surrection, and by the will of God; that by so notorious and congenial a miracle, the fact of Christ's resurrection might be the more credible, and that the assurance of it might not rest upon the testimony of his disciples and followers alone, who were likely to be discredited, and were accordingly by the Jews accused of falsehood. For this fact was the very key stone of the arch upon which the whole superstructure of christianity was to be built. (Rom. i. 4.) But to make But to make any other use of the miraculous re-appearance of the dead in their bodies, than merely as affording a collateral evidence that Christ himself was so risen, seems to be carrying the argument farther than our scriptural authority will bear us out. If they had been designed as evidences of a first resurrection of saints at the millennium, to live again upon earth, and reign 1000 years, some intimation of that kind would have been given, either at the first mention of the fact, by the evangelists, or by a reference to it afterwards by St. Paul, in the two places where he treats expressly upon the subject of resurrection, or by St. John, (Rev. xx. 4.) the only writer by whom the first resurrection is once named. What became of these raised saints afterwards, nothing is said. But this would hardly have been the case, had they been indeed designed as the first fruits (together with Christ) of a first resurrection. But nothing being intimated in the gospels of any such dispensation, the other omission is not at all surprising. That they ascended into heaven with Christ is not easily credible. The separate state of souls till the day of judgment being an opinion which the scripture in many places countenances, particularly (Luke xxiii. 43) where Christ himself says to the believing malefactor, "to day shalt thou be with me in PARADISE;" that is, in the state of separate souls, or HADES, which had suitable places of reception for good as well as evil souls, according to the ideas of both Jews and Gentiles. (324) Lazarus, the beggar, was in PARA (324) That this opinion was common amongst the Jews be fore the time of Christ is plain from many of our Saviour's parables. These were not always invented by him, but selected from the doctrine of the Rabbis, and thus his valuable instrucVOL. III, 3 P DISE, or Abraham's bosom, and Dives in HELL, but both of them in HADES, and still in expectation of their fixed and eternal doom tion was conveyed by ideas familiar to the people. The scripture does not contradict popular opinions, where no hurtful inference can be drawn from them. See Note p. 92, and Whitby on Luke xvi. 19. Josephus says the soul of Samuel was brought up iade from bades. And he shews that the Jews which believed the immortality of the soul, thought both the wicked and the just received retribution o xoves or xæð 'de, below, or in hades. A similar idea of the shades is found in all the heathen writers. Virgil represents it thus Hic locus est partes ubi se via findit in ambas : Dextera quæ Exercet poenas, et ad impia Tartara mittit, Virg. Æn. vi, 'Tis here in different paths the way divides: The right, to Pluto's golden palace guides: The left to that unhappy region tends, The seat of night profound, and punish'd fiends. Dryden. Lazarus, the friend of Christ, was undoubtedly in the state of the dead, when his soul, in obedience to the omnipotent summons, came forth from that irremeable bourn, and was again united to his body, after its dissolution was begun. Yet Lazarus was once more remanded to the tomb, there to await the gene at the general judgment. Christ himself, as we profess to believe, descended into hell, that is, into HADES, or the state of souls separated from the body; meaning nothing more, perhaps, than that as Christ was truly man, be went through every state that belongs to buman nature, both in life and in death. (325) ral summons of the last trumpet. It is probable therefore the same thing occurred in the case of these raised saints. The only difference being this, that Lazarus yielded a more public and durable testimony to the power of Christ, than it was expedient these saints should do. Overpowering evidence seems not to consist with the wisdom of God's oeconomy. (325) The descent of Christ into hell, says Bishop Pearson, hath not been so anciently in the creed, or so universally, as the rest. It was first used in the church of Aquileia, about 400 years after Christ. It is not expressed formally in words in scripture, though virtually contained therein. Ephes. iv. 9.-1 Pet. iii. 19.-Acts ii, 31. The learned Bishop seems however to think all these but lame arguments in proof of such a doctrine. The idea I have given above seems to be least exceptionable, as it avoids all the difficult questions concerning what he had to do there? Of this, as the scripture is silent, we had better be so too "The soul of Christ really separated from his body by death, says Pearson, did pass unto the places below, where the souls of men departed were, that he might undergo the condition of dead man as well as of a living." "Legem mortuorum servare,” a The third day he arose from the dead, but when he was first seen of Mary, he then had not himself yet ascended into heaven, (John xx. 17,) and the probability is, that these raised saints have not yet ascended thither, but are still in PARADISE, in expectation of the great day. All we are told, and all we can know of the matter is, that they rose in the body, as Christ also did; (Luke xxiv. 39,) were seen, and recognised; vanishing probably from the sight, as Jesus did, as soon as the object of their errand from the other world was answered; which very probably was to establish a conviction of the possibility of the resurrection of the body, and also of the truth of the fact, that such an effect had actually been produced, upon several persons at the same time. (326) "to fulfil the law of death," says Ireneus lib. v. ch. 26, and St. Hilary in his exposition upon the words of the psalmist, "If I go down into hell, thou art there also," says " Humana ısta lex necessitatis est, ut consepultis corporibus ad inferos animæ descen· dant: quam descensionem dominus, ad consummationem veri hominis, non recusavit." in Psalm cxxxviii. (326) God doth nothing in vain. He does not expose the world of spirits, or the future state of human existence to |