74. The reason such adultery is felt by them is that they think about God, the Lord, salvation and everlasting life, and they confirm things from the Word which are consequently spiritual; and because they cannot have the slightest faith unless it is conjoined with some love, and with them the conjunction is with a purely natural love and its lusts; and the conjunction of faith with evil love causes this adultery. They think about faith from a life of evil, and when they are in the pleasures of earthly and bodily love. From this results the conjunction of faith or truth with evil. There is a spiritual element which is as it were the mother of faith, and the evil is the son.