to devotion, they will become sacred, and the book so written will be sacred
also. (19) But if their usage afterwards dies out so that the words have no
meaning, or the book becomes utterly neglected, whether from unworthy
motives, or because it is no longer needed, then the words and the book will
lose both their use and their sanctity: lastly, if these same words be
otherwise arranged, or if their customary meaning becomes perverted into its
opposite, then both the words and the book containing them become, instead
of sacred, impure and profane.

(20) From this it follows that nothing is in itself absolutely sacred, or
profane, and unclean, apart from the mind, but only relatively thereto. (21)
Thus much is clear from many passages in the Bible. (22) Jeremiah (to select
one case out of many) says (chap. vii:4), that the Jews of his time
were wrong in calling Solomon's Temple, the Temple of God, for, as he goes
on to say in the same chapter, God's name would only be given to the Temple
so long as it was frequented by men who worshipped Him, and defended
justice, but that, if it became the resort of murderers, thieves, idolaters,
and other wicked persons, it would be turned into a den of malefactors.

(23) Scripture, curiously enough, nowhere tells us what became of the Ark of
the Covenant, though there is no doubt that it was destroyed, or burnt
together with the Temple; yet there was nothing which the Hebrews considered
more sacred, or held in greater reverence. (24) Thus Scripture is sacred,
and its words Divine so long as it stirs mankind to devotion towards God:
but if it be utterly neglected, as it formerly was by the Jews, it becomes
nothing but paper and ink, and is left to be desecrated or corrupted: still,
though Scripture be thus corrupted or destroyed, we must not say that the
Word of God has suffered in like manner, else we shall be like the Jews, who
said that the Temple which would then be the Temple of God had perished in
the flames. (25) Jeremiah tells us this in respect to the law, for he thus