from the Word, and also in some manner acknowledge them, and not those who do not know them, nor those who from impiety entirely reject them, therefore what follows is said not of the latter but of the former. Their profanation is of many kinds, lighter, and more grievous; but they may be reduced to these seven.
The first kind of profanation is by those who jest from the Word and about the Word, or from the Divine things of the church, and about them. This is done by some from a depraved habit of taking names or forms of speech from the Word, and mixing them up with conversation scarcely becoming, and sometimes filthy; which cannot but be connected with some contempt for the Word. And yet in each and all things the Word is Divine and Holy; for every word therein conceals in its bosom something Divine, and thereby it has communication with heaven. But this kind of profanation is lighter or more grievous according to the acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the unbecoming character of the discourse in which it is introduced by the jesters. (D. P. n. 231.)
They who jest from the Word do not esteem it holy; and they who jest about the Word account it of trifling value. And yet the Word is the very Divine Truth of the Lord with man; and the Lord is present in the Word, and also heaven; for the least particulars of the Word communicate with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord. Therefore to jest from the Word, and about the Word, is to strew the dust of the earth upon the sacred things of heaven. (A. E. n. 1064.)
The second kind of profanation is by those who understand and acknowledge Divine truths, and yet live contrary to them. But they more lightly profane who only understand; and they more grievously who also acknowledge; for the understanding only teaches, scarcely otherwise than as a preacher, and of itself does not conjoin itself with the will; but acknowledgment conjoins itself, for nothing can be acknowledged but with the consent of the will. But this conjunction is various; and according to the conjunction is the profanation when the life is contrary to the truths which are acknowledged. For example, if one acknowledges that revenge and hatred, adultery and fornication, fraud and deceit, blasphemy and lying, are sins against God, and yet commits them, he is in this more grievous kind of profanation; for the Lord says, "The servant which knoweth his Lord's will, and doeth not His will, shall he beaten with many stripes" (Luke xii. 47). And again, "If ye were blind, ye would not have sin; hut now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth" (John ix. 41). But it is one thing to acknowledge appearances of truth, and another to acknowledge genuine truths. They that acknowledge
