The Opening Heavens: or a Connected View of the Testimony of the Prophets and Apostles, Concerning the Opening Heavens, Compared With Astronomical Observations, and of the Present and Future Location of the New Jerusalem, the Paradise of GodBates, Joseph
Religion
The Opening Heavens: or a Connected View of the Testimony of the Prophets and Apostles, Concerning the Opening Heavens, Compared With Astronomical Observations, and of the Present and Future Location of the New Jerusalem, the Paradise of God
Bates, Joseph
Bible -- Prophecies; Paradise; Second Advent
Thus we see from all the testimony adduced, (and we could give much more
were it necessary) that here is a most wonderful and inexplainable
phenomena in the heavens: a gap in the sky, more than 11,314,000,000
miles in circumference. Says the celebrated HUGGENS, "I never saw
anything like it among the rest of the fixed stars--a free view into
another region more enlightened." I have had the pleasure (with others)
during the past month, to see this wonder in the Heavens a number of
evenings, through J. Delano, Jr's. excellent Telescope.
It has been supposed by some, that this wonderful phenomena seen through
the sword of Orion, has passed through some material change since it was
first discovered by Huggens, one hundred and ninety years ago. On this
point Sir John Herschel says: "When it is considered how difficult it is
to represent such an object duly, and how entirely its appearance will
differ even in the same Telescope, according to the clearness of the
air, or other temporary causes, we shall readily admit that we have no
_evidence of change_ that can be relied on."
As I had before partially examined the Bible view of the _opening
Heavens_, I think I never shall forget the thrill that pervaded my whole
being, the first time that I saw this celestial wonder coursing its way
down the western Heavens! Since then, when I have viewed it through the
Telescope, my mind would instinctively revert to Moses's description of
the _liberated_ children of Abraham, passing through the Red Sea, with
that wonderful miracle "the pillar of fire, between them and the
Egyptian Host." My thoughts still running onward, from type to antitype,
"God looking through the cloud of fire in the morning watch;" at once
vanquished the enemies of his chosen people. Exo. xiv: 24, 27.
So in _this_ morning watch God will not only look through this mighty
space, (black on one side with the stormy cloud,) but, as the Prophet
Joel says, he will "_Roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from
Jerusalem; and the Heavens and the Earth shall shake: but the Lord will
be the hope of his people.--So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God
dwelling in Zion my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy._"
("CLEANSED.") iii: 16, 17.
A western view, with an inverting eye piece, gives it the appearance of
a stormy dark cloud, with a full moon just shut in behind it, and three
bright stars looking through the cloud. This dark looking cloud is
called the gap in the sky. This constellation measures about one
thousand miles from North to South, and five hundred from East to West,
and is visible to all the inhabitants of the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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