ant by the Lord's words, "_They are no
longer two, but one flesh_;" Matt. xix. 6.

216. VI. THOSE WHO ARE IN LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL, IN MARRIAGE HAVE RESPECT
TO WHAT IS ETERNAL; BUT WITH THOSE WHO ARE NOT THE CASE IS REVERSED.
Those who are in love truly conjugial have respect to what is eternal,
because in that love there is eternity; and its eternity is grounded in
this, that love with the wife, and wisdom with the husband, increases to
eternity; and in the increase or progression the married partners enter
more and more interiorly into the blessedness of heaven, which their
wisdom and its love have stored up together in themselves: if therefore
the idea of what is eternal were to be plucked away, or by any casualty
to escape from their minds, it would be as if they were cast down from
heaven. What is the state of conjugial partners in heaven, when the idea
of what is eternal falls out of their minds, and the idea of what is
temporal takes its place, was made evident to me from the following
case. On a certain time, permission having been granted for the purpose,
two married partners were present with me from heaven: and at that
instant the idea of what is eternal respecting marriage was taken away
from them by an idle disorderly spirit who was talking with craft and
subtlety. Hereupon they began to bewail themselves, saying, that they
could not live any longer, and that they felt such misery as they had
never felt before. When this was perceived by their co-angels in heaven,
the disorderly spirit was removed and cast down; whereupon the idea of
what is eternal instantly returned to them, and they were gladdened in
heart, and most tenderly embraced each other. Besides this, I have heard
two married partners, who at one instant entertained an idea of what is
eternal respecting their marriage, and the next an idea of what is
temporal. This arose from their being internally dissimilar. When they
were in the idea of what is eternal, they were mutually glad; but when
in the idea of what is temporal, they said, "There is no longer any
marriage between us;" and the wife, "I am no longer a wife, but a
concubine;" and the husband, "I am no longer a husband, but an
adulterer;" wherefore while their internal dissimilitude was open to
them, the man left the woman, and the woman the man: afterwards,
however, as each had an idea of what is eternal respecting marriage,
they were consociated with suitable partners. From these instances