{1} [4] This danger is what is meant by the Lord's words:
He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts lest they should
see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and should turn
and I should heal them (John 12:40).
And that those that are in falsities would not believe [even if
visions were given] is meant by these words:
Abraham said to the rich man in hell, They have Moses and the
Prophets, let them hear them. But he said, Nay, father Abraham, but
if one came to them from the dead they would be converted. But
Abraham said to him, If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither
will they believe though one should rise from the dead (Luke
16:29-31).
{Footnote 1} Profanation is the mixing of good and evil and of
truth and falsity in man (n. 6348). Only those can profane
truth and good, or the holy things of the Word and the church,
who first acknowledge them, and still more who live according
to them, and who afterwards recede from the belief and reject
it, and live for themselves and the world (n. 593, 1008, 1010,
1059, 3398, 3399, 3898, 4289, 4601, 10284, 10287). If man after
repentance of heart relapses to former evils he profanes, and
his latter state is then worse than his former (n.
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