1050. And with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, signifies violence done to those truths of the Word that teach that the Lord alone is to be adored. This is evident from the signification of "blood," as being the Divine truth of the Word and violence done to it (as has been said just above); also from the signification of "the witnesses of Jesus," as being those who in heart acknowledge the Lord, and worship and adore him only. That "to bear witness" means to acknowledge in heart, and that "the testimony of Jesus" means the acknowledgment of the Lord's Divine in His Human, and that He alone is to be worshiped and adored, may be seen (n. 10, 27, 228, 392, 635, 649, 749). That the Babylonians do violence to the truths of the Word that teach about the Lord can be clearly seen from this, that they have transferred the Lord's Divine authority to the Pope as His vicar, and worship and adoration along with it; also with this end in view they have separated the Lord's Divine from His Human, that they might say that they have not assumed His Divine but His Human authority; not being willing to know that the Divine authority consists chiefly in the power to save the human race; although the Babylonians appropriate even this power to themselves. But on this more will be said elsewhere.
(Continuation respecting Profanation)
[2] Why the state of profaners after death is so horrible shall be disclosed. Man has two minds, the natural and the spiritual. The natural mind is opened to him by the knowledges and cognitions of truth and good, and the spiritual mind is opened by a life according to these; and this is effected in those who know, acknowledge, and believe the truths of the Word and live according to them. In others that mind is not opened. When the spiritual mind has been opened, the light of heaven, which is Divine truth, flows through it into the natural mind, and there arranges truths in a corresponding order. Therefore when a man passes over into a contrary state, and either in faith or life denies the truths of the Word that he has previously acknowledged, the things that are in the natural mind no longer correspond with those that are in the spiritual mind; consequently heaven with its light flows in through the spiritual mind into things that do not correspond, or into things opposite in the natural man; and from this a fantasy arises that is so direful that they seem to themselves to fly in the air like dragons, while shreds and specks appear to them like giants and crowds, and a little ball like the whole globe, and other like things. The reason of this is that they have heaven in the spiritual mind and hell in the natural mind, and when heaven, which is in the spiritual mind, acts into hell, which is in the natural mind, such things appear. And as this destroys all things pertaining to the understanding, and the will with the understanding, the man comes to be no longer a man. And this is why a profaner is no longer called a man, nor he or she, but it, for he is a brute.
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