resulting diseases, from fear of upbraidings at home from his wife and
consequent intranquility of life, from fear of chastisement by the
servants of the injured husband, from poverty, or from avarice; from
infirmity arising from abuse or from age or impotence or disease; in
fact, when one abstains because of any natural or moral law, and does
not at the same time abstain because of the Divine law, he is interiorly
unchaste and an adulterer, since he none the less believes that
adulteries are not sins, and therefore declares them lawful in his
spirit, and thus commits them in spirit, although not in the body;
consequently after death when he becomes a spirit he speaks openly in
favor of them, and commits them without shame.

It has been granted me in the spiritual world to see maidens who
regarded whoredoms as wicked because they are contrary to the Divine
law, and also maidens who did not regard them as wicked and yet
abstained from them because the resulting bad name would turn away
suitors. These latter I saw encompassed with a dusky cloud in their
descent to those below, while the former I saw encompassed with a
shining light in their ascent to those above. (A.E., n. 1009.)

VII. The Seventh Commandment

In what now follows something shall be said about the seventh
commandment, which is, "Thou shalt not kill." In all the commandments
of the Decalogue, as in all things of the Word, two internal senses are
involved (besides the highest which is a third), one that is next to the
letter and is called the spiritual moral sense, another that is more
remote and is called the spiritual celestial sense.

The nearest sense of this commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," which is