Page 112 - New English Book L

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1. In the first place, we must well understand that the
Messenger is a man, a creature of human body and soul, and
that he is not an Angel or a superhuman being. In the second
place, we should open our eyes of wisdom and judgment
to see that he is not despatched to prepare the way before
another Messenger called “Adon” and the “Messenger of
the Promise,” but he is commissioned to found and establish
a straight, safe, and good Religion. He is commissioned to
remove all the obstacles in the way between God and his
creatures; and to fill up all the gaps and chasms in this grand
path, so that it may be smooth, easy to walk on, well lighted,
and protected from all danger. The Hebrew phrase, “u pinna
derekh,” means to say that the Messenger “will put straight
and clear the worship or the religion.” The verb “darakh”
of the same root as the Arabic “daraka,” means “to walk,
reach and comprehend;” and the substantive “derekh”
signifies, “road, way, step,” and metaphorically “worship
and religion.” It is used in this spiritual sense all through
the Psalms and the Prophets. Surely this high Messenger of
God was not coming to repair or reform a way, a religion
for the benefit of a handful of Jews, but to establish a
universal and an unchangeable religion for all men. Though
the Jewish religion inculcates the existence of one true God,
still their conception of Him as a national Deity of Israel,
their priesthood, sacrificial rites and ceremonies, and then
the non-existence of any positive articles of belief in the
immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, the last
judgment, the eternal life in heaven or hell, and many other
deficient points, make it absolutely unfit and insufficient
for the peoples of diverse languages, races, climates,
temperaments, and habits. As regards Christianity, it, with
its meaningless seven sacraments, its beliefs in original sin,
the incarnation of a god -unknown to all previous religious
and mythological literature- and in a trinity of individual
gods, and finally because it does not possess a single line