in a strict, rigorous, proper, and formal sense; for in that acceptation it is not true. It must not, it cannot, be admitted that Christ did suffer all those torments which the damned suffer; and therefore it is not, it cannot, be true, that by suffering them he descended into hell. There is a worm that never dieth, which could not lodge within his breast; that is, a remorse of conscience, seated in the soul, for what that soul hath done: but such a remorse of conscience could not be in Christ, who though he took upon himself the sins of those which otherwise had been damned, yet that act of his was a most virtuous, charitable, and most glorious act, highly conformable to the will of God, and consequently could not be the object of remorse. The grief and horror in the soul of Christ, which we have expressed in the explication of his sufferings antecedent to his crucifixion, had reference to the sins and punishment of men, to the justice and wrath of God; but clearly of a nature different from the sting of conscience in the souls condemned to eternal flames. Again, an essential part of the torments of hell is a present and constant sense of the everlasting displeasure of God, and an impossibility of obtaining favour, and avoiding pain; an absolute and complete despair of any better condition, or the least relaxation: but Christ, we know, had never any such resentment, who looked upon the reward which was set before him, even upon the cross, and offered up himself a sweet-smelling sacrifice; which could never be efficacious, except offered in faith. If we should imagine any damned soul to have received an express promise of God, that after ten thousand years he would release him from those torments and make him everlastingly happy, and to have a true faith in that promise and a firm hope of receiving eternal life: we could not say that man was in the same condition with the rest of the damned, or that he felt all that hell which they were sensible of, or all that pain which was due unto his sins: because hope and confidence, and relying upon God, would not only mitigate all other pains, but wholly take away the bitter anguish of despair. Christ then, who knew the beginning, continuance, and conclusion of his sufferings, who understood the determinate minute of his own death and resurrection, who had made a covenant with his Father for all the degrees of his passion, and was fully assured that he could suffer no more than he had freely and deliberately undertaken, and should continue no longer in his passion than he had himself determined, he who by those torments was assured to overcome all the powers of hell, cannot possibly be said to have been in the same condition with the damned, and strictly and properly to have endured the pains of hell. Again, if we take the torments of hell in a metaphorical sense, for those terrors and horrors of the soul which our Saviour felt, which may therefore be called infernal torments because they are of greater extremity than any other tortures of this life, and because they were accompanied with a sense of the wrath of God against the unrighteousness of men; yet this cannot be an interpretation of the descent into hell, as it is an Article of the CREED, and as that Article is grounded upon the Scriptures. For all those pains which our Saviour felt (whether as they pretend, properly infernal, or metaphorically such) were antecedent to his death; part of them in the garden, part on the cross; but all before he commended his spirit into the hands of his Father, and gave up the ghost. Whereas it is sufficiently evident that the descent into hell, as it now stands in the CREED, signifieth something commenced after his death, contradistinguished to his burial; and, as it is considered in the apostle's explication, is clearly to be understood of that which immediately preceded his resurrection; and that also grounded upon a confidence totally repugnant to infernal pains. For it is thus particularly expressed, "I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad: moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." (Psal. xvi. 9, 10.) Where the faith, hope, confidence, and assurance of Christ is shewn, and his "flesh," though laid in the grave, the place of corruption, is said to "rest in hope," for this very reason, because God would not "leave his soul in hell." I conclude, therefore, that the descent into hell is not the enduring the torments of hell: because, if strictly taken, it is not true; if metaphorically taken, though it be true, yet it is not pertinent. The third opinion, which is also very late, at least in the manner of explication, is, that in those words "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell," the soul of Christ is taken for his body, and hell for the grave; and consequently, in the CREED, He descended into hell, is no more than this, that Christ in his body was laid in the grave. This explication ordinarily is rejected, by denying that the soul is ever taken for the body, or hell for the grave; but in vain: for it must be acknowledged, that sometimes the Scriptures are rightly so, and cannot otherwise be understood. First, The same word in the Hebrew,* which the Psalmist used, and in the Greek, which the apostle used, and we translate the soul, is elsewhere used for the body of a dead man, and translated so. And when we read in Moses of a prohibition given to the high-priest or the Nazarite, of going to or coming near a dead body, and of the pollution by the dead; the dead body in the Hebrew and the Greek is nothing else but that which elsewhere signifieth the soul. And Mr. Ainsworth, who translated the Pentateuch nearer the letter than the sense, hath so delivered it in compliance with the original phrase; and may be well interpreted thus by our translation: 'Ye shall not make in your flesh any cutting for a soul,' that is, "for the dead." (Lev. xix. 28.) 'For a soul he shall not defile himself among the people,' that is, "there shall none be defiled for the dead among his people." (Lev. xxi. 1.) He that toucheth any thing that is unclean by a soul,' that is, " by the dead :" (Lev. xxii. 4.) Every one defiled by a soul,' that is, "by the dead:" (Numb. v. 2.) He shall not come at a dead soul,' that is, "he shall come at no dead body." (Numb. vi. 6.) Thus Ainsworth's translation sheweth, that in all these places the original word is that which originally signifieth the soul; and our translation teacheth us, that though in other places it signifieth the soul, yet in these it must be taken for the body, and that body bereft of the soul. Secondly, The word* which the Psalmist used in Hebrew, dead body of any man that is dead," Omnis qui tetigerit humane animæ morticinum. Therefore the w and ʊxin Lev. xxix. 4. do signify the cadaver or morticinum; as also Numb. v. 2. " Whosoever is defiled by the dead," Thus 15 πάντα ἀκάθαρτον ἐπὶ ψυχῇ, pollutum and the apostle in Greek, and is translated hell, doth certainly in some other places signify no more than the grave, and is translated so. As where Mr. Ainsworth followeth the word, For I will go down unto my son mourning to hell;' our translation, aiming at the sense, rendereth it, "For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning." (Gen. xxxvii. 35.) So again he, 'Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow unto hell,' that is, "to the grave." (Gen. xlii. 38.) And in this sense we say, "the Lord killeth and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." (1 Sam. ii. 6.) Now being the soul is sometimes taken for the body deserted by the soul, and hell is also sometimes taken for the grave, the receptacle of the body dead: therefore it is conceived that the prophet did intend these significations in those words, "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell ;" and consequently, the Article grounded on that Scripture must import no more than this. Christ in respect of his body bereft of his soul, which was recommended into, and deposited in, the hands of his Father, descended into the grave. This exposition hath that great advantage, that he which first mentioned this descent in the CREED, did interpret it of the burial; and where this Article was expressed, there that of the burial was omitted. But notwithstanding those advantages, there is no certainty of this interpretation: first, Because he which did so interpret, at the same time, and in the tenor of that expression, did acknowledge a descent of the soul of Christ into hell;* and those other Creeds which did likewise omit the burial, and express the descent, did shew, that by that descent, they understood not that of the body, but of the soul. Secondly, Because they which put these words into the Roman Creed, in which the burial was expressed before, must certainly understand a descent distinct from that; and ram. And it is observed by the Jewish commentators that those Christians are mistaken who interpret those words spoken by Jacob, I will go down into sheol, of hell; declaring that sheol there is nothing else but the grave. Ruffinus, who first mentioned this Article, did interpret it of the grave, as we have already observed; but yet he did believe a descent distinct from that, in the Exposition of the Creed: 'Sed et quod in inferuum descendit, evidenter prænunciatur in Psalmis,' &c. and then citing that of St. Peter: Unde et Petrus dixit, Quia Christus mortificatus carne, vivificatus autem spiritu: in ipso, ait, et eis qui in carcere inclusi erant in diebus Noe, in quo etiam quid operis egerit in inferno declaratur,' §. 27. as we before more largely cited the same place. I shewed before, that in the Creed made at Sirmium there was the descent mentioned, and the burial omitted, and yet that descent was so expressed, that it could not be taken for the burial: besides now I add, that it was made by the Arians, who in few years before had given in another Creed, in which both the burial and the descent were mentioned; as that of Nice in Thracia : ἀποθανόντα, καὶ ταφέντα, καὶ εἰς τὰ κατα χθόνια κατελθόντα, ὃν αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἐτρόμαζεν. Theodoret, Hist. I. ii. c. 21. and not long after gave in another at Constantinople to the same purpose: σταυρωθέντα, καὶ ἀποθανόντα, καὶ ταφέντα, καὶ εἰς τὰ κατα χθόνια διεληλυθότα, ὃν τινα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Twanger. Socrat. lib. ii. c. 41. therefore, though it might perhaps be thought a probable interpretation of the words of David, especially taken as belonging to David, yet it cannot pretend to be an exposition of the CREED as now it stands. The next opinion is, that the soul may well be understood either for the noble part of man distinguished from the body; or else, for the person of man consisting of both soul and body, as it often is; or, for the living soul, as it is distinguished from the immortal spirit: but then the term hell shall signify no place, neither of the man, nor of the body, nor of the soul; but only the state or condition of men in death, during the separation of the soul from the body. So that the prophecy shall run thus, "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell," that is, Thou shalt not suffer me to remain in the common state of the dead, to be long deprived of my natural life, to continue without exercise, or power of exercising my vital faculty and then the CREED will have this sense, that Christ was crucified, dead, and buried, and descended into hell; that is, he went unto the dead, and remained for a time in the state of death, as other men do. But this interpretation supposeth that which can never appear, that Hades signifieth not death itself, nor the place where souls departed are, but the state and condition of the dead, or their permansion in death; which is a notion wholly new, and consequently cannot interpret that which representeth something known and believed of old, according to the notions and conceptions of those times. And that this notion is wholly new, will appear, because not any of the ancient fathers is produced to avow it, nor any of the heathen authors which are produced do affirm it: nay, it is evident that the Greeks did always by Hades understand a place into which the souls of men were carried and conveyed, distinct and separate from that place in which we live; and that their different opinions shew, placing it, some in the earth, some under it, some in one unknown place of it, some in another. But especially Hades, in the judgment. of the ancient Greeks, cannot consist with this notion of the state of death, and the permansion in that condition, because there were many which they believed to be dead, and to continue in the state of death, which yet they believed not to be in Hades, as those who died before their time, and those whose bodies were unburied.* Thus likewise the ancient fathers dif The opinion of the ancient Greeks in this case is excellently expressed by Tertullian, who shews three kinds of men to be thought not to descend ad inferos when they die; the first insepulti, the second aori, the third bigothanati: Creditum est, insepultos non ante ad inferos redigi quam justa perceperint.' De Anim. c. 56. Aiunt et immatura morte præ ventas eousque vagari isthic, donec reliquatio compleatur ætatis, quacum pervixissent, si non intempestive obiissent." Ibid. Proinde extorres inferum habebuntur, quas vi ereptas arbitrantur, præcipue per atrocitates suppliciorum; crucis dico, et securis, et gladii, et feræ.' Ibid. The souls then of those whose bodies were unburied were thought to be kept out of |