loving the Lord as one's Father
by doing His commandments and wishing to be led by Him and not by
oneself, thus like a little child. As that love is innocence, it is the
very being (esse) of all good; and therefore man has so much of heaven
in himself, or he is so much in heaven, as he is in marriage love,
because he is so far in innocence. It is because true marriage love is
innocence that the playfulness between a married pair is like the play
of little children; and this is so in the measure in which they love
each other, as is evident in the case of all in the first days after the
nuptials, when their love emulates true marriage love. The innocence of
marriage love is meant in the Word by the "nakedness" at which Adam and
his wife blushed not; and for the reason that there is nothing of
lasciviousness, and thus nothing of shame, between a married pair, any
more than between little children when they are naked together. (A.E.,
n. 996.)

Since marriage love in its first essence is love to the Lord from the
Lord, and thus is innocence, marriage love is also peace, such as angels
in the heavens have. For as innocence is the very being (esse) of all
good, so peace is the very being (esse) of all delight from good,
consequently is the very being (esse) of all joy between the married
pair. As, then, all joy is of love, and marriage love is the
fundamental love of all the loves of heaven, so peace itself has its
seat chiefly in marriage love. Peace is bliss of heart and soul arising
from the conjunction of the Lord with heaven and the church, as well as
from conjunction of good and truth, when all conflict and combat of evil
and falsity with good and truth has ceased. And as marriage love
descends from such conjunction so all the delight of that love descends
and derives its essence from heavenly peace. Moreover, this peace
shines forth in the heavens as heavenly bliss from the faces of a
married pair who are in that love, and who mutually regard each other
from that love. But such heavenly bliss, which inmostly affects the
delights of loves, and is called peace, can be granted only to those who
can be joined together inmostly, that is, as to their very hearts.
(A.E., n. 997.)

Man has such and so much of intelligence and wisdom as he has of
marriage love. The reason is that marriage love descends from the love
of good and truth as an effect does from its cause, or as the natural
from its spiritual; and from the