570. Verse 15. And the four angels were loosed, signifies license to reason from fallacies. This is evident from the signification of "the four angels bound at the river Euphrates," as being reasonings from fallacies which are of the sensual man, not accepted before (see above n. 569); from this it follows that "they were loosed" signifies license to reason now from fallacies. This license was now granted because the sensual man only reasons from such things as he sees in the world with his eyes, while the things that are within and above these he declares cannot be, since he does not see them; this is why the things that belong to heaven and the church, because they are above his thoughts, he either denies or does not believe, but ascribes all things to nature. Thus the sensual man thinks by himself or in his spirit, but otherwise before the world, for before the world he speaks from his memory, even about spiritual things from the Word or from the doctrine of the church; and what he says has a similar sound as when a spiritual man says it. Such is the state of men of the church at its end; and although they fit together words which they speak or preach seemingly from a spiritual origin, they nevertheless flow from the ultimate sensual in which their spirit is, and this when left to itself reasons against them, because it reasons from fallacies, consequently from falsities.