431. 7. So, too, uncleanness in the church, and cleanness in it. The reason is that the church is the Lord's kingdom on earth, corresponding to His kingdom in heaven; and the Lord also joins the two together so that they are united. Moreover, the Lord distinguishes between the people who are in it, as He does between heaven and hell, setting them apart in accordance with their loves. People who are caught up in the shameless and obscene delights of licentious love draw to themselves spirits of a like character from hell, while people who abide in the modest and chaste delights of conjugial love are affiliated by the Lord with angels of a like character from heaven. When the angels associated with the latter are present in a person near deliberate and purposeful adulterers, they smell the foul odors mentioned above (no. 430) and withdraw a little.

[2] Because of the correspondence between filthy loves and piles of excrement and dirt, the children of Israel were commanded to carry a stake with them by which to cover their excrement, lest Jehovah their God, walking in the midst of their camp, see the nakedness of the thing and turn away (Deuteronomy 23:13-14). This was commanded, because the camp of the children of Israel represented the church, and those unclean elements corresponded to the lascivious delights of licentious lusts; and Jehovah God's walking in the midst of their camp symbolically meant His presence in the company of angels. They were to cover those things for the reason that all those places are covered and closed over in hell where companies of such spirits live; which is why it is added, lest He see the nakedness of the thing. I was granted an opportunity to see that all places in hell are closed over; and also to experience that, when they were opened (which happened when a new demon was entering), such a foul-smelling odor arose from them that it made my stomach ill. Moreover, what is astonishing, those stenches are as delightful to them as piles of excrement are to pigs.

It is apparent from this how the statement should be interpreted, that uncleanness in the church springs from licentious love, and that cleanness in it springs from conjugial love.