62. 3. There is a correspondence between this love and the marriage of the Lord and the church. In other words, as the Lord loves the church and wants the church to love Him, so a husband and wife love each other.
In the Christian world, people know there is a correspondence between these two relationships, but they do not yet know the nature of it. Therefore this correspondence will be explained in a separate chapter as well, in the chapter after next. 1 It is mentioned here in order to show that conjugial love is celestial, spiritual and holy, because it corresponds to the celestial, spiritual and holy marriage of the Lord and the church.
This correspondence also follows from the origin of conjugial love from the marriage between good and truth, referred to under the preceding heading, because the church in a person is a marriage of good and truth. For a marriage of good and truth is the same thing as a marriage of charity and faith, since good is a matter of charity and truth is a matter of faith. One cannot help but recognize that this marriage forms the church, because it is a universal truth, and every universal truth is acknowledged as soon as it is heard, which occurs as a result of the Lord's influx and, at the same time, the affirmation of heaven.
Now, since the church is the Lord's, being from the Lord, and since conjugial love corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church, it follows that this love comes from the Lord.
Voetnoten:
1. See "The Marriage of the Lord and the Church and Correspondence to It," nos. 116ff.
