First Sentence

"TO acknowledge one only God, without endeavouring to penetrate the nature of His being and attributes, (indeed the Druses are so far from admitting attributes in God, that His Intelligence, His Will, His Justice, His Word, are, in their system, created beings, and ministers of God, his first productions;) to confess that He can neither be comprehended by the senses, nor described by language; to believe that the Divinity has made itself manifest to men, at different epochs, in the human form, without partaking of human weakness and frailty; that the Divinity appeared for the last time, in the fifth century of the Hegira of Mohammed, under the figure of Hakem-biamar Allah, and that, after that, no other manifestation is to be expected; that Hakem disappeared in the year 411 of the Hegira, or 1021 A.D., to prove the faith of his servants, and to give occasion for the falling off of apostates, who had only embraced the true religion from worldly motives; that he will re-appear in due time in glory and majesty, to triumph over all his enemies, to extend his empire over the whole earth, and to give the kingdom to his faithful worshippers."