nly profane who believe rightly and live
rightly, and afterward believe wrongly and live wrongly. Besides this
kind of profanation there are other kinds that shall be treated of.
(A.E., n. 1051.)

III. The Second Kind of Profanation

There is another kind of profanation of holy things that those come into
who have supremacy as their end, and regard the holy things of the Word,
of the church, and of worship, as means. The Divine order is that
heaven and the church, and consequently the holy things of these, be the
end, and supremacy the means for promoting that end. For when holy
things are the end and supremacy the means, the Lord is worshipped and
adored; but when supremacy is the end and holy things the means, man
instead of the Lord is worshipped and adored. For the means look to the
end as servants look to their master, and the end looks to the means as
a master looks to his servants; consequently as a master esteems and
loves his servants according to the compliance they render to his will,
so a man who has supremacy as his end esteems and loves the holy things
of the Word, of the church, and of worship, according to the compliance
they render to his end, which is supremacy. And on the other hand, as a
lord despises and dismisses servants and takes others in their place
when they are not subservient to his will, so a man who has supremacy as
his end despises and rejects the holy things of the church, and takes
other things in their place when they are not subservient to his end,
which is supremacy.

From this it is clear that in those who have supremacy as their end,
holy things are of no account except so far as they are subservient to
the end, and also that they are not holy, but are profane when they are
subservient to this end; and for the reason that the end, when it is
supremacy, is the man himself, and as this end is love of self it is the
man's own (proprium); and man's own when viewed in itself is nothing but
evil, and indeed is profane, and the end joins to itself the means that
they may be as one. In this kind of profanation are all those who are
in sacred ministries, and who are seeking by means of the holy things of
the church to gain honor and glory, and these and not use, which is the
salvation of souls, are what give them joy of heart. (A.E., n. 1053.)

Those who are in this kind of profanation cannot do otherwise than
adulterate the goods of the Word and falsify its truths, and thus
perve