346. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees." This symbolizes the Lord's restraining and holding back the closer and stronger influx into the lower regions.

That this is the symbolism is apparent from the exposition above in no. 343.

It seems from the literal sense that the four angels held back the influx, but according to the spiritual sense it was the Lord. That they should not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees means, symbolically, that it was not by an intense influx but by a temperate one. For the Lord employs varying degrees of influx into the heavens to dispose, order, temper and regulate everything in them and in the hells, and through the heavens and the hells, everything in the world.