“Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose… so thoroughly infused into the conduct of ‘Abdu’l Bahá”

Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose, we must ever bear in mind, has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of ‘Abdu’l Bahá, and their motives have been so closely wedded together, that the mere attempt to dissociate the teachings of the former from any system which the ideal Exemplar of those same teachings has established would amount to a repudiation of one of the most sacred and basic truths of the Faith. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha is “the Charter of the New World”

The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh, permeating and evolving within the mind of ‘Abdu’l Bahá, have, by their very impact and close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him Who communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient. Being the Child of the Covenant—the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of God—the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l Bahá can no more be divorced from Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who ultimately conceived it. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

‘Abdu’l Bahá’s Will And Testament

His ['Abdu'l-Baha's] Will and Testament should thus be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link which the mind of Him Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to insure the continuity of the three ages that constitute the component parts of the Bahá’í Dispensation. The period in which the seed of the Faith had been slowly germinating is thus intertwined both with the one which must witness its efflorescence and the subsequent age in which that seed will have finally yielded its golden fruit. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

“‘Abdu’l Bahá… incarnates an institution”

‘Abdu’l Bahá, Who incarnates an institution for which we can find no parallel whatsoever in any of the world’s recognized religious systems, may be said to have closed the Age to which He Himself belonged and opened the one in which we are now laboring. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)

“the Heroic and Apostolic Age”: “stand[s] above and apart from the formative period into which we have entered and the golden age destined to succeed it”

The passing of ‘Abdu’l Bahá, on the other hand, marks the closing of the Heroic and Apostolic Age of this same Dispensation—that primitive period of our Faith the splendors of which can never be rivaled, much less be eclipsed, by the magnificence that must needs distinguish the future victories of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation. For neither the achievements of the champion-builders of the present-day institutions of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, nor the tumultuous triumphs which the heroes of its Golden Age will in the coming days succeed in winning, can measure with, or be included within the same category as, the wondrous works associated with the names of those who have generated its very life and laid its pristine foundations. That first and creative age of the Bahá’í era must, by its very nature, stand above and apart from the formative period into which we have entered and the golden age destined to succeed it. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Baha’u’llah; included in ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)