624. It is clear that a state which is not a state of the Church is the subject here from the fact that in this verse and those that follow in chapter the name God is used, whereas in previous verses it was Jehovah. When the Church does not exist the name God is used, but when it does exist, it is Jehovah; for example in Genesis 1, when the Church did not exist, He was called God, but in the next chapter when it did, He was called Jehovah God. 'Jehovah' is the holiest of names, and belongs to the Church alone. Not so 'God', for no nation was without gods. Consequently the same holiness was not attached to the name God. Nobody was allowed to utter the name Jehovah except him who had knowledge of the true faith; but anyone was allowed to utter the name God.

3420. 'Which the Philistines had been stopping up after Abraham's death' means that people who had no more than a knowledge of cognitions refused to recognize these truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'stopping up' as not wishing to know, and what amounts to the same, refusing to recognize and so effacing, dealt with above in 3412; and from the representation of 'the Philistines' as those who have no more than a knowledge of cognitions, dealt with in 1197, 1198, 3412, 3413. It is the knowledge of cognitions that those ruled by matters of doctrine concerning faith possess, and they have no wish to know the truths that are the sources of cognitions or matters of doctrine. The truths that are the sources of cognitions or matters of doctrine are those that have to do with life and that have regard to charity towards the neighbour and love to the Lord. Religious teaching, which consists of matters of doctrine and of recognized facts, does no more than teach those things. Anyone therefore who teaches what ought to be done, but does not do it himself, does not wish to know truths since they run counter to his life. And things contrary to his life he also refuses to recognize. These are the reasons why the matters of doctrine concerning love and charity which in the Ancient Church constituted the whole of religious teaching have been effaced.