Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 24
24 to you for then you shall cease to. sin. Sin vanishes away where certainty finds an entrance. Can you thrust your hand into a hole in which you see a poisonous serpent or stand in a. place where a volcano is raining stones, or where lightning is failing or which is the haunt of a ferocious lion or where destructive plague prevails ? If you have the same certainty about the destructive nature of sin as about the destruction which volcanic matter or a plague works, it is impossible that you should dis- obey God's cammandments and go against His will or break off the connection of sincerity and love with Him. Ye people that have been invited to virtue and righteousness, know it for certain that the Divine attraction cannot be generated in you nor the impure stain of sin washed off from your faces until your hearts flow with certainty. If you think that your lifeless traditional belief gives you certainty, it is nothing but a delusion. Had you the desired certainty, you would not have been destitute of its consequences. You do not keep back from sin, you do not eschew evil you do not take the forward step that you ought to take and you do not fear God as you ought to fear Him. Where is your certainty then ? Do you ever thrust your hand into a hole when you are certain that it has a poisonous snake ? Can you take a single morsel of a food which you cer- tainly know to be poisoned ? Or can you go inadvertently and unguarded into a jungle which you certainly know to be the abode of maneaters? How is it the. n that your hands and your feet, and your eyes, and your ears are bold in the commission of sin, not withstanding your alleged certainty in relation to God and the reward and punishment of good and evil deeds. Sin cannot overcome certainty. How can you throw yourselves into burning and consuming fire when you see it with your eyes? The citadels of certainty rise high to heaven, and Satan cannot