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 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 ít, 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 per 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: ázòðavóvra, καὶ ταφέντα, καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια κατελθόντα, ὃν αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἐτρόμαζεν. Theodoret, Hist. 1. ii. c. 21. and not long after gave in another at Constantinople to the same purpose: σταυρωθέντα, καὶ ἀποθανόντα, καὶ ταῦ φέντα, καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια διεληλυ θότα, ὃν τινα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἔπτηξεν. Socrat. lib. ii. c. 41. 2 mansion 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 differed much The opinion of the ancient Greeks come. This he farther expresses in in this case is excellently expressed the terms of the magicians, whose by Tertullian, who shews three kinds art was conversant about souls deof men to be thought not to descend parted: Aut optimum est hic retiad inferos when they die; the first neri, secundum ahoros (i. e. ȧúpovs), insepulti, the second aori, the third aut pessimum, secundum Biæothanabiæothanati: Creditum est, insepul- tos (Biaιodavárovc), ut ipsis jam vocatos non ante ad inferos redigi quam bulis utar, quibus auctrix opinionum justa perceperint.' De Anim. c. 56. istarum Magica sonat, Hostanes, et Aiunt et immatura morte præventas Typhon, et Dardanus, et Damigeron, eousque vagari isthic, donec reliqua- et Nectabis, et Bernice. Publica tio compleatur ætatis, quacum per- jam literatura est, quæ animas etiam vixissent; si non intempestive obiis- justa ætate sopitas, etiam proba morte sent.' Ibid. Proinde extorres infe- disjunctas, etiam prompta humatione rum habebuntur, quas vi ereptas ar- dispunctas, evocaturam se ab inferum bitrantur, præcipue per atrocitates incolatu pollicetur.' Ibid. c. 57. Of that suppliciorum; crucis dico, et securis, of the insepulti, he produceth the exet gladii, et feræ.' Ibid. The souls ample of Patroclus: Secundum Hothen of those whose bodies were un- mericum Patroclum funus in somnis buried were thought to be kept out of de Achille flagitantem, quod nou hades till their funerals were perform alias adire portas inferum posset, ared, and the souls of them who died centibus eum longe animabus sepulan untimely or violent death, were torum.' Ibid. c. 56. The place he kept from the same place until the intended is that, Iliad Y. 71. ... time of their natural death should θάπτε με, ὅττι τάχιστα πύλας ἀΐδαο περήσω. In the same manner be describes Elpenor, Odyss. A. 51. Πρώτη δὲ ψυχὴ Ελπήνορος ἦλθεν ἑταίρου. Where it is the observation of Eu- thius observes an extraordinary ac- curateness in that question of Penelope concerning Ulysses, upon that same ground. Odyss. A. 831... Εἴπου ἔτι ζώει, καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος ἠελίοιο Τὸ δὲ, καὶ ὁρᾷ φῶς ἡλίου, δι' ὀρθότητα ἐννοίας κεῖται ὡς δυνατὸν ὂν ζῦν μὲν, μὴ βλέπειν δέ. Οὕτω δὲ καὶ τὸ, εἰν άΐδας δόμοισι, πρὸς ἀκρίβειαν λόγου ἐῤῥέθη κατὰ γὰρ τὸν ἐν τοῖς ἑξῆς δηλωθησόμενον Ελληνικὸν μῦθον, οὐ πᾶς τεθνηκὼς καὶ ἐν ᾅδου γίνεται, εἰ μὴ καὶ πυρᾷ δοθῇ,καθὰ καὶ ὁ τοῦ Εὐριπίδου ἐμφαίνει Πολύδωρος· ὥστε Tò, ĥ hồn TÉGVηKE, kai εiv átdao dóμolow, ἀντὶ τοῦ, ἢ ἤδη τέθνηκε, καὶ τέθαπται. It is here very observable that, according to the opinion of the Greeks, 1o be dead is one thing, and to be in hades is another: and that every one which died was not in hades, οὐ πᾶς τεθνηκὼς καὶ ἐν ᾅδου γίνεται, as Eusta thius speaks. Legimus præterea in Sexto insepultorum animas vagas esse.' Serv. in Eneid. iii. 67. The place which he intended, I suppose is this, Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est ;... Portitor ille Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti. Nec ripas datur horrendas nec rauca fluenta Transportare prius, quam sedibus ossa quierunt. Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc littora circum. Virg. Æn. vi. 325. concerning the place of the Infernus; but never any doubted but that it signified some place or other:* and if they had conceived any such notion as the state of death, and the permansion of the dead in that state, they needed not to have fallen into doubts or questions; the patriarchs and the prophets being as certainly in the state of death, and remaining so, as Corah, Dathan, and Abiram are, or any person which is certainly condemned to everlasting flames. Though therefore it be certainly true that Christ did truly and properly die, as other men are wont to do, and that after expiration he was in the state or condition of the dead, in deadlihood, as some have learned to speak; yet the CREED had spoken as much as this before, when it delivered that he was dead. And although it is true that he might have died, and in the next minute of time revived, and consequently his death not (precisely taken) signify any permansion or duration in the state of death, and Thus he is to be understood in the dorus, Æneid. iii. 62. description of the funeral of Poly Ergo instauramus Polydoro funus, et ingens Aggeritur tumulo tellus,―animamque sepulcro Not that anima does there signify the time sepultum fuisse. Rite ergo, redbody, as some have observed; but dita legitima sepultura, redit ad quithat the soul of Polydorus was then etem sepulcri,' saith Servius, Æn. in rest, when his body received fune- iii. 67.; or rather, in the sense of Virral rites, as Servius: Legimus præ- gil, ad quietem inferni, according terea in Sexto insepultorum animas to the petition of Palinurus, Æn. vi, Vagas esse, et hinc constat non legi- 371. Sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam. And that the soul of Polydorus was so wandering about the place where his body lay unburied, appeareth out of Euripides in Hecuba, where he speak eth thus, v. 30. -Νῦν ὑπὲρ μητρὸς φίλης Εκάβης ἀΐσσω, σῶμ' ἐρημώσας ἐμὸν, Τριταῖον ἤδη φέγγος αἰωρούμενος. And in the Troades of the same poet this aλn, or erratio vagabunda insepultorum, is acknowledged by the chorus in these words, v. 1073. Ὦ φίλος, ὦ πόσι μοι, And when their bodies were buried, ́ -sequar atris ignibus absens, ganti mihi dabis poenas: nam te per- Upon which place Servius observes: "Dicunt Physici Biaothanatorum animas non recipi in originem suam, nisi vagantes legitimum tempus fati com- * Αδης δὲ τόπος ἡμῖν ἀειδὴς, ἤγουν pleverint; quod Poetæ ad sepulturam ἀφανὴς καὶ ἄγνωστος, ὁ τὰς ψυχὰς transferunt, ut centum errant annos ἡμῶν ἐντεῦθεν ἐκδημούσας δεχόμενος. (En. vi. 392.). Hoc ergo nunc dicit Andreas Cæsar. in Apocal. c. 64. Dido, Occisura me ante diem sum; va therefore it might be added, he descended into hell, to signify farther a permansion or duration in that condition: yet if hell do signify nothing else but the state of the dead, as this opinion doth suppose, then to descend into hell is no more than to be dead; and so notwithstanding any duration implied in that expression, Christ might have ascended the next minute after he descended thither, as well as he might be imagined to revive the next minute after he died. Being then to descend into hell, according to this interpretation, is no more than to be dead; being no man ever doubted but that person was dead who died; being it was before delivered in the CREED that Christ died, or, as we render it, was dead: we cannot imagine but they which did add this part of the Article to the CREED, did intend something more than this, and therefore we cannot admit this notion as a full or proper exposition. There is yet left another interpretation grounded upon the general opinion of the Church of Christ in all ages, and upon a probable exposition of the prophecy of the Psalmist, taking the soul in the most proper sense for the spirit or rational part of Christ; that part of a man which, according to our Saviour's doctrine, the Jews could not kill; and looking upon hell, as a place distinct from this part of the world where we live, and distinguished from those heavens whither Christ ascended, into which place the souls of men were conveyed after or upon their death; and therefore thus expounding the words of the Psalmist in the person of Christ: Thou shalt not suffer that soul of mine which shall be forced from my body by the violence of pain upon the cross, but resigned into thy hands, when it shall go into that place below where the souls of men departed are detained; I say, thou shalt not suffer that soul to continue there as theirs have done; but shalt bring it shortly from thence, and reunite it to my body. For the better understanding of this exposition, there are several things to be observed, both in respect to the matter of it, and in reference to the authority of the fathers. First, therefore, this must be laid down as a certain and necessary truth, that the soul of man, when he dieth, dieth not, but returneth unto him that gave it, to be disposed of at his will and pleasure, according to the ground of our Saviour's counsel, Fear not them which kill the body, but cannot kill the soul." (Matt. x. 28.) That better part of us therefore, in and after death, doth exist and live, either by virtue of its spiritual and immortal nature, as we believe; or at least the will of God, and his power upholding and preserving it from dissolution, as many of the fathers thought. This soul, thus existing after death, and separated from the body, though of a nature spiritual, is really and truly in some place; if not by way of circumscription, as proper bodies are, yet by way of determination and indistancy; so that it is true to say, this is really and truly present here, and not elsewhere. Again, the soul of man, which, while he lived, gave life to the body, and was the fountain of all vital actions, in that separate existence after death, must not be conceived to sleep, or be bereft and stripped of all vital operations, but still to exercise the powers of understanding and of willing, and to be subject to the affections of joy and sorrow. Upon which is grounded the different estate and condition of the souls of men during the time of separation; some of them by the mercy of God being placed in peace and rest, in joy and happiness; others by the justice of the same God left to sorrow, pains, and misery.. As there was this different state and condition before our Saviour's death, according to the different kinds of men in this life, the wicked and the just, the elect and reprobate: so there were two societies of souls after death; one of them which were happy in the presence of God, the other of those which were left in their sins and tormented for them. Thus we conceive the righteous Abel, the first man placed in this happiness, and the souls of them that departed in the same faith to be gathered to him. Whosoever it was of the sons of Adam, which first died in his sins, was put into a place of torment; and the souls of all those which departed after with the wrath of God upon them were gathered into his sad society. Now as the souls at the hour of death are really separated from the bodies; so the place where they are in rest or misery after death, is certainly distinct from the place in which they lived. They continue not where they were at that instant when the body was left without life: they do not go together with the body to the grave; but as the sepulchre is appointed for our flesh, so there is another receptacle, or habitation and mansion, for our spirits. From whence it followeth, that in death the soul doth certainly pass by a real motion from that place, in which it did inform the body, and is translated to that place, and unto that society, which God of his mercy or justice hath allotted to.it. And not at present to inquire into the difference and distance of those several habitations (but for method's sake to involve them all as yet under the notion of the infernal parts, or the mansions below), it will appear to have been the general judgment of the Church, that the soul of Christ contradistinguished from his body, that better and more noble part of his humanity, his rational and intellectual soul, after a true and proper separation from his flesh, was really and truly carried into those parts below, where the souls of men before departed were detained; and that by such a real translation of his soul, he was truly said to have descended into hell. Many have been the interpretations of the opinion of the fathers made of late; and their differences are made to appear so great, as if they agreed in nothing which concerns this |