That this is so can be clearly seen from the Babylon of the present day, to which the holy things of the Word, of the church and of worship, are means, and supremacy is the end. So far as they have magnified supremacy they have minimized the holiness of the Word, and have actually exalted above it the holiness of the Pope's decrees; they have claimed to themselves power over heaven, and even over the Lord Himself, and they have instituted the idolatrous worship of men, both living and dead, and this until there is nothing left of Divine good and Divine truth. That the holy things of the Word, of the church, and of worship, have been so changed is of the Lord's Divine providence; not of His providence that this should be done, but of His providence that when men wish to rule and do rule by means of the holy Divine things, they should choose falsity in place of truth and evil in place of good, for otherwise they would defile holy things, and render them abominable before angels; but when holy things no longer exist this cannot be done. Take as an example what has been done with the Holy Supper instituted by the Lord: they have separated the bread and the wine, giving the bread to the people and drinking the wine themselves. For "bread" signifies good of love to the Lord, and "wine" the truth of faith in Him; and good separated from truth is not good, nor is truth separated from good truth, for truth is truth from good, and good is good in truth. And so in other things. (A.E., n. 1054.) Those who are in the love of self, and from that in the love of ruling, and who covet, acquire, and afterward exercise supremacy by means of the holy things of the Word, of the church, and of worship, are those who profane. For the delight of the love of ruling for self's sake, that is, for the sake of eminence, and consequent homage and a kind of worship of self, is an infernal delight. Moreover, this prevails in hell, for in hell everyone wills to be the greatest, while in heaven everyone wills to be the least; and to rule over holy things from an infernal delight is to profane them. But this second kind of profanation of the holy things of the church is not like the former kind of the profanation of them. Those fall into the former kind in whom a communication with heaven has been effected by the opening of their spiritual mind; while this second kind of profanation those fall into in whom the spiritual mind has not been opened, or communication with heaven effected through it. For so long as the delight of the love of ruling resides in man, that mind cannot be opened, and communication with heaven is not possible to him.