To have dominion by religion, is to have dominion over men’s souls, thus over their very spiritual life, and to use the Divine things, which are in their religion, as the means.

Swedenborg is warning against the corruption that occurs when religious authority is pursued as a means of power. “Dominion by religion” does not merely govern outward behavior; it claims access to the inner life—conscience, faith, and the individual’s relation to the divine. In that sense it becomes a form of spiritual coercion, treating sacred realities (“Divine things”) instrumentally, as tools for control rather than ends in themselves. The quote reflects a recurring Swedenborgian critique of ecclesiastical ambition: when religion is used to dominate, it inverts its purpose (leading souls toward heaven) into a mechanism for subjugating them, thereby profaning what is holy.