470. And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. This symbolically means that the Lord has the entire church under His auspices and governance, both those people in it who concern themselves with its external elements, and those in it who concern themselves with its internal ones.
The sea and land symbolize the entire church - the sea the external church, or those people who concern themselves with its external elements, and the land the internal church, or those people who concern themselves with its internal ones (no. 398). To set His feet on them means, symbolically, to have all these subject to Him, thus to have them under His Divine auspices and governance.
Since the Lord's church on earth is beneath the heavens, therefore it is called His footstool, as in the following passages:
He cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel...; He does not remember His footstool... (Lamentations 2:1)
...the earth is My footstool. (Isaiah 66:1)
Let us go into His tabernacle; let us worship at His footstool. (Psalms 132:7)
...do not swear... by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool. (Matthew 5:34-35)
I will make the place of My feet honorable. (Isaiah 60:13)
You have made Him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under His feet... (Psalms 8:6)
These things are said of the Lord.
He placed His right foot on the sea and His left on the land because those people who concerned themselves with the external elements of the church did not confirm falsities in themselves to the same extent as those who concerned themselves with its internal elements.
