"_His Will_.] He, praised be his name, doth will those things to be that
are, and disposes of all accidents. Nothing passes in the empire, nor
the kingdom, neither little nor much, nor small nor great, nor good nor
evil, nor profitable nor hurtful, nor faith nor infidelity, nor
knowledge nor ignorance, nor prosperity nor adversity, nor increase nor
decrease, nor obedience nor rebellion, but by his determinate counsel
and decree, and his definite sense and will. Nor doth the wink of him
that seeth, nor the subtlety of him that thinketh, exceed the bounds of
his will: but it is he who gave all things their beginning; he is the
creator and restorer, the sole operator of what he pleases; there is no
reversing his decree nor delaying what he hath determined, nor is there
any refuge to man from his rebellion against him, but only his help and
mercy; nor hath any man any power to perform any duty toward him, but
through his love and will. Though men and genii, angels and devils,
should conspire together either to put one single atom in motion, or
cause it to cease its motion, without his will and approbation they
would not be able to do it. His will subsists in his essence among the
rest of his attributes, and was from eternity one of his eternal
attributes, by which he willed from eternity the existence of those
things that he had decreed, which were produced in their proper seasons
according to his eternal will, without any before or after, and in
agreement both with his knowledge and will, and not by methodizing of
thoughts, nor waiting for a proper time, for which reason no one thing
is in him a hinderance from another.
"_His Hearing and Sight_.] And he, praised be his name, is hearing and
seeing, and heareth and seeth. No audible object, how still soever,
escapeth his hearing; nor is anything visible so small as to escape his
sight; for distance is no hinderance to his hearing, nor darkness to his
sight. He sees without pupil or eyelids, and hears without any passage
or ear, even as he knoweth without a heart, and performs his actions
without the assistance of any corporeal limb, and creates without any
instrument, for his attributes (or properties) are not like those of
men, any more than his essence is like theirs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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