1304. CONCERNING EQUIVOCAL EXPRESSIONS, CONCERNING HOLY SCRIPTURE Some from custom, others from contempt, have acquired the habit of using things of Holy Scripture in familiar conversation as expressions of derision or as jokes, supposing that by so doing they jest with good taste. But such expressions are thereby adjoined to their corporeal ideas, and in the other life are very detrimental to them; for such things introduced by habit into their worldly and corporeal ideas, however numerous they are, must be separated in the other life, and this is usually brought about by means of various kinds of disception, as I know from experience. Let such persons, therefore, take heed to themselves lest they mingle holy things with profane, and so profane those which are holy. For like ideas return, that is to say, when the worldly ideas occur, holy things also cohere with them, and when holy ideas occur, those that are profane also adhere to them, which is the reason that they must be separated. This may indeed seem remarkable to some, especially to those who do not comprehend how ideas are thus joined together. But let it be sufficient to warn against these things for they can scarcely be cured without painful methods. 1748, Mar. 11.