between husband and wife. That there is such a distinction is well known from the teaching that Love Conjugial may be given with one married partner and not at the same time with the other. (C.L. 226, 531.) For the most part, however, this distinction has been over­looked in the past. Whenever the Conjugial, or Love Conjugial, has been men­tioned, the thought with most has been only of the Conjugial union between husband and wife. As a consequence, the importance which the Word places upon the Conjugial which is to be received and formed in each man of the Church has not been noticed; many teachings which apply in the first place to the Conjugial in each man, have been applied only to the Conjugial union between the married partners.

Consider the following teachings of the Word about the Conjugial in each man:

That the Conjugial is the desire of living with one partner, and that every step made from religion and into religion is a step from the Conjugial and into the Conjugial. (C.L, 80.)

That Love truly Conjugial is from the Lord, and is with those who approach Him directly, and who love the trues of the Church and do its goods* (C.L. 70.)

That this Conjugial is inscribed on the minds of those who acknowledge the Lord and His Divine. (C.L. 338.)

That this Conjugial is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian Religion. (C.L. 457, 458, 466, 531)

That it is chief among the essentials of human life, and that so far as a man is in this love he is spiritual, and so far as he should lose this love he approaches the nature of a beast. (First Index to Angelic Wisdom concerning Marriage, under “Conjugial”, and C.L. 230.)

That this Conjugial is guarded in man, whatsoever the state of marriage he may be in. (C.L, 531.)

Read these numbers carefully and you will see that it is the Conjugial with each man that is described in them. This Conjugial is with all men who acknowledge the Divine Human of the Lord in love and faith, and who live the life of religion. It is with all such men whether they in this life are married or not, and if married, whether or not they have been blessed with a Conjugial union with their partner. This Conjugial is of the utmost importance to the salvation and regeneration of the man of the Church. It is the first thing in the natural produced by man’s acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord. It is the connecting link and bond between the internal things with man and his natural life. It is the principal and beginning of the descent of the celestial and spiritual with man into his natural, and serves as a plane there for the recep­tion of them. No doubt this is one of the reasons why a whole book of the Word is devoted to Love Conjugial. If this Conjugial should be destroyed in a man, nothing of regeneration would be possible.

The Lord has ordered all things of Christian marriage for the recep­tion and protection of this Conjugial with man, and also for the forming of a Conjugial union of husband and wife. The laws of marriage and the laws of divorce are given for both of these precious things. If a man of the Church should violate the laws of divorce, he is in the danger of harming the Conjugial in himself, as well as doing harm to the Church and to society in general. This is evident from what is said about a Christian who enters into polygamy, (C.L. 339), namely, that he profanes the marriage of the Lord and the Church.

Read that number and you will see that the same danger is present with those who obtain a divorce without just cause.

One with whom there is the Conjugial strives wholeheartedly for union with the married partner. Such a one does not put away the partner, even if that union is clearly absent, nor even if it appears to be impossible, but strives for such a conjunction as may be possible. This is evident from the following teaching:

“That these conjugial simulations, with a spiritual man conjoined to a natural, savor out of justice and judgment. The reason is because a spiritual man does what he does out of justice and judgment, where­fore he does not see these simulations as estranged from his internal affections, but as joined with them. For he acts seriously, and re­gards amendment as the end, and if this does not follow, he regards accommodation, for the sake of order in the house, for the sake of mutual aid, for the sake of the care of infants, for the sake of peace and tranquility. To these things he is led out of justice, and out of judgment he gives them into effect. That a spiritual man so cohabits with a natural man, is because a spiritual man acts spiritually, even with one who is natural.” (C.L. 280.)

A spiritual man, that is, one with whom is the Conjugial, strives for the ammendment of life with a partner who has it not. Although he is not in a union of souls and minds with that partner, he loves the spiritual  welfare of the partner, and strives for it. Such a one would never put the partner away except for the causes given in the laws of divorce. To do such a thing would be to act against the conjugial striving in himself, and thus to act against the Conjugial itself.

It should be noted that the love of the spiritual welfare of one’s married partner must lie at the heart of any marriage, for without it there can be neither the Conjugial in oneself nor a Conjugial union with one’s partner. Even in those marriages in which the husband and wife live happily together, no union of souls and minds can take place unless the spiritual welfare of the married partner is held uppermost in the marriage. Without this, marriage would have in it only a natural conjugial, an apparent conjunction of minds arising out of external harmonies alone.

From these things it can be seen that the Conjugial in each man is not endangered by a marriage in which a Conjugial union has not been effected, but that it is endangered by the putting away of a married partner without a just cause in agreement with the laws of divorce given in the Word. This is an interior reason for the severity of the laws of divorce, and for the law that matrimony is to continue to the end of life in the world even though there be colds in relation to the Conjugial.

A further reason underlying these laws is that, except in the case outlined in the laws of divorce, no final judgment is to be made on a marriage in this world, as to whether something of a Conjugial union has been or may be formed within it. This is because the internal similitudes on which the essential conjunction of marriage rests are not primarily attributes of natural birth and native compatibility, but of the new birth of reformation and regeneration. So far as possible the Lord’s Providence Works for the formation of these internal similitudes, and thus for the new creation of the husband and wife for one another, during the whole course of their life in the world. A spiritual man, even though he may see that a Conjugial union is not yet present in his marriage, still would strive toward that union, and would not make any final judgment against its possibility.

From all these considerations it can be understood why it is said in the “Statement as to the Principle concerning Divorce,” that if the Church or the man of the Church violates the laws of order in respect to marriage, the Conjugial itself, which is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian Religion, is violated, and that then the Divine Human of the Lord, from which the Conjugial descends, cannot be present in the Church.

Respecting divorce in the World of Spirits, the Word teaches as follows:

That married partners meet after death, consociate, and for some time live together as before in the world; this takes place in their first state in the World of Spirits, while they are in external things as before in the world; that successively, as they put off external things, and enter into their in­ternals, they perceive the quality of the love and inclination which they mutually had for each other, and thence they perceive whether they can live as one or not; that if they can live as one, they remain married partners, but if not, they separate; that there is then given to the man a suitable wife, and to the woman a suitable husband. (C.L. 47b, 48b, 49, 50.) In that world divorce is granted when there is no similarity in their affections. (Memorabilia 6027.)

The separation of unsuitable partners in the World of Spirits is according to the law of the Spiritual World that external things must altogether agree with internal things in angels and spirits. They who differ in love and faith cannot live near each other, much less live in the same house. This general law of the Spiritual World is essential to life in that world, and there can be made no exception to it. But the general law of the natural world is that here external things must remain fixed in order that internal things may be changed and formed in man. Any essential change in the spirit or mind of man must be initiated in this world. This general law for the natural world is ex­pressed in this teaching of the Word: “Mutation of organization is given solely in the material body, and is not at all givable in the spiritual body after the former has been rejected.” (Brief Exposition 110.) This law involves the whole reason for our being bom in the natural world.. If the laws governing the Spiri­tual World were to be applied outwardly to life in this world, if there were no fixed external order, independent, as it were, from the internal states of men, no reformation or regeneration could take place in this life. There would be no freedom of choice possible for man, for there would be nothing by which man could reflect upon his internal things, and by which he could cooperate with the Lord in changing them.

Consider what would take place, for example, if the law that riches in the Spiritual World are in accordance with the wisdom of the angels, were to be applied outwardly in this life. If that law were to be applied here, no man would be free to reject wisdom, and no man would be free to love and receive wisdom for its own sake. If such laws were to be applied outwardly in this life, man would be compelled in the things of religion, which is against the Law of the Divine Providence, All life in this world would in such a case be impossible.

If the laws of divorce in the World of Spirits were to be applied to this world, there would be no fixed order by which the Conjugial in each man could be formed and developed in marriage. And if the Conjugial had already been formed in a man, such an application of those laws to his life in this world would be contrary to his Conjugial longing, and destructive of it. More­over, by the application of the laws of divorce in the World of Spirits to this life, marriages here would be exposed to all kinds of phantasy and cupidity, and a truly Christian society would be made impossible.

The things brought forward in the “Statement of the International Interior Council as to the Principle concerning Divorce” are vital for the Church. May it serve to awaken all of us to the Life that is in the ’Word, and to our need of being fully instructed in that Life. The Life that is in all things of the Word is the Life of the Lord’s Divine Human. All the laws of the Word, and all things of the Church, look to the ordering of human life in order that the Lord’s Life may be present and may be received within it. It is our hope that this Statement may serve this end.

The Rev, Philip N. Odhner

President of the International Council of Priests

October 17th, I960

Statement as to the Principle Concerning Divorce

In relation to the law of divorce it is clearly stated in the Word as follows:

The only cause of divorce is confirmed adultery. (C.L.255, 468). That even though there be colds in relation to the Conjugial, and thus separation of minds, nevertheless matrimonies in the world are to continue to the end of life. (C.L. 275, 276).

The Church cannot depart from these clear statements, or from any general law of order of the literal sense of the Word, because if it should depart from them, it would depart from the Word, and thus from the Lord Himself Who is the Word. If the Church or the man of the Church violates the laws of order in respect to marriage, the Conjugial itself, which is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian Religion, is violated, and thus the Divine Human of the Lord, from which the Conjugial descends, cannot be present in the Church.

From this it is evident that the Church cannot condone any divorce that is not shown to be in accordance with these laws, and cannot accept the idea of such a divorce.

It is an essential of the work of the priesthood to uphold the laws of order in the leading by trues to the good of life. For the preservation of the Conjugial essence of the Church it is therefore necessary to recognize as a principle that any priest who obtains a divorce without manifesting a just cause thereof in accordance with the Word, thereby separates himself from the priesthood.

….

Matthew 5: 31. 32. “It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, That who­soever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

Matthew 19: 3-11. “The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And He answered and said unto them, Have you not read, that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.  What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto Him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. His disciples say unto Him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But He said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it  is given.”

Mark 10: 11-12. “And He  saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.”

Luke 16:18. “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”

Conjugial Love 255. “That adultery is the cause of divorce. For this there are many causes which are in rational light, and yet at this day are hidden, Out of rational light it can be seen that marriages are holy, and that adulteries are profane; and thus that marriages and adulteries are diametrically opposite to each other; and that when opposite acts upon opposite, the one destroys the other, even to the last spark of its life. Thus it is done with Love Conjugial when a wifed man out of what is confirmed, and thus out of set purpose, commits adultery. These things come into the clear light of reason with those who know anything about Heaven and hell. For these know that marriages are in Heaven and from heaven, and that adulteries are in hell and from hell, and that those two things cannot be conjoined, as Heaven cannot be conjoined with hell, and that if they are conjoined with man, immediately Heaven departs, and hell enters. Thence now it is that adultery is the cause of divorce. Wherefore the Lord says, That whosoever sends away the wife, unless on account of scortation, and leads another, commits adultery, Matth. 19:9. He says, If he shall have sent away, and shall have led another, unless on account of scortation, he commits adultery, because the sending away for this cause is the complete separation of minds, which is called divorce; but the remaining sendings away out of their causes, are separations, about which it has now been treated above; after these, if another wife is led, adultery is committed; but not after divorce.”

Conjugial Love 468. “By divorce is meant the abolition of the conjugial covenant, and thence complete separation, and after this the entire liberty of leading another wife. The only cause of this total separation or divorce is scortation, according to the precept of the Lord in Matth. 19:9. To the same cause also refer themselves manifest obscenities, which dissolve shame, and fill and infest the house with infamous allurements, out of which exists scortatory shamelessness in which the whole mind is dissolved. To these accedes malicious desertion, which involves scortation, and makes the wife to commit adultery, and thus to be repudiated, Matth. 5:32. These three causes, because they are the legitimate causes of divorce, the first and third before a public judge, and the middle one before the man as judge, are also the legitimate causes of concubin­age, but when the adulterous wife is retained at home. That scortation is the one only cause of divorce, is because it is diametrically opposite to the life of Love Conjugial, and destroys this even to extermination.”

Conjugial Love 274,275, 276.’ “That external affections are those according to which matrimonies are commonly contracted in the world.” (C.L.274, Heading only quoted.) .

“But that if internal affections which conjoin minds are not within them, matrimonies are loosened within the house.” (C.L. 275, Heading only quoted.)

“That nevertheless matrimonies in the world must endure to the end of life. This is brought forward in order that there may be presented more evidently before the reason, the necessity, utility and truth that Love Conjugial, where it is not genuine, is yet to be affected, or that it may appear as if it were genuine. It would be otherwise if marriages entered into were not covenanted even to the end of life, but were dissolvable out of choice, as they were with the Israelitic nation, which arrogated to itself the liberty of sending away wives out of whatsoever cause, as appears from these things in Matthew. (Matthew 19:3-10 here quoted). Since therefore the covenant of marriage is a covenant of life, it follows that appearances of love and friendship between the partners are necessities. That matrimonies contracted are to endure even to the end of life  in the world, is out of the Law Divine, and because out of this it is also out of rational law, and thence out of civil law; out of the Law Divine, that it is not allowed to send away the wife and to lead another, unless on account of scortation, аз above; out of rational law, because it is founded upon the spiritual, for the Law Divine and rational law are one law. Out of the latter and the former at the same time, or through the latter out of the former, to a great number can be seen the enormities, the destructions of societies, and the dissolutions of marriages, or the sendings away of wives out of the good pleasure of husbands, before death.”

Rev. Theodore Pitcairn

August, 1965

Concerning the sixth state of the formation of the Church we read:

“The life of Charity, acquired by the conjugial of the true of the natural in the sphere of the Lord’s Divine Human with the affection of the true of the Word and of Doctrine in the human things, and the submission to the good of the natural from the Divine Human, and the conjunction with the rational.”

The second half of the sixth day of creation is described thus.

“And God created man in His own image. Male and female created He them.” (Gen.1:27)

While the sixth day of creation is not identical with the sixth state  of formation, there is a parallelism between them, and both for the first time speak of the Conjugial.

While the Church is far from the sixth state in its fulness, and few come to the sixth state, still there may be a certain image of the sixth state in the Church. Every general state of the Church has in it a week, and in its own series every state of the Church should come to its sixth state.

It is therefore appropriate to speak about the sixth state, although in its fulness we are far removed from it.

The importance of coming to a new natural has been stressed in the Church,, and the danger of skipping over the natural. How the inmost of the natural human, in ultimates, has especially to do with the relation of husband and wife. If there is no longing to come to this conjugial in ultimates, the natural is skipped over; thus the new human, the creation of man in the image of God, as male and female is not looked to. If the marriage of good and truth is alone looked to and not its ultimate in the marriage relation of husband and wife, the natural is skipped over, and man cannot come into a new human from the Lord. It is, I believe, therefore useful at this time to consider the conjugial which should exist between husband and wife.

We read: “That there is love truly Conjugial; which is so rare at the present day that its quality is not known, and scarcely that it exists.”

The above quotation is true in both its spiritual sense, and in its sense of the letter. When it is said, “It is not known at the present day”, do we think this applies only In the world, or do we think it may apply to those in the Church?

Even in the New Church it is commonly felt that if two marry in the Church and are faithful to each other, and do not commit adultery or flirt with others, and get along reasonably well together, that they are in Conjugial love. But, apart from being members of a church, the above statement applies to animals as well as persons; in fact, some animals, particularly some birds, set an example, that few human beings equal. It is evident therefore, if this  is the only idea of Conjugial love, it is not known what conjugial love is, and scarcely that it exists. If a couple has not come to the relation in their marriage where they have shunned the external lusts which destroy Conjugial love, or if they have not striven for an external harmony of life, the most essential thing for them is to strive with all their power to establish such a natural basis for their life.

From the Marriage Service it is known that Conjugial love descends from the marriage of the Divine and the Human in the Lord, from the marriage of the Lord and the Church, and from the marriage of the good and the true; and it might be known that in so far as these are not present in the marriage of a man and woman, they are not in love truly Conjugial. But in this paper we will limit ourselves to considering certain aspects of Conjugial love in relation to its ultimate or natural application, that is, to Conjugial love between a husband and wife.

In so far as the husband and wife remain in the things of their proprium, in which all are before regeneration, love truly Conjugial does not exist.

The male proprium differs from the female proprium. It is only in so far as a man sees the nature of his male proprium, acknowledges it for what it is, and fights against it; and so far as a woman sees the nature of her female proprium, acknowledges it for what it is, and fights against it; that a man and woman can come first to an external order of marriage and, afterwards to love truly Conjugial.

The male proprium consists primarily in the man’s love of his own intelligence, and the female proprium consists primarily in the love of her own natural affections. Unless these propriums with the man and woman are over come, love truly Conjugial is not possible.

We read: “Every man from birth is inclined to love himself, lest from the love of himself and conceit of his own intelligence man should perish, it was provided that this love of man should be transcribed into the wife, and it is implanted from birth in her, that she shall love the intelligence and wisdom of her man and thus the man, by which means the wife continually attracts the man’s pride of his own intelligence to herself, and extinguishes it with him and vivifies it with herself, and so turns it into Conjugial love (C.L. 353)

In order that the wife may have the ability to take away from man the love of his own intelligence, “which would destroy him”, (C.L.88), a perception of the states of a man is given to the woman, as described by angel wives as follows: “You exult over us on account of your wisdom, but we do not exult over you on account of ours; and yet our wisdom excels yours, in that it enters into your inclinations and affections and perceives and feels them, you know nothing at all about the inclinations and affections of your love, although it is from these and according to them that your understanding thinks, and from these and according to them you are wise. And yet wives know them so well that they see them in their faces, hear them in the tones of the speech of their mouths, yea may feel them in their breasts, arms and cheeks.”(C.L. 206)

It is most important that a husband should not resist the effort of his wife to take away the love of his own intelligence, and her effort to turn this to love of herself; and he does this when he leaves father and mother, that is, the proprium of his will and the proprium of his understanding, and cleaves to the genuine things of his wife.

On the other hand, it is the nature of the proprium of a woman to abuse the gift of the Lord, namely, the perception of the states of her husband, and use it to have her own natural affections rule, – the fruit given by Eve to Adam, which led to the fall.

The true order of coming to Conjugial love is described as follows:

“That the woman is actually formed into a wife, according to the description in the Book of Creation. It is said in this book that the woman was created out of the rib of the man; and when she was brought to him the man said; ‘This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; and she shall be called Ishah (Woman), because she was taken out of Ish (Man)’ (Gen.2:22,23)

“By a rib, in the Word, nothing else is signified than natural truth,  the breast of a man is signified that essential and peculiar thing wherein it is distinguished from the breast of a woman. That this is wisdom may be seen, in n. 187; for truth supports wisdom as a rib supports the breast. These things are signified because it is the breast wherein all things pertaining to man are, as it were, in their center. From these significations it appears that the woman was created out of the man by transcription of his own wisdom, that is wisdom from natural truth; and that the love of this by the man, was transferred to the woman that it might become conjugial love; also, that this was done to the end that in the man there may be, not love of himself, but love of his wife, who, from the disposition innate within her, cannot but convert love of himself with the man into his love to her. And I have heard that this is effected by the love itself of the wife, unconsciously to the man, and unconsciously to the woman. It results from this that no man can ever love his married partner with love truly conjugial, who from the love of himself is in the pride of his own intelligence” (C.L. 193)

“That the formation is effected in secret ways, and that this is meant by the woman’s being created while the man slept.

“We read in the Book of Creation: –

^“’Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, that he should fall asleep; and then He took one of his ribs and built it into a woman’.(Gen.2;21_s22) That by the man’s deep sleep and by his falling asleep is signified his entire ignorance that his wife is formed and as it were created from him, appears from what is shown in the preceding chapter, and also in this, respecting the innate prudence and circumspection of wives, lest they divulge anything whatever about their love or about their assumption of the affections of the man’s life, and so of the transcription of his wisdom into themselves.

“In order that this may be rightly done it is enjoined upon the man that he shall leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife. By ‘father and mother’ whom the man is to leave are meant in the spiritual sense his proprium of the will and of the understanding. It is the proprium of man’s will to love himself; and the proprium of the understanding is to love his own wisdom. By ‘cleave’ is signified to devote himself to the love of his wife. That these two propria are evils deadly to man, if they remain with him; and that the love of these two is changed into conjugial love in so far as a man cleaves to his wife, that is, receives her love” (C.L.194) When the above takes place, “The intellectual of the man is the inmost of the woman.”(C.L.195)

While the above  coming to conjugial love  is done by the Lord “unknown to the man and unknown to the woman”, still either the man  or the woman or both, can prevent this formation, and usually do so; the man by refusing and resisting the giving up of the love of his own intelligence; and the woman by refusing to give up the love of the rule of her natural affections, so that the intellectual of the man might become her inmost. While the internal formation of conjugial love is done by the Lord unknown to the man and unknown to the woman, if there were no cooperation in the external on the part of the husband and wife, this would be a matter of immediate mercy apart from means.

We are taught, “that there may be conjugial love with one of the married partners (who is spiritual), and not at the same time with the other” (who is merely natural).”

Such a relation is described in the story of Judah and Tamar, and also in the story of Moses and Zipporah, the wife of Moses, where she says of Moses, “a bridegroom of bloods art thou to me,” (Ex.4:25) Moses in these verses represents the Israelitish nation and Zipporah represents the representative church. Much that is very similar is said in the Arcana Coelestia about these two stories of Moses and Zipporah, and Judah and Tamar, Judah and Moses, in these two stories represent the Jewish and Israelitish Churches which were in the externals of the church, without an internal, and whose internals were evil; while Zipporah and Tamar represent the true representative church.

Concerning Tamar we are told that she represents “the internal truths of the representative Church.” (A.C.4859)

And of the relation of Judah and Tamar we read that: “The conjunction of the internal truth with the external, or with the religiosity of the Jewish nation, is represented by the conjunction of Tamar with Judah as a daughter-in-law with a father-in-law under the pretext of the duty of a husband’s brother; and the conjunction of the religiosity of the Jewish nation with the internal of the church is represented by the conjunction of Judah with Tamar as with a harlot.”

While these stories of Moses and his wife Zipporah, and Judah and Tamar, in their internal sense treat of things which take place in the internal of every man and woman, the Word contains many series, and in one of these series it treats of the relationship of a man who is merely natural, with a wife who is in internal things. In such a relationship the wife looks to interior truths, while the husband is only in the external of the church, the Word, and of worship without an internal; although sometimes through the Lord’s working, while the wife cooperates, the man may later come to an internal. A man before regeneration is always in the external of the Word., of the church and of worship, without an internal. If the wife has come to an internal, and not as yet the husband, she with great patience, waits and longs for her husband to come to an internal; but yet she does not permit herself to be drawn down into the plane of the external without an internal in which her husband is, nor does she permit the man¹s love of his own intelligence, which he is not willing to leave, rule over her.

On the other hand the man may be in internals and the wife only in externals,  a state which in one of many series, is represented by the story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, Every woman, as to her proprium or before regeneration, has more or less in her of that which is represented by Potiphar’s wife; and if her husband should be in something of the internal (which in the fullest sense is represented by Joseph), while she is in a natural not spiritual, the enticements she uses are directed especially towards her husband.

By Joseph in this chapter is represented spiritual good, while by the wife of Potiphar is represented the truth natural not spiritual, adjoined to natural good.

We read: “Good in man is from a twofold source – from what is hereditary and hence adventitious, and also from the Doctrine of faith and charity… Good from the former origin is natural not   spiritual, while good from the latter origin is good spiritual natural. From  a like origin is truth, because all good has its own truth adjoined to it. Good natural from the former origin has much that is akin to good from the second origin, that is from the Doctrine of faith and charity, but only in the external form, being entirely different in the internal form. Good natural from the former origin may be compared to the good which exists with gentle animals; but good natural from the second origin is proper to the man who acts from reason, and knows how to dispense what is good in various ways according to vises. This dispensing of what is good is taught by the Doctrine of what is just and fair, and in a higher degree by the Doctrine of faith and charity. Every one who has not been re­generated, sees good from its external form, and this for the reason that he does not know what charity is, or what the neighbor is. (A.C.4988)

“To be conjoined with ones wife from lust alone, this is natural not spiritual, but to be conjoined with ones wife from conjugial love, this is spiritual natural, and when the husband is afterwards conjoined from lust alone he believes he has transgressed, and therefore no longer desires that this should be appropriated to him.” When it is said in the above, “conjoined with ones wife from lust alone”, the conjunction of minds should be seen as the primary thing; and “lust” should be regarded primarily as the lust for the conjunction of minds, apart from the conjugial of the good and the true.

To continue the number: “To benefit a friend, no matter what his quality, provided he is a friend, is not spiritual; but to benefit a friend for the sake of the good that is in him, and still more to hold good itself as a friend which is to be benefitted, is spiritual natural; and when any one is in this, he knows that he transgresses if he benefits a friend who is evil. When he is in this state he holds in aversion the appropriation of good natural not spiritual, and so with every thing else.” (A.C.4992)

We read further: “Those within the Church who are in truths natural not spiritual also say that every one is the neighbor, but they do not admit of degrees and distinctions; and. therefore if they are in natural good they do good without’ distinctions, to every one who excites their pity, and oftener to the evil than to the good, because in their knavery the evil know how to excite their pity.” (A.С. 5008)

In relation to the above we should think primarily of the relation to those in the Church, and of the “doing good without distinction.” We should  think primarily of doing spiritual good.

Also in this series of numbers where it speaks of those who make no distinction in giving to the poor, to widows, to the fatherless, etc. The meaning in relation to our duty applies in the first place to “the spiritually poor, the widows and the fatherless, etc.” in the Church, And where it speaks of a judge doing charity in punishing the evil, and thereby protecting society, and, if possible, leading to amendment, we should regard the word judge as having a primary application to those in the Church who have judgment, and of punishment, in relation to those who are in the Church.

Particularly women in the Church in so far as they have not been well instructed and regenerated, tend to resist the practical application of these laws.

A woman in her non-regenerate state can find many apparent truths to support her natural good affections, which are not spiritual, including many things from the literal sense of the Word, represented by the garment of Joseph, which the wife of Potiphar took away; and, with her siren song, can entice her husband who cannot resist the appeal of her natural good affections, not spiritual natural unless like Ulysses, he ties himself fast to the mast of Doctrine.

We read in Conjugial Love: “The Church is formed  by the Lord with man and through the man with the wife.” (C.L. 63)

“The church with them is first implanted in the man, and through the man in the wife; because the man receives its truth in his understanding; and the wife from the man. If the contrary it is not according to order. This however does occur; but with men who are either not lovers of wisdom, and are therefore not of the church; as also with those who depend as slaves on the beck of their wives.” (C.L. 125)

Especially in recent times, a sickness prevails in which men instead of being in love of their own intelligence, as is normal for a man before regeneration, merely love their natural affections above everything and thus become effeminate; while women who are ambitious to become intellectual and vie with men, become masculine imitations; but these are abnormalities, which indeed are becoming rather common.

But returning to the normal state of those before regeneration; it is evident that the proprium of the man will strive mightily against his giving up the love of his own intelligence; and the proprium of the woman will fight even harder against giving up the rule of her merely natural good affections; and that regeneration in relation to these loves is a life-long struggle.

In this struggle a man must discipline himself to cleave to his wife and thus permit his wife to take away from him the love of his own intelligence;, and must not resent it; but must permit her to manifest to him the presence of love of his ото intelligence in himself. The husband must especially love his wife in so far as she has become a form of truth and her womanly affections are out of this; but he must resist her with all his power in so fax as she tries to bring him under the persuasion of the apparent truths of her merely natural good affections.

And on her part, the woman, must permit the rational of her husband, if he has one, to elevate her above her natural good, which is not spiritual natural; but she must resist him in so far as he tries to lead her by a merely natural scientific rational. The road to conjugial love is therefore long and difficult, for both the husband and wife,, and can never be arrived at if both axe not in humility. A husband cannot help his wife, nor a wife her husband, unless they are both struggling; the man to overcome his male proprium and the woman her female proprium.

Here the words of the Lord apply: “Cast out first the beam that is in thine own eye, …then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:42)

Instead of leading men out of the love of their own intelligence, many women flatter the intelligence of their husbands, to gain power and at the same time, dominate their husband’s will by their will. Men then try to defend themselves by their scientific rational faculty, but usually without much success. The woman in such a case, will oppose the man’s ideas and at the same time flatter Ms love of his own intelligence.

In the world, and in the New Church, there are some who are in what is considered happy marriages; yet love truly Conjugial, which comes only by regeneration, is arrived at by such a narrow path, that the quotation with which we commenced this paper still applies:

“That there is a love truly conjugial; which is so rare at the present, that its quality is not known and scarcely that it exists.” (C.L.58)

For its quality can only be known by those who are in it.

Since there is a growing lack of light on these simple matters, there is a need to consider this subject in greater detail. Yet, if you are clear, that these things are contrary to the Divine Spiritual and Natural Order,  you’d rather skip this page.

The nature of sodomy, homosexuality cannot be known, unless the nature of conjugial love is known:

“… THE NATURE OF SCORTATORY LOVE CANNOT BE KNOWN UNLESS THE NATURE OF CONJUGIAL LOVE IS KNOWN.

“Here, as in no. 423, by scortatory love is meant the love of adultery which destroys conjugial love. That the nature of this scortatory love cannot be known unless the nature of conjugial love is known, has no need of demonstration; it needs only to be illustrated by comparisons. For instance, Who can know what evil and falsity are unless he knows what good and truth are? and who can know what the unchaste is, or the dishonorable, the indecorous, and the ugly, unless he knows what the chaste is, or the honorable, the decorous, and the beautiful? Who can discern insanities save one who is wise, that is, Who knows what Wisdom is? Who can rightly perceive inharmonious stridors save one who by learning and study has absorbed harmonious numbers? In like manner, Who can see clearly the nature of adultery unless he has seen clearly the nature of marriage? or Who can set before his judgment the filthiness of the pleasures of scortatory love unless he has previously set before his judgment the cleanness of conjugial love? Because I have now finished The Delights of wisdom concerning Conjugial Love, therefore, from the intelligence thence acquired, I am able to describe the pleasures [of insanity] from scortatory love.” (Conjugial Love №424)

It is of use to learn about natural sodomy /homosexuality, or sodomy/homosexuality in the sense of the letter, and understand it, because the sense of the letter, which relates to life and thus to salvation, is the basis of the spiritual life, and it is from this sense that the genuine doctrine (and thus the christian lifestyle and life views) is drawn, and it is by this sense that it is confirmed.  

“Doctrine should be drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word and confirmed by it. This is because in it the Lord is present, and teaches and enlightens; for the Lord never operates except in fullness, and in the sense of the letter the Word is in its fullness, as has been shown above. This is why doctrine should be drawn from the sense of the letter. Moreover, the doctrine of genuine truth may be fully drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word; since the Word in that sense is like a man clothed, with his face bare and his hands bare; and all things pertaining to man’s faith and life and thus his salvation are there naked; while the rest are clothed; but in many places where they are clothed, they show through, as objects are seen by a woman through a thin silk veil before her face. Furthermore, as the truths of the Word are multiplied as it were, by love for them, and by this love are arranged in order, they more and more clearly shine forth and are seen.” (True Christian Religion 229)

“The doctrine of genuine truth can also be drawn in full from the sense of the letter of the Word, because in this sense the Word is like a man clothed whose face and hands are bare. All things that concern man’s life, and consequently his salvation, are bare; but the rest are clothed. In many places also where they are clothed they shine through their clothing, like a face through a thin veil of silk.” (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture №55)

“…the sense of the Word which is called the sense of the letter, corresponds in its ultimates to the hair of the head, and for the rest it corresponds to the various parts in man, as his head, breast, loins, and feet; but where there are these correspondences in that sense, the Word is as it were clothed, and it therefore corresponds to the clothing of those parts, for garments in general signify truths, and also actually correspond to them. But yet many things in the sense of the letter of the Word are naked, as without clothing, and these correspond to the face of man, and also to his hands, which parts are bare. These parts of the Word serve for the doctrine of the church, because in themselves they are spiritual natural truths. Whence it may be evident that there is no lack, but that man can find and see naked truths even in the letter of the Word.” (About the Word of the Lord from experience №10)

It is not spiritually healthy to deny any genuine natural sense of the Word, which describes both the order of conjugial relationship and disorder of the  scortary/adulterous copulations.

“About those who defile the blood. There are certain spirits who love to scurry around, constantly wanting to mock what they do not understand, just as spirits mock inward and very inward [truths]. There was in fact one who continually declared, “That is not right,” that is, the Word of the Lord does not mean that, but something else. Thus he could disclaim almost anything said by the Lord and elsewhere in the Word, because he had heard that the meaning of the letter was nothing, as said above about the 12 thrones, and about persecutions and miseries [1321-8]. Therefore, he maintained that nothing must be taken literally, thus ridiculing it and saying it was not right. He did this most consistently, distorting and stretching the words, and thus convincing people.

About him I was told that he related to those elements in the body that defile the blood. For if something bad and noxious flows into the blood, it then pervades the venal and arterial systems and thus defiles the blood stream. So do those who as it were cast insults upon the Word of the Lord for the reason that they do not understand its contents, loving only bodily and material things.” (Spiritual Experiences №1335)

The love of marriage of one man and one woman, or one husband and one wife, and the love of adultery, which includes sodomy/homosexuality are opposites

 “… the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites (no. 425). The love of marriage acts as one with the church and religion (no. 130 and elsewhere throughout the First Part); hence the love of adultery, being the opposite love, acts as one with all that is against the church. That these adulterers cast off all things of the church and its religion is also because the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites, just as the marriage of good and truth is opposite to the connubial connection of evil and falsity (nos. 427, 428); and the marriage of good and truth is the church, while the connubial connection of evil and falsity the anti-church.” (Conjugial Love 497)

 Where is in the Word is there the most general attitude towards this kind of evils?
For example, in the True Christian Religion.

“THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. “THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY. In the natural sense, this commandment means not only not to commit adultery, but it refers also to willing and doing obscene things and thinking and speaking about lascivious things. ” (True Christian Religion 313)

How sodomy is called in Swedenborg?

“Foul conjunctions,” “foul adulteries,” “unmentionable sexual unions,” “abominable copulations”  in  Arcana Coelestia №3703, №4434, №4868, №6348, Conjugial Love №519, Apocalypse Explained №235, №410, №434

The thing, which happened in Sodom, what was it strictly in the sense of the letter?

Homosexual rape. This is what is meant by Sodom in the very narrow sense of the letter.

Why is then homosexuality implied when the Sodom is named?

Because it was not the rape alone, that was involved, but the homosexual acts were involved as well.

Is there any commandment regarding homosexuality in the Old Testament?

Yes. “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22).

 Why Leviticus 18:22 speaks only about males? Does it not apply to women?

It speaks thus because there is also a spiritual sense there, which is hidden within the literal sense. It also applies to women, because the principle of conjunction with the same-sex goes contary to the conjugial spiritual and natural order of conjunction, established from creation.

Is there a reference in Swedenborg to the homosexual things, as forbidden and as something evil?

Yes. “The foul conjunctions called the forbidden degrees (see Lev. 18:6-24), signify various kinds of profanation.”  (AC 6348)

How does the Sodomy relate to Homosexuality?

It relates as a general to a particular, homosexuality being a particular case of the sodomy.

Why is there a focus on the love of self, when Sodom is being treated of?

Because it is not the genuine natural sense of the letter, but the internal sense is being treated of, and in this internal sense, it is the “love of self”  that is spoken of, and particularly the “love of ruling”, and it is this lust which is the root of all the adulteries, that come from it: ” “Sodom” is signified the evil of the love of self. Out of this evil all evils of every kind well forth; and all evils that thus spring from it are called in the Word “adulteries”  (AC 2322).

Is there anything else that should be shunned in the same way as sodomy/homosexuality, about which a person can have more light?

For example, pedophilia and bestiality, and other various abuses and foul things, which signify some particular love of self and love of the world in the spiritual sense.

Does Swedenborg do away with the sense of the letter in relation to “Sodom”, when he speaks about the internal meaning of Sodom, as being “love of self”?

In order to consider the spiritual sense, the Word skips the historic literal sense, and talks about the spiritual love of ruling, but it does not do away with the genuine natural sense of the letter, because it relates to life and thus to salvation.
The thing, happend in Sodom,  in the sense of the letter, is called “adultery”, for example, in the following places:

“…adultery such as there was at Sodom; which is why they demanded the angels from Lot’s house.” (De Conjugio 86).

as “abominations” and “adultery”:

“…In the Word the abominations that well forth from the love of self are depicted by adulteries of various kinds.” (AC 2220)

Do we shun adulteries only in the spiritual sense, or in the sense of the letter as well?

We shun them in the natural sense of the letter, spiritual sense and celestial sense.

Why cannot we shun only “love of self” and not murder, thefts, adulteries of every kind, and other evils, described in the sense of the letter?

We ought to shun all of them because all of them are sins against God.

Did not the Lord make the Old Testament Law null and void in the New Testament times, or in the times of His Second Coming? Thus, did not the Lord cancel the need to fulfill the commandments in the sense of the letter, and thus to shun evils of the sense of the letter, e.g. pertaining to aduleries, by revealing their internal sense?

The Lord came to fulfill and not to destroy. The representative historic customs set up for the Jewish Church were cancelled, and mostly gathered into baptism and holy communion. Wherease the Commandments related, in the narrow and broader senses, to the Ten Commandments, always remain the same, and as they relate to life and thus to salvation, they are literally true.

Do we  hate someone, who is engaged in the homosexual/sodomitic things?

We do not.

“The Christian Church is called the church militant, and it cannot be called militant except as against the devil, and thus against the evils that are from hell. Hell is the devil.
And the temptation that the man of the church undergoes is this warfare.” (Doctrine of Life 98)

Do we love some person, who is engaged in those things?
We do not love the evil in that person, but love the good in that person, if there is any good.

He who from genuine charity loves the neighbor inquires what the quality of a man is, and does good to him discreetly, and according to the quality of his good. (Charity 52).

To love the neighbor is not to love the person, but that in him which makes him the neighbor, that is, good and truth (Last Judgement 39)

TO LOVE THE NEIGHBOR, STRICTLY SPEAKING, IS NOT TO LOVE THE PERSON, BUT THE GOOD THAT IS IN THE PERSON. (True Christian Religion 417)

Those who love the person, and not that which is in him, and which constitutes him, love equally an evil man and a good man ; and do good alike to the evil and to the good; and yet to do good to the evil is to do evil to the good and that is not loving the neighbour (Heaven and Hell 390)

What is the responsibility of those who claim to have had such an inclination/misdirected sexual orientation from their childhood or youth? Are they personally responsible for such an inclination?

They bear the same responsibiliy as all others for their hereditary evils. As they are responsible for their spiritual health, they can direct their love away from the incorrect path to the correct one.

How should they regard this thing?

This must be regarded as a disease or disorder of the natural mind, which stands in the way of spiritual development, and needs be shunned as evil of sin against God.

Is there any example from Swedenborg’s spiritual experiences in the other world, where some type of homosexual relationship is described in greater detail?
Here is such a passage.

About extremely Lewd girls. Onto my head there drifted certain female spirits, causing a pleasant wavy sensation on my head, working from the forehead up to the middle of the head. Who the spirits were I did not know. Then they appeared a naked, snowy white, symbolizing that they were innocent, for the innocent are displayed as a naked, snowy white, as also are those females who are not innocent when in a state in which they imagine themselves to be innocent. [2] When they noticed that other spirits were present, they then began first to act on the head, as if with many hands, then turning their body around from right to left and from left to right, like a cylinder, then also wheeling themselves around horizontally like a wagon, these movements meaning that they wanted to exhibit themselves as innocent before the eyes of those who were there, and then withdraw themselves from their sight. For it is their mental imagery that is thus portrayed and the fact that in the sight of others they were displaying themselves as entirely innocent. But when they were still attacked by other spirits, they tore themselves away from their company by their customary bodily plunges, and thus extricated themselves from their society. And when the attacking spirits persisted even more, they turned themselves upside down and finally disentangled themselves from their company.

They removed themselves to the rear, saying they wanted to have nothing to do with men, and had had nothing to do with men, but that they had lived among themselves without men. But spirits who had been such in life that they burned for nothing more intensely than to have those whom they thought innocent, such as chaste virgins, and women who dwelt in monasteries, were present, and their ardor was then felt, which was more intense than that of others. When they only heard that innocents were present, they were set afire. It is this kind who are then kindled, so that only hearing they are innocent, they desire them the most. For this reason also, such women are pursued by men more than others, which is also the reason they pass themselves off as innocent, that is, so that they will be prized above others.

They were gathered at the back, seeking a place where they might be alone together, drawing back finally to the ends of the universe, but I noticed that the place was higher up at the rear, where I had previously not noticed anything. When they had reached the boundaries of the universe at the back, they then spoke among themselves, saying that there were no men present, so they should begin. But their obscenities were not shown to me, except a woman dressed like a man, then delighting themselves in that place with abominably lewd practices.

There appeared to me a pantry containing apples, citrus fruits and the like, which were their delights at that time; then large glass goblets full of wine, with sugar, showing that they then enjoyed together pleasures of that kind.

What they become thereafter, I was given to learn, namely, that once they have become captivated by such an extremely foul enjoyment, they then care nothing for, but rather loathe men, and thus the natural modes of conjunction. Consequently they also loathe and nauseate matrimonies, by which if they enter into them they are moved by no pleasure, so that marriage love with such women has been lost and become something disgusting, so that they can seldom have offspring, and if they do, they do not love them, for this follows from the destruction of marriage love. They love only their foul passions, which soothe and fill their mind with most obscene delight. Many of them become the vilest prostitutes, and are then more filthy than all others, because they care nothing for decency or outer restraint, having put away from themselves all shame. Therefore, because they are not captivated by any other excitement, they have lost all the pleasure otherwise associated with making love. That this is the case, I was given to see clearly.

“It was said to me that (those who share wives and husbands) were not far from being Sodomites, wherefore let those who are conscious to themselves of such a course of life beware, for they are not spared in the other life.”
(Spiritual Experiences 3895-3899)

Do we then dismiss what is said about the spiritual meaning of sodomy in the Word?
We do not. Here are some passages in the Word, where these things are treated of naturally and also spiritually.

“These sexual acts were much more abominable than those of the Sodomites.” (Spiritual Experiences 3768)

“All degrees of criminality correspond to such things as are spiritual sins… Those who are in the love of self, and whose love is to rule over others, are Sodomites.” (Spiritual Experiences 5939)

“The following things correspond to the acts of adulteries in the next life… Those  in the highest degree of the love of ruling from the love of self, and not for the sake of use, are in Sodom.” ( Spiritual Experiences 6096)

“There are sodomitic hells for those who were in evils from a love of ruling over others from mere delight in ruling, and who were in no delight of use.” (Apocalypse Explained 1006)

Why is there a tendency to get rid of the natural sense in matters, related to life and salvation, or in matters of moral life, and care about the spiritual alone, thus why there is a tendency to dismiss, disregard all those places which speak about the lowest natural sodomy and homosexuality?  

Here is the passage which gives one of the reasons.

“WHY IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD, MORE THAN ELSEWHERE, ADULTERIES ARE NOT ABHORRED. The Gentiles wonder why in the Christian world adulteries and whoredoms are accounted allowable by many and even by most, when yet their religion from the Word of both Testaments condemns them to hell; but the reason was told, that few live according to their religion, but have embraced the doctrine that faith saves; that is, that thinking and not living [saves]; and because thus truth is conjoined with evil, thence from the influx from hell adulteries are loved and received, and also they excuse them. For the influx of hell prevails with them over the influx of heaven. The sphere of adultery also closes heaven, and when heaven is closed, hell is opened: hence its origin comes from the falsity of religions. It is otherwise with those who place religion in life and doctrine at the same time.” (On Marriage 76)

What will I be like, if I remain in these things, and do not change my life and become regenerated?

” What man is by birth, and what he would be if not regenerated, can be seen from fierce animals of every kind; that be would be a tiger, a panther, a leopard, a wild hog, a scorpion, a tarantula, a viper, a crocodile, and so on; consequently if he were not transformed by regeneration into a sheep, what would he be but a devil among devils in hell? … How many are there of the human race who are not born satyrs and priapi or four-footed lizards; and who among these, if not regenerated, does not become an ape? External morality is required, for the sake of covering up their .” (True Christian Religion 574 )

If I do not practice these thing, but consider it to be normal and allowable for myself, only abstaining from the action itself, is everything spiritually all right with me?
Not exactly. That evil should be shunned as a sin against God.

“Although he does not commit adultery, yet as he believes it to be allowable he is all the while an adulterer, since he commits adultery to the extent that he has the ability and as often as he has opportunity.” (Heaven and  Hell №531)

If my son or daughter, or other young relative, who in their young age were involved in those things, and then they unexpectedly passed into the other world.  If this is an evil, I hurts to think about their lot. What will it be like, hell?

God alone knows their eternal lot.  Here is the passage which can be referred to all adulterous practices done by young people, if there was no knowledge of faith with them regarding what was true good and evil, and if they passed into the other life in the relatively young age.

“There are girls who have been enticed into harlotry, and thus persuaded that there is no evil in it, being in other respects rightly disposed. These, because they are not yet of an age to be able to know and judge concerning such a life, have an instructor with them, quite severe, who chastises them whenever in thought they break out into such wantonness. Of him they are in great fear, and in this way are vastated. But adult women who have been harlots and have enticed other women, do not undergo vastation, but are in hell.” (Arcana Coelestia 1113).

So, ok, I know the truth, but it is ok to practise those things, because I will be only entitled to some vastations and then will go heaven?

“…they were indeed acquainted with the truths of faith; but nevertheless they had no truths in them; for truths were then in their mouth, but not in the heart; and therefore when they have been vastated as to these truths, evil remains, and then also the falsity of evil comes forth to view which had lain hidden within them; for although they had professed truths, they were nevertheless not in truths, but in falsities. Moreover, the very profession of truth did not descend from its own beginning, namely, from good; but from evil; for they had made it for the sake of gain, honors, and reputation, thus for the sake of themselves and the world. The truths which descend from such a beginning adhere on the surface, and therefore when they are being vastated the truths fall off like scales, and when they fall off, they leave places that are foul-smelling and putrid from the falsities which exhale from the evils there. Such is the lot of those who have known the truths of faith, and yet have lived contrary to them, according to the Lord’s words in Luke: That servant who knoweth his Lord’s will, but maketh not himself ready, nor doeth his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knoweth not, though he do things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few (Luke 12:47-48). (Arcana Coelestia 7790)

“But those who know nothing about the Lord, …provided they believe in one God and live according to the precepts of their religion, are saved by their faith and life; for imputation has reference to those who know, not to those who do not know; as when the blind stumble it is not imputed to them; for the Lord says: If ye were blind ye would not have sin; but now ye say that ye see therefore your sin remaineth (John 9:41).” (True Christian Religion 107)

What if a man does not feel comfortable about himself being male or about loving the opposite sex, and a woman does not feel comfortable about herself being a woman or about loving the opposite sex, can they just not change their own ways, their nature into the opposite?

Masculine itself cannot essentially be changed into the femine. After death the male is a male, and the female is a female.

“From this primitive formation it follows, that the male is born intellectual and the female voluntary; or, what is the same thing, that the male is born into the affection of knowing, understanding, and being wise, and the female into the love of conjoining herself with that affection in the male. And because interiors form exteriors after their own likeness, and the masculine form is the form of the understanding, and the feminine the form of the love of that understanding, it follows that the male has a face, voice, and body different from the female; that is, a harder face, a harsher voice, and a stronger body, and, moreover, a bearded chinin general, a form less beautiful than the female. They differ also in their attitudes and their ways. In a word, nothing whatever in them is alike; and yet, in their single parts, there is what is conjunctive; yea, in the male, the masculine is masculine in every part of his body even the most minute, and also in every idea of his thought, and in every grain of his affection; and so likewise, the feminine in the female. And since the one cannot be changed into the other, it follows that after death the male is a male and the female a female.” (Conjugial Love 33)

“There is a love of man and man, and of woman and woman; and there is a love of a man for a woman and of a woman for a man. These three pairs of loves are entirely different from each other. The love of man and man is as the love of understanding and understanding; for man was created and thence born that he may become understanding. The love of woman and woman is as the love of affection and affection, the affection being the affection of the understanding of men; for woman was created and is born to become the love of man’s understanding. These loves, that is, the love of man and man and of woman and woman, do not enter deeply into the breast but stand without and merely touch each other; thus they do not inwardly conjoin the two.”  (Conjugial Love 55)

If my life was messed-up from childhood, and I was ill-treated by father, or mother, or any relatives and just other people, and so I am not inclined to the opposite sex, and feel good and ultimates pleasures with the one of my own sex, how would I even begin loving the opposite sex, will there be any adequate pleasure in the orderly relationship with the opposite sex?

At first you begin to shun those acts and pleasures and thoughts, as sins against God, that is, as what is opposite to Him, to His Divine Love and Wisdom, to His Word, and think about the orderly delights of Conjugial Love. The greater the evil is shunned, the greater receptivity for good is created and opened. The delights of the conjugial love,  are not less than those of any adulterous love, but the more a person is truly spiritually purified, the greater there is a possibility for internal spiritual delights.

“The delights of conjugial love… have nothing in common with the foul delights of licentious love. The latter are inherent, indeed, in every person’s flesh, but they are separated and removed as a person’s spirit is elevated above the sensual promptings of the body, and as from a height it sees the shams and fallacies of these below. He likewise then perceives fleshly delights first as illusory and deceptive delights, after that as lustful and lascivious ones to be shunned, and progressively as harmful and injurious to the soul, until at last he feels them as undelightful, foul, and repulsive. Moreover, in the degree that he perceives and feels those delights as such, in the same degree he perceives the delights of conjugial love as harmless and chaste, and finally as delightful and blessed.” (Conjugial Love 441)

“THAT EACH SPHERE CARRIES WITH IT DELIGHTS, that is to say, each sphere -that of scortatory love which ascends from hell, and that of conjugial love which descends from heaven -affects with its delights the man who receives it. The reason is because the ultimate plane is the same, the plane namely, wherein the delights of each love terminate, where also they are fulfilled and completed, and which makes their presence manifest by its sensation of them. Hence it is, that in outmost manifestation, scortatory embraces and conjugial embraces are perceived as being alike, although inwardly they are wholly unlike. That they are therefore unlike in their outmost manifestation cannot be judged from any sensation of the difference, for no others can sensate dissimilitudes from differences in outmosts save those who are in love truly conjugial. Evil is recognized from good but not good from evil, as neither is a sweet odor perceived by nostrils to which a foul odor is clinging. I have heard from angels that they distinguish the lascivious from the non-lascivious in outmosts, as one distinguishes a fire from dung, or burning horn with its offensive smell, from a fire of spice or of burning cinnamon-wood with its fragrant odor; and that this is due to the distinction between the internal delights which enter into the external and compose them.” (Conjugial Love 439)

My male partner was a very bad person/my female partner was a very bad person, so my life with the opposite sex is a failure, I think all the opposite sex is the same, and do not want to allow any possibility of something similar. Is it not logical and spiritually and psychologically justified now to turn to someone of my sex and give it a try?

If , in your perception, your partner was in the evil, it would not be wise to go from Skylla to even more griveous Charybdis. So, it would be christian and reasonable not to allow yourself now being mistreated by all the hellish things, related to homosexual relationships. That is, if a person then plunges into those evil things, which are opposite to Conjugial Love, he adds greater spiritual evils to the already existing life problems.

The Lord is Merciful, and so no matter what I am engaged in, He will forgive me, will forgive my sins, and bring me to heaven,  provided I do not do evils to other people. Perhaps, you simply do not understand the power of His Divine Mercy and Forgiveness?

“Sins are continually being forgiven man by the Lord, for He is mercy itself; but sins adhere to the man, however much he may suppose that they have been forgiven, nor are they removed from him except through a life according to the commands of faith. So far as he lives according to these commands, so far his sins are removed; and so far as they are removed, so far they have been forgiven. For by the Lord man is withheld from evil, and is held in good; and he is so far able to be withheld from evil in the other life, as in the life of the body he has resisted evil; and he is so far able to be held in good then, as in the life of the body he has done what is good from affection. This shows what the forgiveness of sins is, and whence it is. He who believes that sins are forgiven in any other way, is much mistaken.” (Arcana Coelestia 8393)

“The Lord forgives everyone his sins, because He is mercy itself. Nevertheless they are not thereby forgiven unless the man performs serious repentance, and desists from evils, and afterward lives a life of faith and charity, and this even to the end of his life. When this is done, the man receives from the Lord spiritual life, which is called new life. When from this new life the man views the evils of his former life, and turns away from them, and regards them with horror, then for the first time are the evils forgiven, for then the man is held in truths and goods by the Lord, and is withheld from evils. From this it is plain what is the forgiveness of sins, and that it cannot be granted within an hour, nor within a year. That this is so the church knows, for it is said to those who come to the Holy Supper that their sins are forgiven if they begin a new life by abstaining from evils and abhorring them.” (AC 9014)

How can I pschylogically begin to avoid those things, when I really feel great pleasure in them, and not in them alone, but in some other things as well?

“As far as anyone does not look to the Lord and shun evils because they are sins, so far he remains in them. Man is born into evils of every kind. His will, which is his proprium, is nothing but evil. Unless, therefore, a man is reformed and regenerated, he not only remains as he was born, but becomes even worse; because to the evils received hereditarily he adds actual evils of himself. Such does a man remain if he does not shun evils as sins. To shun them as sins is to shun them as diabolical and infernal, and therefore deadly, and hence, because there is eternal damnation in them. If a man so regards them, then he believes that there is a hell, and that there is a heaven; and also that the Lord can remove them if the man also endeavors to remove them as of himself. But see what has been set forth on this subject in The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem (n. 108-113). To which I will add this: All evils are born delightful; because man is born into the love of himself, and that love makes all things delightful that are of his proprium, thus whatever he wills and whatever he thinks; and everyone remains till death in the delights that are inrooted by birth, unless they are subdued; and they are not subdued unless they are regarded as sweet drugs that kill, or as flowers apparently beautiful that carry poison in them; thus unless the delights of evil are regarded as deadly, and this until at length they become undelightful.” (Charity 2)

I live in the country, that is well-disposed towards these things. I am a patriot. If I do not support these things in my country, it will hate me. So, what shall I do if I regard these evils as hurtful to myself and my country?

“For example: if I had been born in Venice or in Rome, and were a Reformed Christian, am I to love my country, or the country where I was born, because of its spiritual good? I cannot. Nor with respect to its moral and civil good, so far as this depends for existence upon its spiritual good. But so far as it does not depend upon this I can, even if that country hates me. Thus, I must not in hatred regard it as an enemy, nor as an adversary, but must still love it; doing it no injury, but consulting its good, so far as it is good for it, not consulting it in such a way that I confirm it in its falsity and evil…”

Good number of my better friends are well-disposed toward these things, if not in practice, then in theory. They are not only nice people, but are also influential and financially-independent. Some of them are my bosses. If they learn about my views, my public status will fail, I will fall out of their favour and will be deprived of all pleasures of frienship and so on. So, when I make a judgment, the judgement follows the disposition, likings and inclinations of my friends. Since it is a friendly approarch, and all frienship is good, everything is ok, right?

“Not to regard faces” signifies not to have the mind better disposed towards superiors, the rich, and friends, than towards inferiors, the poor, and enemies, because what is just and right is to be regarded without respect to person.” (Apocalypse Explained 412)

“And the works done from the Lord are all good, and are called the goods of life, the goods of charity, and good works. For example: all the judgments of a judge who regards justice as the end, and venerates and loves it as Divine, and who also detests, as infamous, judgments given for the sake of rewards, friendship, or favour”. (Apocalypse Explained 979)

“I once heard shouts which gurgled up from the lower regions as though through water; one on the left, OH, HOW JUST! … [there] were judges with an eye to friendship and bribes who were being proclaimed as just. At one side I saw something like an amphitheater built of brick and roofed over with black tiles, and it was told me that they called it the Tribunal. It had three entrances on the north side and three on the west, but none on the south side or on the east, a sign that their judgments were not judgments of justice but arbitrary decisions. In the middle of the amphitheater was seen a fire-place, into which the servants of the hearth were throwing logs full of sulfur and pitch, the flickering lights from which presented on the plastered walls pictured images of birds of evening and night. This fire-place and the flickerings of the light into the forms of these images were representations of their judgments, in that they could illumine the facts of any case with colored paints, and induce upon them appearances in accordance with their inclinations.

After half an hour, I saw men, old and young, enter, wearing long robes and cloaks. Putting off their caps, they took their seats at the tables to sit in judgment. I then heard and perceived how, with a view to friendship, they skillfully and ingeniously bent and twisted their judgments into the appearance of justice, and this even to the point that they themselves viewed what was unjust no otherwise than as just, and conversely, what was just as unjust. Their persuasions in these respects were apparent from their faces, and they came to the ear from their speeches. From the enlightenment which was then given me from heaven, I perceived the several judgments, as to whether or not they were judgments of justice; and I saw how assiduously they covered over what was unjust and induced upon it the appearance of what is just; and how they selected from the laws one that favored them and, by skilful reasonings, forced the others to their side. Following the judgments, the decisions were conveyed outside to the judges’ clients, friends, and favorers, and these, in return for their favors, were shouting all along a lengthy road, OH, HOW JUST! OH, HOW JUST!

After this, I spoke of the matter with angels of heaven, telling them something of what I had seen and heard; and the angels said: “Such judges appear to others as gifted with the most penetrating acuteness of understanding, when yet they do not see the least thing of what is just and equitable. If you take away their friendship for a party in a suit, they sit in judgment mute as statues and say merely “I agree, I adjust myself to this or that judgment.” The reason is because all their judgments are prejudices, and prejudice together with favor follows the case from beginning to end. Hence they see nothing but what favors their friend. Everything which is against him they set aside, and if they again take it up, they involve it in reasonings, as a spider its captives in the threads of its web, and distort it.* Hence it is that, when not following the thread of their prejudice, they see nothing of justice. They have been explored as to whether they can, and it was found that they cannot. The inhabitants of your world will wonder at this, but tell them that it is a truth explored by angels of heaven. Because these judges see nothing of what is just, we in heaven view them, not as men, but as monsters whose heads are made of matters of friendship, their bodies of matters of injustice, their feet of matters of confirmation, and the soles of their feet of matters of justice; and if the latter do not favor their friend, they throw them to the ground and trample them under foot. But you yourself will see how they appear to us from heaven, for their end is at hand.”

Then, behold, the ground suddenly yawned open, the tables fell one upon another, and the judges together with the whole amphitheater were swallowed up and cast into caverns and imprisoned.
The angels then said to me, “Do you wish to see them there?” And lo, they were seen with faces as of polished steel, their bodies from the neck to the loins like sculptures carved of stone and dressed in leopard skins, and their feet like serpents. And I saw the law-books which they had laid upon the tables, turned to playing-cards. Instead of sitting in judgment, they are now given the task of making vermilion into rouge, wherewith to deck the faces of harlots and thus transform them into beauties. (Conjugial Love 231)

“An interior enlightenment by man, on the other hand, is quite different. A person possessing this state of enlightenment sees a thing from one side and not from the other; and when he has affirmed it, he sees it in a light seemingly like the light described above, but it is a wintry light. Consider for example the following: A judge who judges unjustly in return for gifts or for material gain, after he has defended his decision by the laws and by arguments, does not see anything but justice in his decision. Some do see the injustice; but because they do not wish to see it, they blur it and blind themselves to it, so that they do not see it. It is the same with a judge who renders his decisions out of partiality, or to gain favor, or to be allied with his relatives. For people like that it is the same with everything that they take from the mouth of a man of authority or from the mouth of a celebrity, or hatch from their own intelligence. They are rationally blind, for their sight comes from the falsities they defend, and falsity closes up the sight, as truth opens it. Such people do not see any truth by the light of truth, nor any justice from a love of justice, but see by the light of justification, which is an illusory light. In the spiritual world they appear as faces without a head, or as human-like faces with wooden heads behind; and they are called rational cattle, because they have the potential of rationality. An exterior enlightenment by man, however, exists in people who think and speak solely in accordance with knowledge impressed on their memory. Of themselves they are scarcely able to verify anything.” (Divine Providence 168)

One person gives some passages about this being evil, other people gives other passages. I myself do not see clearly what is true or what is false, and do not really care about it. All the truth is subjective and is determined according to one’s personal likings,  or, in some cases, according to the benefits, that we can gain from this or that position.  Do not fancy, that anyone see the truth itself.

“After this, one of the angels said,  “Follow me to the place where they shout, “O how wise!” and you will see monsters of men; you will see faces and bodies that are human, and yet they are not men.”
“Are they beasts, then?” I asked.
He replied, “They are not beasts, but beastmen; for they are those who are utterly unable to see whether truth is truth or not, and yet can make whatever they wish seem true. With us, such are called Confirmers.”
We followed the shouting, and came to the place; and behold, an assembly of men, and around about them a throng, and in the throng some of noble birth, and when these heard them prove whatever they themselves were saying and uphold it with so manifest a concurrence, they turned around and shouted, “O how wise!”
[2] But the angel said to me, “Let us not go among them, but call one of the assembly to us.” And we called one out and withdrew with him, and talked over various subjects; and had confirmed them one by one until they seemed to be perfectly true.
We asked him whether he could confirm things contrary to each other; and he said he could just as well as the others. He then said openly and from his heart, “What is truth? Is there anything true in the nature of things, other than what man makes true? Say what you please and I will make it true.”
I said, “Make this true that faith is the all of the church.” And this he did so dexterously and skillfully that the learned bystanders admired and applauded. I then asked him to make it true that charity is the all of the church; and he did so; and then that charity is no part of the church; and he so clothed and decorated both statements with appearances that the bystanders would look at each other, and say, “Is he not wise?”
I then said, “Do you not know that to live well is charity, and to believe well is faith? Does not he who lives well also believe well? Thus does not faith belong to charity and charity to faith? Do you not see that this is true?”
He answered, “I will make it true, and I shall see.” This he did and said, “I see it now.” But immediately he made the contrary true, and then he said, “I see that this is true also.”
At this we smiled and said, “Are they not contraries? How can two contraries both be true?”
Becoming angry at this, he said, “You are wrong; both are true, inasmuch as there is nothing true but what man makes true.”
[3] There was one standing near who in the world had been an ambassador of the highest grade. He was astonished at this and said, “I acknowledge that something like this goes on in the world, nevertheless you are insane. Make it true, if you can, that light is darkness, and that darkness is light.”
He answered, “I can do that easily. What are light and darkness but states of the eye? Is not light turned to shade when the eye turns from sunlight, as also when a man fixes his eye intently upon the sun? Who does not know that the state of the eye is then changed, and that therefore light appears as shade? And again, when the former state of the eye returns, this shade appears as light. Does not the owl see the darkness of night as the light of day, and the light of day as the darkness of night, and even the sun itself as an opaque and dusky globe? If a man had eyes like an owl’s what would he call light and what darkness? What then is light but a state of the eye? And if light is only a state of the eye, is not light darkness and darkness light? Therefore both statements are true.”
[4] But as this confirmation confounded some, I said, “I have noticed that this confirmer does not know that there is a true light and a fatuous light, and that both kinds seem to be light; yet the fatuous light in reality is not light, but compared to true light is darkness. An owl is in fatuous light; for within its eyes there is a passion for tearing birds to pieces and devouring them, and this light causes its eyes to see at night, precisely like those of cats, whose eyes in cellars look like lighted candles. It is the fatuous light arising within their eyes from the passion for tearing mice to pieces and devouring them, which produces this effect. Evidently, therefore, the light of the sun is true light, and the light of greed is fatuous light.”
[5] After this, the ambassador asked the confirmer to make it true that a raven is white and not black.
He answered, “That also I can easily do.” And he said, “Take a needle or a razor, and open the quills and feathers of a raven; then remove the quills and feathers, and look at the raven’s skin; is it not white? What is the blackness that surrounds it, but a shade, from which we must not judge of the color of the raven? For proof that black is only a shade, consult those skilled in the science of optics, and they will tell you that if you grind a black stone or black glass to fine powder, you will see that the powder is white.”
But the ambassador said, “Does not the raven appear to the sight to be black?”
The confirmer answered, “Are you, who are a man, willing to consider a subject from appearances? You may indeed say according to the appearance that a raven is black but you cannot think so. As for example you may say according to the appearance, that the sun rises and sets; but as you are a man you cannot think so, because the sun is motionless and the earth moves. It is the same with a raven. The appearance is an appearance. Say what you will, a raven is totally white; it even becomes white when it grows old; this I have seen.”
After this the bystanders looked at me; therefore I said, “It is true that the quills and feathers of a raven partake of whiteness inwardly; so does its skin; but this is the case not only with ravens but all the birds in the universe as well; and everyone distinguishes birds by their apparent colors; if this were not done, we might say that every bird is white, which would be absurd and meaningless.”
[6] Then the ambassador asked him whether he could make it true that he was himself insane; and he answered, “I can, but I do not wish to do so. Who is not insane?”
Finally, they asked him to say from his heart whether he was jesting, or really believed that there is nothing true but what man makes true; and he said, “I swear that I believe it.”
Afterwards this universal confirmer was sent to the angels, who examined his character; and after the examination they said that he did not possess a single grain of understanding, because in him everything above the rational was closed, and only that below the rational was open; above the rational there is spiritual light, and below the rational natural light; and this light in man is such that by it he can confirm whatever he pleases. When spiritual light does not flow into natural light, man does not see whether any truth is a truth, nor, therefore, whether any falsehood is a falsehood; these must be seen from spiritual light in natural light, and spiritual light is from the God of heaven, who is the Lord. Therefore this universal confirmer is neither man nor beast, but is a beast-man.
[7] I asked the angels about the lot of such, whether they could be with the living, since man has life from spiritual light, and from this comes his understanding. They said that such, when they are alone, are unable to think at all and therefore to speak, but stand dumb like automatons and as it were in a deep sleep; but that they wake up the moment their ears catch anything. They added that those who are inmostly wicked become such; into these spiritual light from above cannot flow, but only something spiritual from the world from which they derive their faculty of confirming.
[8] When this had been said I heard a voice from the angels who examined him, saying, “From what you have heard form a universal conclusion.”
This was the conclusion: That the ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not an indication of understanding; but the ability to see that truth is truth, and that falsehood is falsehood, and to confirm it is an indication of understanding.
After this, I looked toward the assembly where the confirmers were standing with the crowd about them crying, “O how wise!” And lo! a dusky cloud enveloped them, and in the cloud owls and bats were flying. And it was told me, “The owls and bats that are flying in the cloud were correspondences and therefore appearances of their thoughts; because in this world confirmations of falsities to such an extent that they seem to be truths, are represented under the form of birds of night, whose eyes are illumined within by a fatuous light, whereby they see objects in darkness as in light. Such fatuous spiritual light do those have who confirm falsities until they seem like truths, and who afterward believe them to be truths. All such have a sort of backward sight, but no forward sight.”

Why is there so much attention paid to this very subject, which is self-evident?

Because what is clear to some people, is not so clear to other people.

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Please consult also the following concering the sodomy in its natural and spiritual sense:

Statement about Sodomy

Lord’s New Church which is Nova Hierosolyma

Statement about Sodomy

September 16,1988 Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The International Interior Council and the International Council of Priests in joint meetings have considered the position of those in the Church who are practising sodomy. They present the following things for your consideration. In the Church all things have to be judged by the Church’s understanding of the Word of the Lord. The opinions of the world, which are constantly changing with the times, have no importance with regard to the principles by which the Church should be led.

It is the understanding of the Councils that according to the Word, sodomy is an evil which does great harm to the spiritual life of man. The attached paper contains teachings of the Word that sustain that understanding. Sodomy is to be considered as a transgression of the sixth Commandment. Though we may not have light about how the inclination to homosexuality comes into existence, just as we know little about the cause of other sexual deviations, the Church cannot condone the practice of it, any more than the practice of any other disorderly inclination. To condone those evils would be unfaithful to the Lord’s Word and do harm to the Church, since the end of the Church is to strive for the conjunction with Heaven and the Lord.

The Councils wish to add that conjugial love is the fundamental love of Heaven. It is the privilege of the New Church that the Lord has revealed this truth to it. The Church therefore encourages sound marriage relationships as the basis for the coming into a state of conjugial love. For the same reason, it discourages all things of life that according to the Word might be harmful to conjugial love. In the second part of the Work on Conjugial Love laws of order are stated for those who cannot yet enter married life, laws that protect the potentiality of coming into conjugial love.

Among those laws there is none that would give rise to the idea that homosexuality could serve that purpose, though it may be true that there are more and less evil forms of sodomy. To the contrary, the Word makes it clear that sodomy is adultery. Consequently, those members who practice sodomy cannot be considered differently from those who are in a life contrary to other Commandments of the Decalogue.

Rev. Peter van Balen,
President
International Council of Priests

With regard to the teachings about sodomy, those of the Church must acknowledge that the internal evil which produces sodomy in the Spiritual World is present with everyone from birth, and must be faced in the order of regeneration, (Cp. Apocalypse Revealed 502.) All the external evils mentioned in the Word signify in their internal sense things which must be faced by men in the order of regeneration.

Leviticus 18:22:
Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination.

Leviticus 20:13:
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Arcana Coelestia 2220:
In the following chapter it appears as if by Sodom is signified the evil of the worst adultery, still nevertheless by it in the internal sense nothing else is signified than evil out of the love of self.

Arcana Coelestia 2322:
They who grasp the Word out of the sense of the letter alone, can suppose that by Sodom is meant filthiness which is against the order of nature: but in the internal sense by Sodom is signified the evil of the love of self; out of this evil all evils of whatsoever kind gush forth, and the things which thence gush forth are called adulteries in the Word and are described by them.

Spiritual Diary 2675:
Concerning Sodomy. (Heading) In the other life they who are sinners of sodomy, they in their life had believed nothing about the life after death, nor that there is hell and Heaven, but that they are altogether as beasts, and would die like them. … In the other life they are treated most miserably and are punished with infernal torments, which are so dire they can scarcely be described; and moreover they (constitute) the region of the tail, where are the faeces, because they are dung, and dwell in privies.

In the Spiritual World, in hell, and with those on the way to hell, every conjunction of the evil and false in the mind produces some form of adultery in the external of their lives. Sodomy is produced there by the love of commanding out of the love of self. This is described in the following numbers:

Apocalypse Explained 1006:2:
There are sodomitic hells for those who were in evils out of the love of commanding over others out of the sole delight of commanding and in no delight of uses.

De Coniugio 86:
The love of self, especially of ruling and still thinking out of the Word, is such as there was at Sodom….

Spiritual Diary 6696: XXIX:

That they who are in the highest degree of commanding out of the love of self, and not for the sake of uses, are in Sodom.

It is from these things in the Spiritual World that the internal sense of Sodom in the Word is derived, namely the evil of the love of self, especially in the form of the love of commanding, ruling and dominating out of the love of self, without any love of use.

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In the past year abortion was made legal in the United States by decision of the Supreme Court. The legalization of abortion has taken place or is about to take place in many other formerly Christian countries. By this action the civil laws protecting the lives of unborn children have been removed. The right or wrong of abortion is left to the conscience of the expectant mothers, or to their whims, if they have not a conscience.

The conscience of those of the Church on such a matter must be formed from the teachings of the Word of the Lord, and with us this means, in the first place, from the teachings of the Third Testament. Because this subject has not been publicly considered in the Church, the teachings of the Word that have relation to it are not widely known within the Church. Under the present circumstances it is needful that they be brought to the attention of all in the Church.

The Third Testament does not speak directly of abortion, but it does speak of the life of the embryo in the womb, and the teachings on this subject must be considered by those in the Church.

In the Arcana Coelestia 3570:4 it is said: “It is known that the soul of man begins in the ovum of the mother, and is perfected next in her womb, and there is given round with a tender body, and indeed with such that the soul through it can act suitably in the world into which it is to be born” This does not mean that the soul is from the mother. The general teaching of the Word is that the soul is from the father. But the soul which is present in the seed of the father is not the soul of a man until it is conjoined with the ovum of the mother. The beginning of the soul of an individual man is when the soul in the seed from the father is conjoined with the ovum of the mother.

In the work entitled “The Divine Wisdom”, (generally to be found at the end of the sixth volume of the Apocalypse Explained,) in the second chapter, it is said that the Lord has created with man, and afterwards forma with him, a receptacle of love, which is the will, and adjoins to this a receptacle of wisdom, which is his understanding. And further on in the beginning of that chapter it is said: “1. That these forms, which are the receptacles of love and wisdom, first exist with man conceived and being born in the womb.” In the “Divine Wisdom”, chapter III, the summary of the contents of the chapter reads as follows: “1. That the Lord conjoins Himself to man in the womb of the mother from first conception, and forms him. 2. That He conjoins Himself in those two receptacles, in one through love, in the other through wisdom. 3. That love and wisdom simultaneously and unanimously form all and single things, but still distinguish themselves in them. 4. That the receptacles are distinguished into three degrees with man, one with another, and that the two superior degrees are the dwelling-places of the Lord, but not the lowest. 5. That one receptacle is for the will of the future man, and the other for his understanding; and yet nothing whatever of his will and understanding is present in the formation. 6. That in the embryo before it has been born there is life, but that the embryo is not conscious of it.”

Further on in that third chapter, in treating of the first of the above listed subjects, it is said: “All this work of preparation of Himself the Lord does in the womb.” And further in the same section, “While man is in the womb he is in a state of innocence; thence his first state after birth is a state of innocence; and the Lord does not dwell with man unless in his innocence, wherefore especially then when he is as if innocence. Likewise man then is in a state of peace.” And under the sixth subject of this chapter, it is said: .. “That-the-.life, out of which, the embryo lives in the womb is not his, but the Lord’s alone, Who alone is Life”.

Consider all the things said in the second and third chapters of the above quoted Work. Consider also what is said at the end of the Divine Love and Wisdom, number 432, concerning the quality of the initiament of man from conception.

From these teachings it must be clear to all that the embryo in the womb, in its conception and in its formation, is called a man, and has working within it the life that is of the Lord. Nothing on earth can be compared to the wonders that are taking place within it, except the miracle of regeneration by the Lord, through which a man receives the Lord’s life as the life of Heaven within him. Abortion, which is the killing of such a being, cannot be taken lightly, as now it is in the world. Any in the Church who consider themselves to be faced with the question of abortion cannot but regard it as an evil, only to be excused if some worse evil might result without it, such as the death of the mother and the child. And the judgment as to what is a worse evil is a most grievous one, requiring the best available knowledge from the Church and from the doctors.

It is taught in the “Divine Wisdom” chapter 3, section 5, that the embryo has no proper life of its own until the lungs are opened. This teaching has generally been understood to mean that an embryo has no eternal life until it has drawn the first breath at birth, although some students of this subject in the New Church believe that this is not involved in that teaching, and that every embryo has eternal life from its conception. From the idea that an embryo has no eternal life until its first breath at birth, some have argued that the killing of an embryo is in no sense a form of murder. But even if we were to take it for certain that an embryo has no eternal life until its birth, what does this really have to do with the question as to the degree of the evil of abortion? Must we not still face the question as to which is the greater crime, to kill a man after he has been born, and has an eternal existence before him, or to kill that which has been prepared for an eternal existence and which could have an eternal existence, if it were to live?

Some also argue that the killing of an embryo is no worse than the prevention of the conception of an embryo, whether this is done by abstention or by the employ­ment of other means of birth control. The fallacy in this argument appears to me to be that while the male sperm is a potential human soul, it is not in fact the soul of a man until conjoined with the ovum of the mother. A male sperm is not by itself a human life begun. It cannot by itself ever become an eternal being. An embryo is the beginning of a human life, and it can become an eternal being.

There are many human problems which force those who have to face them to consider the possibility of abortion. There is sometimes the danger or even the certainty that a mother will die if a pregnancy is continued: there is the shame of a woman who must bear an illegitimate child: there is the fear of giving birth to a deformed or hopelessly retarded child due to disease or to the influence of drugs: there is the problem of what should be done in the unlikely event of conception following rape; there is the problem of what must be done if a pregnancy would bring about the mental breakdown of a mother. These are heart-rending problems. We do not propose to enter into all these problems in this short paper, but we ask that you consider them and consult with your pastors about them, and with your doctors. Let your conscience be formed from the Word and from the best enlightened knowledge you can obtain from the world. Do this while you are under no pressure from any such problem. Most of you will never have to face any of these problems. But it is best to have your thought, your conscience, formed clearly about them, rather than to face them in a panic, in that unlikely event that you are forced to do so.

It may be said that the Church needs much more light to face such a moral problem as abortion, and that we here are facing it only out of an external understand­ing, from the sense of the letter of the Third Testament. To this we must reply that the Church and every one in it must face such problems in such light from the Word as we now have. The giving of any more interior light in the Word depends on our living what we  see to be true in the  sense of its  letter. Certainly we need more  light, more Love, more Mercy.  But  if we do  nothing, with  that which  He has given us , how  can we by Him be prepared to receive more?

If you  wish to see what is represented in  the Word by an embryo, consider  what is said in the  Apocalypse Explained,  number 710:  “’And having the womb’ That it signifies nascent doctrine out of the good of love celestial lb evident’ out of the signification of to have in the womb when concerning the Church which is signified by the woman, that it is the nascent doctrine of the true out of the good of love celestial. By the womb is signified inmost love conjugial, and thence love celestial in the whole complex. And by the embryo who is in the womb, the true of doctrine out of the good of love celestial; for by him is signified a like thing as by the male son whom she brought forth, concerning whom in the fifth verse following, through whom the doctrine of the true out of the good of love is signified; with the difference that the embryo, because still in the womb, draws more from the good of innocence than after he has been born.”

It is to be feared that the present acceptance of abortion, and the inhuman lack of feeling with regard to it, is an ultimate of the hatred of the hells against all innocence, against the nascent Doctrine of the Church. That cold, cruel hatred works its way into the minds of ignorant men, resting in men besotted with the superficial reasonings of the loves of self, of the world, and of pleasures.

Read the paper on Abortion by Rev. Philip Odhner