the flesh, is sensible of those things which happen in the flesh.  The case is the same with this sense as with the rest:  as that the eye does not see and discern various particulars in objects, but they are seen and discerned by the spirit; neither does the ear hear and discern the harmonies of tunes in singing, and the concordances of the articulation of sounds in speech, but they are heard and discerned by the spirit; moreover, the spirit is sensible of every thing according to its elevation in wisdom.  The spirit that is not elevated above the sensual things of the body, and thereby adheres to them, is not sensible of any other delights than those which flow in from the flesh and the world through the senses of the body:  these delights it seizes upon, is delighted with, and makes its own.  Now, since the beginnings of adulterous love are only the stimulant fires and itchings of the flesh, it is evident, that these things in the spirit are filthy allurements, which, as they ascend and descend, and reciprocate, so they excite and inflame.  In general the cupidities of the flesh are nothing but the accumulated concupiscences of what is evil and false:  hence comes this truth in the church, that the flesh lusts against the spirit, that is, against the spiritual man; wherefore it follows, that the delights of the flesh, as to the delights of adulterous love, are nothing but the effervescences of lusts, which in the spirit become the ebullitions of immodesty.

441.  But the delights of conjugial love have nothing in common with the filthy delights of adulterous love:  the latter indeed are in the spirit of every man; but they are separated and removed, as the man’s spirit is elevated above the sensual things of the body, and from its elevation sees their appearances and fallacies beneath:  in this case it perceives fleshly delights, first as apparent and fallacious, afterwards as libidinous and lascivious, which ought to be shunned, and successively as damnable and hurtful to the soul, and at length it has a sense of them as being undelightful, disagreeable, and nauseous; and in the degree that it thus perceives and is sensible of these delights, in the same degree also it perceives the delights of conjugial love as innocent and chaste, and at length as delicious and blessed.  The reason why the delights of conjugial love become also delights of the spirit in the flesh, is, because after the delights of adulterous love are removed, as was just said above, the spirit being loosed from them enters chaste into the body, and fills the breasts with the delights of its blessedness, and from the breasts fills also the ultimates of that love in the body; in consequence whereof, the spirit with these ultimates, and these ultimates with the spirits, afterwards act in full communion.