Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 112

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112. For the last or NINTH time the angel took up a paper, from which he read as follows: "We compatriots, from our committee room, have addressed our judgment to the two points of the proposition, the origin of conjugial love and the origin of its virtue or potency. In discussing the subtleties of the origin of conjugial love, in order to avoid obscurity in our reasonings, we distinguished between spiritual, natural, and carnal love of the sex. By spiritual love of the sex, we mean love truly conjugial because this is spiritual; by natural love of the sex, we mean polygamous love because this is natural; and by merely carnal love of the sex, we mean scortatory love because this is merely carnal. When with our judgments we looked into love truly conjugial, we saw clearly that this love exists only between one male and one female, and that from creation it is heavenly and inmost love and the soul and father of all good loves--a love which was inspired into our first parents and which can be inspired into Christians. Moreover, it is so conjunctive that through it two minds can become one mind, and two human beings can be as one, this being meant by becoming one flesh. That this love was inspired from creation is plain from these words in the book of Creation:

And a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Gen. 2:24. That it can be inspired into Christians is plain from these words:

Jesus said, Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and he 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. Matt. 19:4-6. Thus far respecting the origin of conjugial love. As to the origin of the virtue or potency of love truly conjugial, this we surmise arises from a similarity and unanimity of minds. For when two minds are conjoined conjugially, their thoughts kiss each other spiritually, and these thoughts breathe their virtue or potency into the body." To this was subscribed the letter S.


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