Paragraph 184

Be fair: Were these people to acknowledge the truth of these luminous words and holy allusions, and recognize God as “Him that doeth whatsoever He pleaseth,” how could they continue to cleave unto these glaring absurdities? Nay, with all their soul, they would accept and submit to whatsoever He saith. I swear by God! But for the divine Decree, and the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, the earth itself would have utterly destroyed all this people! “He will, however, respite them until the appointed time of a known day.”

Paragraph 24 out of thirty paragraphs that look at the station of "pure abstraction and essential unity", the first of the two stations of the Manifestations of God.

What does He mean by "Be fair"? Simply, it means to consider everything in the situation so that we can make a good judgement.

If we take a look at the idea that people believe in their sacred teachings, and especially understand that God does as He wants, then they would never be able to reconcile this absurd behaviour. Which behaviour? Accepting some of the verses but denying others.

So why, then, do they continue to "cleave unto these glaring absurdities"? He has given us a lot of reasons. Ignorance. Blindly following the leaders of their faith. Attachment to their own desires. Sometimes it's those "veils of glory" He mentioned way earlier in the book. But in the end, all these reasons are absurd.

In fact, not only are they absurd, they are "glaring absurdities". They are totally obvious to anyone who looks with the eye of fairness. Beyond that, Baha'u'llah said earlier, in paragraph 6, "the more closely you observe the denials of those who have opposed the Manifestations of the divine attributes, the firmer will be your faith in the Cause of God". By taking the time to focus our attention on these "glaring absurdities", on the obvious hypocrisy of those that follow a religion in this manner, He seems to be helping us strengthen our faith.

In Part One, He was very forgiving with some of these excuses, recognizing that some people deny the new Messenger because they are attached to their old Book. In paragraph 27, He said that He was sharing some of these teachings with the hope that "the overpowering majesty of the Word of God may not prevent them... nor deprive them..." from recognizing the new Manifestation.

Now, though, He is being a bit harsher.

He's already assured the friends that if they made an honest mistake, they can still move forward. A good heart will always win out in the end.

If they've denied because of selfish reasons, only accepting what "they have found to accord with their inclinations and interests", He reminds them that this is not acceptable. Well, neither are, but in this case, He pulls out the big guns: "...the earth itself would have utterly destroyed all this people". It reminds us of that Hidden Word in which He says, "ye walk on My earth complacent and self-satisfied, heedless that My earth is weary of you and everything within it shunneth you."

But what about the "inscrutable dispensations of Providence"? What exactly does that mean? Inscrutable means that we can't understand it. Dispensations are exemptions from a rule, even temporary. So it seems that the people who are behaving in this way have been given a reprieve by God from immediate justice.

How do we know it's temporary? By the next sentence in which He says that God will "respite them until the appointed time of a known day."

One question though, that bears looking at is how does this fit into the theme of the "pure abstraction and absolute unity" of the Messengers? And that, dear Friends, is what Baha'u'llah will respond to in the next paragraph.