t love beyond the
enclosure of the heart; but within that and above it, the morality of a
youth is delighted with the beauty of a virgin in the delights of the
chaste love of the sex: which delights are of too interior a nature, and
too abundantly pleasant, to admit of any description in words. The
angels have this love of the sex, because they have conjugial love only;
which love cannot exist together with the unchaste love of the sex. Love
truly conjugial is chaste, and has nothing in common with unchaste love,
being confined to one of the sex, and separate from all others; for it
is a love of the spirit and thence of the body, and not a love of the
body and thence of the spirit; that is, it is not a love infesting the
spirit." On hearing this, the two young novitiates rejoiced, and said,
"There still exists in heaven a love of the sex; what else is conjugial
love?" But the angelic spirits replied, "Think more profoundly, weigh
the matter well in your minds, and you will perceive, that your love of
the sex is a love extra-conjugial, and quite different from conjugial
love; the latter being as distinct from the former, as wheat is from
chaff, or rather as the human principle is from the bestial. If you
should ask the females in heaven, 'What is love extra-conjugial?' I take
upon me to say, their reply will be, 'What do you mean? What do you say?
How can you utter a question which so wounds our ears? How can a love
that is not created be implanted in any one?' If you should then ask
them, 'What is love truly conjugial?' I know they will reply, 'It is not
the love of the sex, but the love of one of the sex; and it has no other
ground of existence than this, that when a youth sees a virgin provided
by the Lord, and a virgin sees a youth, they are each made sensible of a
conjugial principle kindling in their hearts, and perceive that each is
the other's, he hers, and she his; for love meets love and causes them
to know each other, and instantly conjoins their souls, and afterwards
their minds, and thence enters their bosoms, and after the nuptials
penetrates further, and thus becomes love in its fulness, which grows
every day into conjunction, till they are no longer two, but as it were
one.' I know also that they will be ready to affirm in the most solemn
manner, that they are not acquainted with any other love of the sex; for
they say, 'How can there be a love of the sex, unless it be tending
mutually to meet, and reciproc