Note 59 — Chapter XIII
Reading edition
Sale says:—"Mahomet here and elsewhere frequently imitates the truly inspired writers, in making God to operate on the minds of reprobates, to prevent their conversion." Impostors in all ages have charged the inefficacy of their novel mysteries upon the will of God. But these passages have had their use and humanity effects in the strife of contending religions. A Mahometan bigot, with sword in one hand and victim in the other, has often spared his life and his conversion by recollecting, "God had sealed up his heart and his hearing," so that he could not believe. The pride of the Moslem has also thus been content to leave matters in the hands of a predestinating deity.