When procreations of the human race are effected by marriages in which the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reigns, then it is on earth as it is in the heavens, and the Lord’s kingdom on earth corresponds to the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens.  For the heavens consist of societies arranged according to all the varieties of celestial and spiritual affections, from which arrangement the form of heaven springs, and this pre-eminently surpasses all other forms in the universe.  There would be a like form on the earth if the procreations there were effected by marriages in which a true marriage love reigned; for then, however many families might descend in succession from one head of a family, there would spring forth as many images of the societies of heaven in a like variety.

Families would then be like fruit-bearing trees of various kinds, forming as many different gardens, each containing its own kind of fruit, and these gardens taken together would present the form of a heavenly paradise.  This is said in the way of comparison, because “trees” signify men of the church, “gardens” intelligence, “fruits” goods of life, and “paradise” heaven.  I have been told from heaven that with the most ancient people, from whom the first church on this globe was established, which was called by ancient writers the golden age, there was such a correspondence between families on the earth and societies in the heavens, because love to the Lord, mutual love, innocence, peace, wisdom, and chastity in marriages then prevailed; and it was also told me from heaven that they were then inwardly horrified at adulteries, as at the abominable things in hell. (A.E., n. 987.)

That heaven is from marriages and hell from adulteries has been shown above.  What this means shall now be told.  The hereditary evils into which man is born are not from Adam’s having eaten of the tree of knowledge, but from the adulteration of good and the falsification of truth by parents, thus from the marriage of evil and falsity, from which a love of adultery springs.  The ruling love of parents by means of a germ from it passes over into the offspring and is transcribed upon it and becomes its nature.  If the love of the parents is a love of adultery it is also a love of evil for falsity and of falsity for evil.  From this source man has all evil, and from evil he has hell.  All this makes clear that it is from adulteries that man has hell, until he is reformed by the Lord by means of truths and a life according to them.  And no one can be reformed unless he shuns adulteries as infernal and loves marriages as heavenly.  In this and in no other way is hereditary evil broken and rendered milder in the offspring.

It is to be noted, however, that while from adulterous parents man is born a hell, he is not born for hell but for heaven.  For the Lord provides that no one shall be condemned to hell on account of hereditary evils, but only on account of the evils that the man has actually made his own by his life, as can be seen from the lot of infants after death, all of whom are adopted by the Lord, educated under His auspices in heaven, and saved.  This makes clear that every man, although from the evils with which he is born he is a hell, is born not for hell but for heaven.