mingle all those things, but also mix them in marriages, and defile the latter with a like notion; but where it is the case, that the latter are not distinguished from the former, such persons, after their vague commerce with the sex, are overtaken by colds, loathings, and nauseousness, at first in regard to a married partner, next in regard to women in other characters, and lastly in regard to the sex. It is self-evident that with such persons there is no purpose, intention, or end, of what is good or chaste, that they may be exculpated, and no separation of evil from good, or of what is unchaste from what is chaste, that they may be purified, as in the case of those who from fornication look to conjugial love, and give the latter the preference, (concerning whom, see the foregoing article, n. 452). The above observations I am allowed to confirm by this new information from heaven: I have met with several, who in the world had lived outwardly like others, wearing rich apparel, feasting daintily, trading like others with money, borrowed upon interest, frequenting stage exhibitions, conversing jocosely on love affairs as from wantonness, besides other similar things: and yet the angels charged those things upon some as evils of sin, and upon others as not evils, and declared the latter guiltless, but the former guilty; and on being questioned why they did so, when the deeds were alike, they replied, that they regard all from purpose, intention, or end, and distinguish accordingly; and that on this account they excuse and condemn those whom the end excuses and condemns, since all in heaven are influenced by a good end, and all in hell by an evil end; and that this, and nothing else, is meant by the Lord’s words, Judge not, that ye be not judged, Matt. vii. 1.
454. IX. The lust of fornication is more grievous as it verges to the desire of varieties and of defloration. The reason of this is, because these two desires are accessories of adulteries, and thus aggravations of it: for there are mild adulteries, grievous adulteries, and most grievous; and each kind is estimated according to its opposition to, and consequent destruction of, conjugial love. That the desire of varieties and the desire of defloration, strengthened by being brought into act, destroy conjugial love, and drown it as it were in the bottom of the sea, will be seen presently, when those subjects come to be treated of.
455. X. The sphere of the lust of fornication, such as it is in the beginning, is a middle sphere between the sphere of adulterous love and the sphere of conjugial love, and makes an equilibrium. The two Spheres, of adulterous love and conjugial love, were treated of in the foregoing chapter, where it was shewn that the sphere of adulterous love ascends from hell, and the sphere of conjugial love descends from heaven, n. 435; that those two spheres meet each other in each world, but do. not unite, n, 436; that between those two spheres there is an equilibrium, and that man is in it, n. 437;
