1002. 'Not eating' means not mixing together. This follows from what has been said above. Regarded in itself eating animal flesh is something profane, for in most ancient times people never ate the flesh of any beast or bird, but only different kinds of grain, especially wheaten bread, also the fruit of trees, vegetables, milk, and milk products such as butter. Slaughtering living creatures and eating their flesh was to them abominable, akin to the behaviour of wild animals. Service and use alone was demanded of those creatures, as is clear from Genesis 1:29-30. But in the process of time when mankind began to be as savage as wild animals, indeed more savage, they first began to slaughter living creatures and eat their flesh. And because man had become such, he was permitted to do so and is still permitted today. And insofar as he does so from conscience, it is quite legitimate, for his conscience is given form from all those things he presumes to be true and so legitimate. Consequently nobody nowadays stands in any sense condemned because he eats meat.

605. Verses 5-7. And the angel whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth unto the ages of the ages, who created heaven, and the things that are therein, and the earth, and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there shall be time no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God shall also be consummated, as he hath declared in good tidings to his servants the prophets.- "And the angel whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth," signifies the Lord, to whom all things of heaven and the church are subject; "lifted up his hand to heaven," signifies affirmation before the angels concerning the state of the church; "And sware by him that liveth unto the ages of the ages," signifies truth from his own Divine; "who created heaven and the things that are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein," signifies the Lord as to all things interior and exterior; "of heaven and the church that there shall be time no longer," signifies that there would be no longer any understanding of Divine Truth, nor any state of the church therefrom. "But in the days [of the voice] of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound," signifies the last state of the church, and then revelation of Divine Truth; "the mystery of God shall also be consummated, as he hath declared in good tidings to his servants the prophets," signifies prediction in the Word concerning the coming of the Lord to be fulfilled when the end of the church is at hand.