[2] This is also because the Lord teaches everyone by means of the Word. Moreover, He teaches from those truths which a man already possesses: He does not directly impart new truths. Therefore, if a man is not principled in Divine truths, or if he has only acquired a few truths as well as falsities he may by their means falsify the truths. This is done by every heretic with regard to the sense of the Letter of the Word, as is well known. Lest therefore anyone should enter into the spiritual sense of the Word, and pervert genuine truth which belongs to that sense, guards are placed over it by the Lord, and guards in the Word are meant by the cherubim.

[3] That guards were so placed was represented to me in the following manner:

"It was granted me to see large money-bags, in appearance like sacks, in which silver was stored up in great abundance; and as these were open, it seemed as if anyone might take out, or even steal, the silver deposited there; but near those bags sat two angels as guards. The place where the bags were laid looked like a manger in a stable. In an adjoining room were seen some modest maidens, in the company of a chaste married woman. Near the room were standing two children, who, I was told, were not to be played with as children but as wise persons. [4] Then there appeared a harlot, and a horse lying dead. When I had seen these things, I was informed that they represented the sense of the Letter of the Word, within which is the spiritual sense. The large money-bags full of silver signified cognitions of truth in great abundance. The fact that they were open and yet guarded by angels, signified that everyone might take from them cognitions of truth, but that care must be taken lest anyone should violate the spiritual sense, in which are pure truths. The manger in the stable in which the purses lay signified spiritual instruction for the understanding. This is the signification of a manger, for a horse which eats from its signifies the understanding. The modest maidens who were seen in the adjoining room signified affections of truth; the chaste married woman, the conjunction of good and truth; and the children signified the innocence of wisdom therein. They were angels from the third heaven, who all appear like little children. The harlot, with the dead horse, represented the falsification of the Word by many at the present day, by which all understanding of truth perishes; a harlot signified falsification, and a dead horse, an understanding dead to all truth."* *This passage is in quotation marks in the Original, and repeated elsewhere. (See T.C.R. 277; A.R. 255; and S.D. 3605a.)