Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 25
25 on a man’s life. The object was, that man should so regulate his life in conformity with the doctrine of the Unity of God as to lead him to moral and spiritual perfection, that is to say, he should love no other thing or being with a love greater than that which he entertains for God, and should place his whole trust and re- liance in God, and should not regard any other thing or being as having any control over his affairs. A person who believes in the Unity of God in this sense and acts upon such a belief is bound to experience a moral revolution. All sins and weaknesses in the world proceed from two causes, either because a man loves an object with such intense love that he regards his existence as useless without it, or because he regards an object as so injurious and hateful that he imagines his salvation depends upon its de- struction, and this unreasonable excess of love or hate leads him to do things that are incompatible with purity. But a person whose faith in the Unity of God is perfect prefers not the love of any other object or person to his love for God, and hates nothing so intensely as being led away from God. To such a person sin becomes an impossibility, and this is the true doctrine of the Unity of God, which is the real object of religion to teach, and not the mere lip profession of the existence of One God, which can neither please God nor have any practical effect on a man’s life. Besides laying down this fundamental principle, the Prom- ised Messiah rooted out all forms of Shirk which had crept into the system of religion. To the Muslims he pointed out that, in spite of their claim to being believers in the Unity of God, they entertained many polytheistic conceptions—for instance, that they believed that Jesus was living with his physical body in the Heavens, without food or drink. , and during the last nineteen hundred years he had. not tasted death; also that Jesus used to bring the dead to life, and could create birds. The Promised Messiah pointed out the error of this doctrine, and explained that to bring the dead back to life or to create a thing was within the exclusive power of God, and that God never delegated His powers and attributes to any of His creatures, lest His Unity