112. A final and ninth time the angel took up a piece of paper, and he read from it the following opinion:

"We fellow countrymen in our committee applied our judgment to the two aspects of the subject proposed - to the origin of conjugial love, and to the origin of its vigor or potency.

"When we debated the finer points regarding the origin of conjugial love, in order to avoid obscurities in our arguments we drew distinctions between a spiritual, a natural, and a carnal love between the sexes. By a spiritual love between the sexes we mean truly conjugial love, because it is spiritual. By a natural love between the sexes we mean polygamous love, because it is natural. And by a merely carnal love between the sexes we mean licentious love, because it is merely carnal.

"When we looked with our powers of judgment into truly conjugial love, we saw clearly that this love is possible only between one male and one female, and that it is from creation heavenly, most interior, and the soul and parent of all good loves, having been inspired into the first parents and capable of being inspired into Christians. It is also so conjunctive that by it two minds can become one mind, and two persons like one person, which is what is meant by their becoming one flesh.

"That this love was inspired from creation is apparent from these words in the book of creation:

And a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

"That it can be inspired into Christians is apparent from these verses:

(Jesus said,) "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh." (Matthew 19:4-6)

"The subject is the origin of conjugial love.

"As for the origin of the vigor or potency of truly conjugial love, moreover, we theorize that it comes from a similarity and unanimity of minds. For when two minds are joined in marriage, their thoughts then spiritually kiss each other, and they inspire in the body their vigor or potency."

This statement was signed below with the letters Sw.

Earth" is a general word that can be thought of as a container for other more specific words, as ground, field, or garden. Each of these means a person in an ascending series as that person learns truths from the Bible, thinks about them, and tries to apply them to life. The series represents the way of becoming good and wise. "Earth" and "ground" are terms that can go either way, as in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:4-8) there was both good ground and bad ground, but "field" and "garden" mean minds that are regenerating towards good. "Earth" in the Bible can mean a person or a group of like-minded people as in a church. But it refers specifically to the external of the person's mind, or of the general thought of the group. If heaven and earth are mentioned together, then both the internals and externals of the mind are meant – something to note when reading the creation story.

In Revelation the word "earth" is used both as a ground level as we use it in its natural sense and also as the sense of a group. The action in this book takes place in the great middle zone of the spiritual world, where people first go and where they are sorted out. There are both evil people and good there, and sometimes at the end of a church the evil can have great influence before a great judgment comes. This level of the spiritual realm is called the "earth" to which the dragon was cast down (Revelation 12:9) and to which the stars fell (Revelation 12:4). The "earth" that swallowed the dragon’s flood means those still-sincere people within the church who discounted the flood of the dragon's falsities (Revelation 12:15).