Joel Chapter 1, the Internal Sense.

(From Swedenborg's work, "The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms")

(Verse 1) The Word has been perverted by false worship,

(2) when instead the Word should have been obeyed by everyone in the Church,

(3) and communicated to everyone who holds false beliefs that arise from evil loves.

(4) Instead, the spiritual things of the Church have been destroyed by sensualism.

(5) Now, remorse should be awakened, because of this loss of faith,

(6) a faith which has been destroyed by the lust of worshipping false gods,

(7) depriving the Church of spiritual truth and good.

(8) The Church should return to the Lord

(9) with inward mourning and contrition

(10) over the loss of good and truth in the natural and spiritual man -

(11) especially people who seek the good of the Church and who desire its genuine doctrine: for the Church is about to perish.

(12) Spiritual truth, its good, its knowledge, and its delights, which constitute the Church, are perverted.

(13) Only by repentance can communion with the Lord be renewed.

(14) The Church can only remove the evil and falsity by acknowledging and worshipping the Lord,

(15) for the end of the Church is near, when it will be judged.

(16) Good works are not being done, nor are there any people who delight in spiritual things.

(17) Natural good has been subordinated to evil, and the truth and good of the Word are rejected.

(18) Wherefore there is no good in the Church,

(19) and our hearts must be turned again to the Lord: for the love of self has corrupted all things in the church.

(20) Although truth is desired, it has been misappropriated to ourselves.

310. 14. After the wedding the marriage of the spirit becomes also one of the body and thus complete. Everything that a person does in the body flows in from his spirit. For as we know, the mouth does not speak of itself, but the thought of the mind by means of it. Neither do the hands act or the feet move of themselves, but the will of the mind by means of them. Consequently we see that it is the mind that speaks in the body by means of its organ of speech, and the mind that acts in the body by means of its organs of action. It is apparent therefore that as the mind is, such are the utterances of the mouth and actions of the body.

It follows as a conclusion from this that the mind continually flows into the body and directs the body toward activities in harmony with it and its development. Accordingly, viewed in themselves, human bodies are simply replicas of minds outwardly organized to carry out the bidding of the soul.

This much is said by way of introduction to make perceptible why it is that a couple's minds or spirits should be united to each other and as though married first, before they are united also in respect to the body; namely, that the marriage may be a marriage of the spirit when it becomes one of the body; consequently, that the partners may love each other because of the spirit and in body as a result of that.

[2] From this perspective let us now consider marriage. When conjugial love joins a couple's minds and molds them into a marriage, it also then joins and molds their bodies for it; for as said, the form of the mind is also, inwardly, the form of the body, with the single difference, that the form of the body is outwardly organized to carry out the ends to which its interior form is directed by the mind. When the mind has been molded by conjugial love, moreover, not only is it inwardly present in the whole body so as to radiate throughout, but it is inwardly present further in the organs dedicated to reproduction, which are situated in their own area below the other areas of the body. In people who are united by conjugial love, their cast of mind finds final expression there. Consequently the affections and thoughts of their minds are channeled to them. In this the operations of their minds differ from those arising from other loves, loves which do not extend to those organs.

It follows in conclusion from this that as conjugial love is in a couple's minds or spirits, such is it inwardly in the organs belonging to it.

Besides, it is evident in itself that a marriage of the spirit after the wedding becomes also one of the body, thus complete. Consequently, that if the marriage is chaste in spirit and draws its quality from its sanctity in the spirit, it is of the same character when it comes into its complete expression in the body; and of the opposite character if the marriage in spirit is unchaste.