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There can be no doubt that the claim to the twofold station ordained for the Bab by the Almighty, a claim which He Himself has so boldly advanced, which Baha'u'llah has repeatedly affirmed, and to which the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha has finally given the sanction of its testimony, constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Baha'i Dispensation. It is a further evidence of its uniqueness, a tremendous accession to the strength, to the mysterious power and authority with which this holy cycle has been invested. Indeed the greatness of the Bab consists primarily, not in His being the divinely-appointed Forerunner of so transcendent a Revelation, but rather in His having been invested with the powers inherent in the inaugurator of a separate religious Dispensation, and in His wielding, to a degree unrivaled by the Messengers gone before Him, the scepter of independent Prophethood.
(123:2)
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