Before dealing with any of these topics separately, it is important by way of preface to say something about the Lord's Divine providence as concerns the rise of the Mohammedan religion. The fact that the kingdoms accepting this religion outnumber those accepting the Christian may seem scandalous to those who think about Divine providence, and at the same time believe that no one who was not born a Christian can be saved. But the Mohammedan religion is no scandal to those who believe that everything is subject to Divine providence. These people look to see in what respect this is so, and they find the answer. It is that the Mohammedan religion acknowledges our Lord as the Son of God, the wisest of men, and as a very great prophet, who came into the world to teach mankind. But since they have made the Koran their bible, and so Mohammed its author has become the object of their thoughts, so that they devote some worship to him, they pay little heed to our Lord. To make it fully known that this religion has been developed of the Lord's Divine providence in order to suppress idolatry among a number of nations, I must take the points in order; so first, on the origin of idolatrous practices.

[2] Before the Mohammedan religion existed, the worship of idols was widespread throughout the world. The reason was that all the churches which existed before the Lord's coming were representative ones. This is what the Israelite church was: its tabernacle, Aaron's vestments, the sacrifices, every detail of the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as its laws, were representative. Ancient peoples too possessed a knowledge of correspondences, which is also that of representations. This was to them the highest form of knowledge, and it was particularly developed by the Egyptians, and formed the basis of their hieroglyphs. It was this knowledge which enabled them to know the meaning of every kind of animal, every kind of tree, the meaning of mountains, hills, rivers and springs, of the sun, the moon and the stars. This knowledge was the means by which they knew about spiritual matters. For the things they represented, which are the kind of things that make up the spiritual wisdom possessed by angels in heaven, were the origins of these objects.

[3] Now since all their worship was representative, being composed of nothing but correspondences, they practised their worship on mountains and hills, as well as in parks and gardens. For this reason too they regarded springs as sacred, and in praying turned their faces towards the rising sun. Moreover, they made carved images of horses, cattle, calves, lambs, even birds, fishes and snakes. They placed these in their homes and elsewhere, arranged in sequence to match the spiritual ideas of the church to which they corresponded, that is, what they represented. They placed similar things also in their temples to recall to memory the holy ideas of worship for which they stood. In later times, when the knowledge of correspondences had been wiped out, their descendants began to worship the actual carvings as being themselves holy, being unaware that their ancestors had seen no holiness in them, merely regarding them as representing and meaning holy ideas in accordance with their correspondences. This was the origin of the idolatrous practices which filled the whole world, Asia and its surrounding islands, as well as Africa and Europe.

[4] In order to root out these idolatrous practices, the Lord's Divine providence saw to it that a new religion should be founded which suited the character of oriental peoples. In it there should be something from both Testaments of the Word, and it should teach that the Lord came into the world, and that He was a very great prophet, the wisest of all, and the Son of God. This was accomplished through Mohammed, who gave the religion his name. This makes it plain that this religion developed of the Lord's Divine providence, and, as I said, it was designed to suit the character of oriental peoples, with the object of wiping out the idolatrous practices of so many nations, and of conveying to them some knowledge about the Lord before they arrived in the spiritual world, as happens to everyone after death. It could not have been accepted by so many kingdoms and have rooted out their idolatry, if it had not been in keeping with the ideas they had; and in particular, unless polygamy had been permitted, because without that permission oriental peoples would, more than Europeans, have been fired with lust for foul adulteries, and would have perished.