[2] How those two senses differ from each other may be plainly seen in many passages of the Word, as in this, where it is said that the woman was seen drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the witnesses or martyrs of Jesus. By which words, in the natural sense, is meant that Babylon shed the blood of the saints, and the blood of those who testified concerning the Lord. Whereas by those words, in the spiritual sense, is meant that Babylon offered violence to Divine truths, and also to the testification of the Lord. That this sense is contained in those words may also be seen or concluded from this, that the modern Babylon has not killed the saints, or the witnesses of the Lord; for it adores the saints idolatrously, and the Lord with supreme although external sanctity, but the Pope with internal sanctity. It is therefore evident that these are not the things to be understood, but that something more interior lies concealed in these words; that is, that they have offered violence to Divine truths, and also to the Lord's Divine power; for they have offered violence to Divine truths by falsifying, adulterating, and profaning the Word; that they have offered violence to the Lord's Divine power by transferring it to themselves, is well known.

Continuation concerning Profanation:-

[3] It was said that the most grievous kind of profanation is, when the truths of the Word are acknowledged in faith, and confirmed in the life, and a man afterwards recedes from faith and lives wickedly, or if he does not recede from faith, yet still lives wickedly. He, however, is not guilty of profanation who in childhood, and even to adolescence, is in faith and in a life according thereto, and, afterwards, in manhood recedes from faith and from the life of faith. The reason is, that the faith of childhood is that of the memory, and the faith of his teacher in him, whereas the faith of manhood is that of the understanding, and thence a man's own. This faith may be profaned if a man recedes from it and lives contrary to it, but not the former. For nothing enters a man's life and affects it, but what comes into the understanding and thence into the will; and a man does not think from his own understanding and act from his own will until he arrives at adult age. Before this he thought merely from knowledge, and acted only from obedience. These do not become part of his life, and therefore cannot be profaned. In a word, whatever a man thinks, speaks, and does, from the understanding, the will assenting to it, belongs to his life, or becomes part of his life; and this, if it is holy, is profaned by his receding from it. But the profanations of this kind are more grievous and lighter according to the quality of the truth and of the faith therefrom, and according to the quality of the good and of the life therefrom, and according to the quality of the recession from them; there are, therefore, many specific differences in this profanation.