570. And the four angels were loosed.- That this signifies liberty to reason from fallacies, is clear from the signification of the four angels bound at the river Euphrates, as denoting reasonings from fallacies pertaining to the sensual man, not received before (see above, n. 569:1); it therefore follows, that by their being loosed is signified that there is now liberty to reason from fallacies. The reason that there is now this liberty, is, that the sensual man reasons only from such things as are in the world, and that he can see with his eyes; but he says that those things which are within or above them have no existence, because he does not see them. For this reason he denies, or does not believe in the existence of those things which pertain to heaven and the church, because they are above his thoughts, and because he ascribes all things to nature. The sensual man thinks thus with himself, or in his spirit, but otherwise before the world, for before the world he speaks from his memory, also concerning spiritual things from the Word, or from the doctrine of the church, and the things which he utters resemble those which are spoken by the spiritual man. Such is the state of the men of the church at its end; and although they may speak eloquently, or preach as it were from a spiritual source, still all this proceeds from the ultimate Sensual, in which their spirit is, which, when left to itself, reasons against these things, because it reasons from fallacies, and therefore from falsities.

6277. 'The God feeding me' means that same Divine bestowing life on the good of spiritual truth from the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'feeding' as bestowing life on ('feeding' or 'pasturing' is instructing, see 6044, and 'pasture' is that which sustains a person's spiritual life, 6078. But 'feeding' and 'pasture' dealt with in those paragraphs have reference to a flock, whereas 'feeding' here is used in reference to Jacob, to his being sustained with food and the necessities of life, by which much the same is meant in the internal sense since what sustains and revitalizes bodily life means in the internal sense that which sustains spiritual life and revitalizes it); and from the representation of Israel, [to whom 'me' refers here,] as spiritual good from the natural, dealt with in 5801, 5803, 5806, 5812, 5817, 5819, 5826, 5833. And as this good represented by 'Israel' is the good of truth, the expression 'the good of spiritual truth' is used here. In the genuine sense 'Israel' is the spiritual Church; and the good associated with that Church is the good of truth. For truth is used to teach its members what good is; and when they act in accordance with the truth they have been taught, that truth is called good. Such good is what is called the good of truth and is represented by 'Israel' .