570. Verse 15. And the four angels were loosed, signifies license to reason from fallacies. This is evident from the signification of "the four angels bound at the river Euphrates," as being reasonings from fallacies which are of the sensual man, not accepted before (See above n. 569; from this it follows that "they were loosed" signifies license to reason now from fallacies. This license was now granted because the sensual man only reasons from such things as he sees in the world with his eyes, while the things that are within and above these he declares cannot be, since he does not see them; this is why the things that belong to heaven and the church, because they are above his thoughts, he either denies or does not believe, but ascribes all things to nature. Thus the sensual man thinks by himself or in his spirit, but otherwise before the world, for before the world he speaks from his memory, even about spiritual things from the Word or from the doctrine of the church; and what he says has a similar sound as when a spiritual man says it. Such is the state of men of the church at its end; and although they fit together words which they speak or preach seemingly from a spiritual origin, they nevertheless flow from the ultimate sensual in which their spirit is, and this when left to itself reasons against them, because it reasons from fallacies, consequently from falsities.

4320. The reason why the life which comes from the Lord alone seems with everyone to be intrinsically his own lies in the Lord's love or mercy towards the whole human race. That is to say, His will is to make that which is His every person's own and to confer eternal happiness on every person. It is well known that love imparts that which is its own to another, for it manifests itself within that other and causes itself to be present within him. What then must the situation be with Divine love? The reception by the evil also of the life which comes from the Lord is like objects in the world, all of which receive light from the sun and as a result colours, though each object receives these according to the form it takes. Objects which absorb the light and pervert it appear black or hideous, and yet they acquire their black and hideous appearance from the light of the sun. So too with the light or life with the evil which comes from the Lord, though this life is not really life but, as it is also called, spiritual death.