The Anti-universalist, or history of the fallen angels of the Scriptures; proofs of the being of Satan and of evil spirits: intended as a refutation of the three main points of universalism, namely, that there is no hell after death; no devil or Satan as a being; and no future day of final judgment / by Josiah Priest ; embellished with twenty-two engravings. Part I.

  • Priest, Josiah, 1788-1851.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Anti-universalist, or history of the fallen angels of the Scriptures; proofs of the being of Satan and of evil spirits: intended as a refutation of the three main points of universalism, namely, that there is no hell after death; no devil or Satan as a being; and no future day of final judgment / by Josiah Priest ; embellished with twenty-two engravings. Part I. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    now seen, breathing the pure air of that sinless clime, while they discoursed things unutterable to mortals. As yet no traveller had arrived from other worlds, as at that time none were made. The great centre of all succeeding creations, had but newly bloomed in the midst of eternity, and this was heaven, around which it was intended the unending works of God should spread out their circles of suns, of planets, and of satelites. Where is the impropriety of supposing heaven, the first residence of the first spiritual beings, as the mighty centre of the universe, the grand nucleus of all worlds, to which all are attracted ; yet repelled so as to produce celestial revolutions of the great yet in¬ creasing universe ? none that we can see, as it presents no objec¬ tion to a state of spiritual happiness j but is suited to such a state ; as location, and association, are essential to the happiness of all finite exstences. That heaven is a location is easily proven from the Scrip¬ ture, from a multitude of places and circumstances, a few of which are as follows:—Deut. x. 14, “ Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens^ is the Lord thy Godls ; the earth also, with cdl that therein isP What is meant by the heaven of heavens, if it is not this great centre of all being ? Now unless the heaven of heavens, so expressed by way of eminence, has a real existence and a location, as well as the earth, how can it be said to belong to God, if there is no such jjlace 7 If there is no local heaven of heavens, then there is no local earth 5 for the one is as much alluded to in the text, and identified, as the other; and as belonging, both of them, to God: if one, therefore, is not pointed out by that Scripture, neither is the other. To the same doctrine, bears the Psalmist witness : chap. xx. 6, “ Noio know I that the Lord saveth his annointed: He will hear him from his holy heavenP Also in another place in Deuteronomy, xxvi. 15, the ownership, and consequently the locality, of heaven is brought to light: ^Hook down (or forth) from thy holy hahita- tion,from heaven, and bless thy people Israeli^ Also Isaiah, Ixiii. 15, “ Look down {forth) from heaven and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of ^loryT Luke xv. 7, “ I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repentethl^ St. Luke in another place speaks of this same heaven : chap. ii. 15, “ And it came to pass, as the angels xoere gone away from them (the shepherds) into heaven.” But if there is no heaven besides that which is commonly called the firmament, in which the stars are situated, and the atmosphere of the earth, how could it be thus written ? how could the angels go away into a heaven which has no existence, and no location ? But this fact can be shown from another circumstance, which is the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord. No per¬ son will disallow, that the Saviour’s body, while on earth, was os local, tangible and real as the bodies of other men, and as such