ask them privately, what they think concerning God, the church, and eternal life, and you will hear.  The genuine reason is, because as conjugial love opens the interiors of the mind; and thereby elevates them above the sensual principles of the body, even into the light and heat of heaven, so, on the other hand, the love of adultery closes the interiors of the mind, and thrusts down the mind itself, as to its will, into the body, even into all things which its flesh lusts after; and the deeper it is so thrust down, the further it is removed and set at a distance from heaven.

498.  XVII.  NEVERTHELESS THEY HAVE THE POWERS OF HUMAN RATIONALITY LIKE OTHER MEN.  That the natural man, the sensual, and the corporeal, is equally rational, in regard to understanding, as the spiritual man, has been proved to me from satans and devils arising by leave out of hell, and conversing with angelic spirits in the world of spirits; concerning whom, see the MEMORABLE RELATIONS throughout; but as the love of the will makes the man, and this love draws the understanding into consent, therefore such are not rational except in a state removed from the love of the will; when they return again into this love, they are more dreadfully insane than wild beasts.  But a man, without the faculty of elevating the understanding above the love of the will, would not be a man but a beast; for a beast does not enjoy that faculty; consequently neither would he be able to choose any thing, and from choice to do what is good and expedient, and thus he would not be in a capacity to be reformed, and to be led to heaven, and to live for ever.  Hence it is, that determined and confirmed adulterers, although they are merely natural, sensual, and corporeal, still enjoy, like other men, the powers of understanding or rationality:  but when they are in the lust of adultery, and think and speak from that lust concerning it, they do not enjoy that rationality; because then the flesh acts on the spirit, and not the spirit on the flesh.  It is however to be observed, that these at length after death become stupid; not that the faculty of growing wise is taken away from them, but that they are unwilling to grow wise, because wisdom is undelightful to them.

499.  XVIII.  BUT THEY USE THAT RATIONALITY WHILE THEY ARE IN EXTERNALS, BUT ABUSE IT WHILE THEY ARE IN INTERNALS.  They are in externals when they converse abroad and in company, but in their internals when at home or with themselves.  If you wish, make the experiment; bring some person of this character, as, for example, one of the order called Jesuits, and cause him to speak in company, or to teach in a temple, concerning God, the holy things of the church, and heaven and hell, and you will hear him a more rational zealot than any other; perhaps also he will force you to sighs and tears for your salvation; but take him into your house, praise him excessively, call him the father of wisdom, and make yourself his friend,