AND PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF DEVILS AND EVIL SPIRITS: WITH MANY OTHER CURIOUS MATTERS, CONNECTED THEREWIH; INTENDED AS A REFUTATION OF THE MAIN POINTS OF UNIVERSALIST THEOLOGY, NAMELY, THAT THERE IS NO HELL, NO DEVIL, NOR DAY OF JUDGMENT. PART SECOND. BY JOSIAH PRIEST, ALBANY: PRINTED BY J. MUNSELL, No. 58 State Street. 1837. HISTORY OF SATAN, &C. PART SECOND. An account of the operations of Satan with the heads of our race, Adam and Eve, in producing their fall; with further evidence than is produced in the first volume, of the existence of Devils and Evil Spirits, who have a literal and personal existence, according to the Scriptures as we understand them, and as understood by Oorthodox Christians throughout the World. That there is such a being as is called Satan, Devil, Serpent, Old Serpent, Evil One, Destroyer, Accuser, Apolyon, Abaddon and Evil Spirit, we proceed, in this second part of the work, further to prove, from the holy Scriptures, but more particular from the New Testament; and shall show, that he, as well as his associate evil spirits, are real beings, and not imag inary ones; or at most as some believe, are nothing more than diseases of the body and mind, the images of the heathen, and evil principles or passions of the human soul. In the book of Genesis, the oldest writing now in existence, 3d chapter 1st verse, is found the first intimation of the existence and character of Satan, who is there brought to view under the name of the Nachash; which word is erroneously translated, both in the Greek and the English, as we have shown on the first pages of the first part of this work. The reason this name, Nachash, was given by Moses to this evil spirit, the head of all evil beings, was because he entered into the mental and physical powers of a certain animal known to Moses by that name, or (as it is in the Arabic, which at that time was the same with the Hebrew,) K-ha-noos, and meant the Orang-outang-for the purpose of attempting to deceive our first mother, with respect to that which God had forbidden her. That this spirit, so entering into the organs of that animal, and who, by that means misled the mind of Eve, was Satan, the chief of the fallen angels, we think we prove by the following argument and Scripture. And to commence, see Rev. xii. 9, " And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent (or K-ha-noos) called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Here in this Scripture by St. John, who well understood the meaning of the term K-hanoos, in the Hebrew, or ancient Arabic, as it related to a being of an intellectual and spiritual nature, has mentioned two other names or appellations by which he is known, as that of Satan and devil, which belonged to this being; and as determining the point that there was a spirit alluded to by St. John, connected in this affair of the serpent, entirely independent of the animal called by Moses the Nachash or K-ha-noos; we notice the very peculiar appendage of the words old serpent, the devil; and also, that of his having angels, or ministers, and of his once having inhabited a part of heaven. Now by no rule of language, figure or analogy, can this account be understood to be descriptive, of either an animal or of a principle. But if it is to be understood as Universalists teach, namely, that the words old serpent, Satan and devil, signify no more than the diseases of the body and mind of man, we should like to know what disease it is, of either body or mind which has angels at its command; or which of the passions have any of these extraordinary accompaniments. Or if the idea be carried still farther, and the idols and images of the heathen are said to be this devil or Satan, and old serpent; still a difficulty is presented, inasmuch as St. John speaks of but one such being to whom belongs these appellations; while the idols and images of the heathen are many, and therefore are not meant by this description of the Revelator, as the singular cannot represent pluralities, except by delegation. The ancient Jews, in their commentaries on the laws of Moses. speak much of this being, and of his personal existence, and of his having been cast out, with his troops, from the place of holiness, or heaven; which opinions go far at any rate, to prove that the Jewish Rabbins, except the Sadducees, thought on this subject far different from the Universalist Rabbins of the present day, and is no small evidence of the folly of the latter. It is of no avail to the Universalists, that the Sadducecs, a branch of the Jewish Church, denied the existence of both angels and spirits; for in Acts, xxiii. 8, it is said that the Pharisees confessed the doctrine of the existence of superhuman angels and spirits, to which doctrine ST. PAUL pointedly subscribes in all his writings, and also in this book, the Acts. It is said of him by St. Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, chap. xxvi. 5, that he was a Pharisee of the straightest sect, and therefore belived in the existence of angels and spirits, both good and bad. The Saducees were more opposed to Christ than any other religious sect of the Jews, and gave the Christian church more trouble after the death of the Saviour, than any other. They were the Universalists of the day, and believed that there is neither rewards nor punishments after death; but that men are rewarded and punished in this life, for the good or evil deeds they do. But the Pharisees believed in the existence of a hell in eternity, |