it who acknowledge the
Lord as Son of God and live according to the precepts of the Decalog,
which they also have, shunning evils as sins, come into a heaven called
the Mohammedan heaven. This heaven, like others, is divided into three,
the highest, middle and lowest. Those who acknowledge the Lord to be one
with the Father and thus the one God are in the highest heaven; in the
next heaven are those who renounce a plurality of wives and live with
one; and in the lowest are those who are being initiated. More about this
religion may be seen in _Continuation about the Last Judgment and the
Spiritual World_ (nn. 68-72), where the Mohammedans and Mohammed are
treated of.

256. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence
when he sees that the Christian religion exists only in a small part of
the habitable world, called Europe, and there is divided._ The Christian
religion exists only in the small part of the habitable world called
Europe because it was not adapted to the genius of Orientals as was a
mixed one like the Mohammedan religion, as was just shown; and an
unadapted religion is not received. For example, a religion which ordains
that it is unlawful to take more than one wife is not received but
rejected by those who for ages have been polygamists. This is true of
other ordinances of the Christian religion.

[2] Nor is it material whether a smaller or a larger part of the world
has received this religion, as long as there are people with whom the
Word is. For those who are outside the church and do not possess the Word
still have light from it, as was shown in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem
about Sacred Scripture,_ nn. 104-113. It is a marvel that where the Word
is reverently read and the Lord is worshiped from it, He is present with
heaven. The reason is that He is the Word and the Word is divine truth
which makes heaven. The Lord therefore says:

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of
them (Mt 18:20).

Europeans can bring this about with the Word in many parts of the
habitable globe, for they trade the world over and read or teach the Word
everywhere. This seems like fiction and yet is true.

[3] The Christian religion is divided because it is from the Word and the
Word is written in sheer correspondences and these in large part are
appearances of truth in which, nevertheless, genuine truths lie
concealed. As a church's doctrine is to be drawn from the sens