XXVII: ALL PRAISE TO THE UNITY OF GOD, AND ALL...


All praise to the unity of God, and all honor to Him, the sovereign Lord,
the incomparable and all-glorious Ruler of the universe, Who, out of utter
nothingness, hath created the reality of all things, Who, from naught,
hath brought into being the most refined and subtle elements of His
creation, and Who, rescuing His creatures from the abasement of remoteness
and the perils of ultimate extinction, hath received them into His kingdom
of incorruptible glory. Nothing short of His all-encompassing grace, His
all-pervading mercy, could have possibly achieved it. How could it,
otherwise, have been possible for sheer nothingness to have acquired by
itself the worthiness and capacity to emerge from its state of
non-existence into the realm of being?

Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He,
through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will,
chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him
and to love Him—a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating
impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of creation.... Upon
the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light
of one of His names, and made it a recipient of the glory of one of His
attributes. Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance
of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self.
Alone of all created things man hath been singled out for so great a
favor, so enduring a bounty.

These energies with which the Day Star of Divine bounty and Source of