that has not bowed to the yoke of such domination and that
regards the Word as holy; this noble nation is the French nation.

[5] But what was done? When self-love exalted its dominion even to the
Lord's throne, removing Him and setting itself on it, that love, which is
Lucifer, could not but have profaned all things of the Word and the
church. Lest this should happen, the Lord in His divine providence took
care that they should recede from worship of Him, invoke the dead, pray
to graven images of the dead, kiss their bones and kneel at their tombs,
should ban the reading of the Word, appoint holy worship in masses not
understood by the common people, and sell salvation for money. For if
they had not done this, they would have profaned the sanctities of the
Word and the church. For, as was shown in the preceding section, only
those profane holy things who know them.

[6] Lest, too, they should profane the most Holy Supper it is of the
Lord's divine providence that they divide it, giving the bread to the
people and drinking the wine themselves. For the wine of the Supper
signifies holy truth and the bread holy good; but divided the wine
signifies truth profaned and the bread good adulterated. It is also of
the Lord's divine providence that they should render the Holy Supper
corporeal and material and give it the prime place in religion. Anyone
who gives these particulars his attention and reflects on them in some
enlightenment of his mind can see the amazing action of divine providence
for the protection of the sanctities of the church and for the salvation
of all who can be saved and are ready to be snatched from the fire, so to
speak, from which they must be snatched.

258. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence
because some among those who profess the Christian religion place
salvation in certain phrases which they are to think and speak and not at
all in good works which they are to do._ We showed in _Doctrine of the
New Jerusalem about Faith_ that these are such as make faith alone saving
and not the life of charity, thus such as separate faith from charity. It
was also shown that these are meant in the Word by "Philistines,"
"dragon" and "goats."

[2] That such doctrine has been permitted is also of divine providence
lest the divine of the Lord and the sanctity of the Word should be
profaned. The divine of the Lord is not profaned when salvation is placed
in these words: That God the