and the apostle in Greek, and is translated hell, doth certainly in someother 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 the Jerusalem Targum and that of Jo- map rab; in sepul ad pulve rem, or ad terram. 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; tinct from that, in the Exposition of but yet he did believe a descent disdescendit, evidenter prænunciatur in the Creed: 'Sed et quod in infernum Psalmis,' &c. and then citing that of 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 :St. Peter והורדתם את שיבתי ביגון .38 ¡DINU kai karážeré pov rò yñpas μerà Xúrns eiç adoỡ which we translate, Then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave: where 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 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 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: áróðavóvra, 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 ταφέντα, καὶ εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια διεληλυθότα, ὅν τινα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ ᾅδης ἔπτηξεν. Socrat. lib. ii. c. 41. 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 point: whereas there is nothing which they agree in more than this which I have already affirmed, the real descent of the soul of Christ unto the habitation of the souls departed. The persons to whom, and end for which, he descended, they differ in; but as to a local descent into the infernal parts, they all agree. Who were then in those parts, they could not certainly define; but whosoever were there, that Christ by the presence of his soul was with them, they all determined. That this was the general opinion of the Church, will appear, not only by the testimonies of those ancient writers who lived successively,* and wrote in several ages, and delivered As Irenæus: Cum enim Domi- fernum descenderit, apostolica dopus in medio umbræ mortis abierit, ctrina prædicat. Quandoquidem B. ubi animæ mortuorum erant, post de- Petrus ad hanc rem testimonium de inde corporaliter resurrexit-manife- Psalmis adhibet, Quoniam non derestum est, quia et discipulorum ejus, linques animam meam in inferno, nepropter quos et hæc operatus est Do- que dabis sanctum tuum videre corruminus, animæ abibunt in invisibilem ptionem. fllud de anima dictum est, loeum definitum eis a Deo, &c.' l. v. quia ibi non est derelicta, unde tam c. 26. Clemens Alexandrinus was cito remeavit ; illud de corpore, quod so clearly of that opinion, that he in sepulcro corrumpi celeri resurrethought the soul of Christ preached ctione non potuit.' S. August. Epist. salvation to the souls of hell. Strom. 57. al. 187. ad Dardanum, c. 2. §. 5. 1. vi. c. 6. And Tertullian proves Καταβὰς μέχρι καὶ χθονὸς that the inferi are a cavity in the Επίδημος ἐφαμέροις, earth where the souls of dead men Κατέβας δ' ὑπὸ τάρταρα, are, because the soul of Christ went Ψυχῶν ὅθι μυρία thither: "Quod si Christus Deus, quia Θάνατος νέμεν ἔθνεα. et bomo mortuus secundum ScriΦρίξεν σε γέρων τότε pturas, et sepultus secundum easdem, ̓Αΐδας ὁ παλαιγενὴς, huic quoque legi satisfecit, forma Καὶ λαοβόρος κύων humanæ mortis apud inferos fun- Ανεχάσσατο βηλού. ctus, nec ante adscendit in sublimiora coelorum quam descendit in inferiora terrarum, ut illic Patriarchas et Prophetas compotes sui faceret; habes et regionem inferum subterraneam credere, et illos cubito pellere, qui satis superbe non putent animas fdelium inferis dignas. De Anim. c. 55. Γυμνῇ σώματος γενόμενος ψυχῇ ταῖς yvμvaïs owμárwv wμíλei &vxaïs. Orig. contra Celsum, 1. ii. §. 43. 'Ipsa anima, etsi fuit in abysso, jam non est, quia scriptum est, non derelinques animam meam in inferno.' S. Ambros. de Incarn. c. 5. Si ergo secundum hominem, quem Verbum Deus suscepit, putamus dictum esse, hodie mecum eris in Paradiso, non ex his verbis in cœlo existimandus est esse Paradisus. Neque enim ipso die in cœlo futurus erat homo Christus Jesus, sed in inferno secundum animam, in sepulcro autem secundum carnem, Et de carne quidem, quod eo die in sepulcro sit posita, manifestum est evan• gelium. Quod vero illa anima in in Synes. Hymn. ix. 7. Ψυχὴ δὲ ἡ θεία,τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν λαχοῦσα συνδρομήν τε καὶ ἕνωσιν, καταπεφοίτηκε μὲν εἰς ᾅδου, Θεοπρεπεῖ δὲ δυνάμει καὶ ἐξουσίᾳ χρωμένη, καὶ τοῖς ἐκεῖσε πνεύμασi Karεpaivero. S. Cyril. Alex. Dial, de Incarn. t. v. par. i. p. 693. 'O μèv τάφος αὐτοῦ σῶμα μόνον ὑπεδέξατο, ψυχὴν δὲ μόνην ὁ ᾅδης. Anast. apud Euthym. Panopl, par. ii. tit. 17. ‘Postquam igitur exaltatus est, id est, a Judæis in cruce suspensus, et spiritum reddidit, unita suæ Divinitati anima ad inferorum profunda descendit.' Auctor Serm. de tempore. Corpore in sepulcro seposito, Divinitas cum anima hominis ad inferna descendens vocavit de locis suis animas sanctorum.' Gaudentius Brix. Tract. 10. In hoc Divinitas Christi virtutem suæ impassibilitatis ostendit, quæ ubique, semper et ineffabiliter præsens, et secundum animam suam in inferno sine doloribus fuit, et secundum carnem suam in sepulcro sine corruptione jacuit; quia nec |