The Mohammedans in accordance with the religion handed down from Mohammed acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God and a very great prophet. They accept that He was sent into the world by God the Father to teach mankind, but not that God the Father and He are one, and His Divinity and humanity are one person, united like soul and body, as all Christians believe on the authority of the Athanasian Creed. Mohammed's followers therefore have been unable to acknowledge our Lord as God from eternity, but only as a perfect natural man. Since this was the opinion of Mohammed, and consequently of the disciples who followed him, knowing that God is one and it is He who created the universe, they could not fail to overlook the Lord in their worship; the more so, because they also proclaim Mohammed as a very great prophet. They are also ignorant of the Lord's teachings. This is the reason why the inner regions of their minds, which are essentially spiritual, could not be opened. It is the Lord alone who opens them (see 340 just above).

[2] Their being opened by the Lord, when He is acknowledged and approached as the God of heaven and earth, and among those who live in accordance with His commandments, is the real reason, because otherwise there is no linking, and in the absence of linking no receiving. In the case of a human being, he may have the Lord present and he may be linked with the Lord; approaching Him causes Him to be present, and living in accordance with His commandments makes a link with Him. Only having Him present does not allow Him to be received, but if He is both present and at the same time linked, He is received.

[3] I shall report something new on this subject from the spiritual world. Anyone there can be made present by thinking about him; but no one is linked to another, except by an affection of love, and this is introduced by doing what he says and what he decides. This common fact about the spiritual world has its source in the Lord, being thus present and thus linked. These remarks have been made to make it known why Mohammedans were permitted to marry more than one wife; this was because truly conjugial love, which only exists between one man and one wife, was impossible for them, because their religion did not allow them to acknowledge the Lord as the equal of God the Father, and so as the God of heaven and earth. Conjugial love in each individual depends upon the state of the church with him (see 130 above and frequently in earlier sections).