246. _After Solomon many kings were allowed to profane the temple and the sacred things of the church._ This was because the people represented the church and the king was their head. The Israelitish and Jewish nation was of such a nature that they could not represent the church for long, for at heart they were idolaters; they therefore relapsed gradually from representative worship, perverting all things of the church, even to devastating it finally. This was represented by the profanations of the temple by the kings and by the people's idolatries; the full devastation of the church was represented by the destruction of the temple, the carrying off of Israel, and the captivity of Judah in Babylon. Such was the cause of this toleration; and what is done for some cause is done under divine providence according to one of its laws. 247. _That nation was permitted to crucify the Lord._ This was because the church with that nation was entirely devastated and had become such that they not only did not know or acknowledge the Lord, but hated Him. Still, all that they did to Him was according to laws of His divine providence. See in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord_ (nn. 12-14) and in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith_ (nn. 34, 35) that the passion of the cross was the last temptation or battle by which the Lord fully conquered the hells and fully glorified His Humanity. 248. So far the points listed at n. 236 have been explained, involving passages in the Word by which the naturally minded reasoner may confirm himself against divine providence. For, as was said, whatever such a man sees, hears or reads he can make into an argument against providence. Few persons, however, confirm themselves against divine providence from incidents in the Word, but many do so from things before their eyes, listed at n. 237. These are to be explained now in like manner. 249. _Every worshiper of self and of nature confirms himself against divine providence when he sees so many impious in the world and so many of their impieties and how some glory in them, yet sees the impious go unpunished by God._ All impieties and all gloryings in them are permissions, of which the causes are laws of divine providence. Each human being can freely, indeed very freely, think what he wills, against God as well as in favor of God. One who thinks against God is rarely punished in the natural world, for he is always in a state to be reformed then, but is punished in the spiritual world, which is done after death, for then he can no longer be reformed.