the supreme end of creation, all the beatitudes,
satisfaction, delights, pleasantnesses and pleasures, which the Lord
the Creator could possibly confer upon man, are gathered into this
love.

--_Conjugial Love, n._ 68

ITS WHOLE ESTATE

The states of conjugial love are Innocence, Peace, Tranquillity,
Inmost Friendship, full Confidence, and mutual desire of mind and
heart to do each other every good. From all of these come blessedness,
satisfaction, agreeableness and pleasure; and as the eternal fruition
of them, heavenly happiness. These states can be realized only in the
marriage of one man with one wife.

--_Conjugial Love, nn._ 180, 181

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES

"They testify of Me."

--_John_, V, 39

GOD'S WORD

In its inmosts the Sacred Scripture is no other than God, that is, the
Divine which proceeds from God.... In its derivatives it is
accommodated to the perception of angels and men. In these it is
Divine likewise, but in another form, in which this Divine is called
"Celestial," "Spiritual," and "Natural." These are no other than
coverings of God. Still the Divine, which is inmost, and is covered
with such things as are accommodated to the perceptions of angels and
men, shines forth like light through crystalline forms, but variously,
according to the state of mind which a man has formed for himself,
either from God or from self. In the sight of the man who has formed
the state of his mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror
in which he sees God, each in his own way. The truths which he learns
from the Word and which become a part of him by a life according to
them, compose that mirror. The Sacred Scripture is the fulness of God.

--_True Christian Religion, n._ 6

IN ITS BOSOM SPIRITUAL

The Word in its bosom is spiritual. Descending from Jehovah the Lord,
and passing through the angelic heavens, the Divine (in itself
ineffable and imperceptible) became level with the perception of
angels and finally the perception of man. Hence the Word has a
spiritual sense, which is within the natural, just as the soul is in
the body, or as thought is in speech, or volition in action.

--_True Christian Religion, n._ 193

THE LETTER OF THE WORD

The truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are in part
appearances of truth, and are taken from things in nature, and thus
accommodated and adapted to the grasp of the simple and also of little
child