He descended into Hell.

SERMON XXVIII.

ACTS, CHAP. II.-VERSE 27.

Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.

ST. PETER in his sermon to the Jews cites these words of the psalmist to prove the resurrection of Christ. And because on these words our Saviour's descent into hell seems to be grounded, I shall from this text take occasion to discourse of this article of the Creed, Κατελθόντα εἰς ἅδου, • He descended into hell.'

This article is of later standing in the Creed, and doth not appear to have had place in any of the most ancient ones public or private, excepting that of Aquileia; into which also perhaps it might have been inserted not long before Ruffinus's time; and the meaning thereof hath always (both in more ancient times among the Fathers, and afterwards among the Schoolmen, and lately among modern divines) been much debated, having yielded occasion to many prolix and elaborate discourses: to recite the several opinions about it, or different explications thereof, with the reasons produced to maintain or disprove them, were a matter of greater time and pains than I can well afford; and to decide the controversies about it, a matter of greater difficulty than I could hope to achieve. Wherefore (both on these accounts, and because I rather choose to insist on matters more clear in their nature, and more practical in consequence) I should be willing altogether to waive this obscure and perplexed subject; yet however somewhat to comply with expectation, I shall touch briefly on some things seeming conducible to the clearing or to the ending of the controversies about it.

Now whereas there may be a threefold inquiry; one con cerning the meaning of these words (he descended into hell') intended by those who inserted them; another concerning the most proper signification of the words themselves; a third concerning the meaning they are in consistency with truth capable of;

I. The first I resolve, or rather remove, by saying, it seems needless to dispute what meaning they, who placed the words here, did intend; since, 1. It is possible, and by many like instances might be declared so, and perhaps not unlikely, that they might both themselves on probable grounds believe, and for plausible ends propound to the belief of others, this proposition, without apprehending any distinct sense thereof; as we believe all the Scriptures, and commend them to the faith of others, without understanding the sense of many passages therein and since, 2. Perhaps they might by them intend some notion not certain or not true, following some conceits then passable among divers, but not built on any sure foundation, (like that of the millennium; and the necessity of infants communicating, &c. which were anciently in great vogue, but are now discarded:) and since, 3. To speak roundly, their bare authority, whoever they were, (for that doth not appear,) could not be such as to oblige us to be of their minds, whatever they did mean or intend; they perhaps were such to whom we might owe much reverence, but should not be obliged to yield intire credence to their opinions. But farther, 4. Were I bound to speak my sense, I should say that, supposing they had any distinct meaning, they did intend to affirm that our Saviour's soul did, by a true and proper kind of motion, descend into the regions infernal, or beneath the earth; where they conceived the souls of men were detained for this appears to have been the more general and current opinion of those times, which it is probable they did comply with herein, whencesoever fetched, however grounded.

II. As to the second inquiry, concerning the signification of the words, what may be meant by he descended ;' whether our Saviour himself, according to his humanity, or his soul, or his body, called he by synecdoche: what by descended, whether (to omit that sense which makes the whole sentence

an allegory, denoting the sufferance of infernal or hellish pains and sorrows, as too wide from the purpose; whether, I say) by descending may be signified a proper local motion toward such a term, or an action so called in respect to some such motion accompanying it; or a virtual motion by power and efficacy in places below: what by hell, whether a state of being or a place; if a place, whether that where bodies are reposed, or that to which souls do go; and if a place of souls, whether the place of good and happy souls, or that of bad and miserable ones; or indifferently, and in common of both those; for such a manifold ambiguity these words have, or are made to have; and each of these senses are embraced and contended for: I shall not examine any of them, nor farther meddle in the matter, than by saying,

1. That the Hebrew word sheol (on the true notion of which the sense of the word hell (or hades) in this place is conceived to depend) doth seem originally, most properly, and most frequently (perhaps constantly, except when it is translated, as all words sometimes are, to a figurative use) to design the whole region protended downward from the surface of the earth to a depth (according to the vulgar opinion, as it seems anciently over the world) indefinite and unconceivable; vastly capacious in extension, very darksome, desolate, and dungeonlike in quality, (whence it is also frequently styled the pit, the lowest pit, the abyss, the depths of the earth, the darkness, the depths of hell.) I need not labor much to confirm the truth of this notion, since it is obvious that this sheol (when most absolutely and properly taken, the circumstances of discourse about it implying so much) is commonly opposed to heaven, not only in situation, but in dimension and distance; as when Job, speaking of the unsearchableness of the divine perfections, saith, It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?' and the prophet Amos; Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb into heaven, thence will I bring them down.'

Nobis inferi-in fosso terræ et in alto vastitas, et in ipsis visceribus ejus abstrusa profunditas.-Tertul. de An. 35.

2. I say farther, because the bodies (or visible remainders) of persons dying do naturally fall down, or are put into the bosom of this pit, which is therefore an universal grave and receptacle of them, therefore to die is frequently termed karaßaíνειν εἰς ἅδου, or κατάγεσθαι εἰς ἅδου, to descend, or to be brought down into this hell; which happening to all men without exception, (for, as the psalmist says, there is no man that shall deliver his soul (or his life, or himself) from the hand of this all-grasping hell,) therefore it is attributed promiscuously to all men, good and bad alike; I will go down,' saith good Jacob, unto the grave, unto my son mourning, (καταβήσομαι εἰς ἅδου, I will go down to sheol, this common grave of mankind,) and so frequently of others. frequently of others. Whence this hell is apt figuratively to be put for, and to signify equivalently with, death itself; and it is once by the LXX. so translated, (and St. Peter seems to use the phrase after them;) for death, I say, or for the law, condition, and state of death: as in that of Hezekiah in the prophet Isaiah; Sheol cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth:' where oi év ädov, and oi áπoðavóvTes, (as the Greek renders sheol and death,) are the same, and opposed to the living, of whom it is said, 'The living, the living he shall praise thee.'

3. I say farther, that this word, according to ancient use, seems not to signify the place, whither men's souls do go, or where they abide; for that,

1. It can hardly be made appear that the ancient Hebrews either had any name appropriated to the place of souls, or did conceive distinctly which way they did go; otherwise than that, as the Preacher speaks, they returned unto God who gave them;' and that they did abide in God's hand; especially the souls of the just, according to that in the book of Wisdom; The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.' And for that,

2. It seems they did rather conceive the souls of men, when they died, to go upward than downward; as the Preacher

Death' and 'hades' are frequently joined as synonymous. (Ecclus. xlviii. 5.)

again intimates, when he differenceth the spirit of man dying from the soul of beasts; the soul of beasts descending with its body to the earth; the spirit of man ascending unto God,' to be disposed by him according to his pleasure and justice. And by Enoch's being taken to God, (whose special residence is expressed to be in heaven above,) and by Elias's translation up into heaven, (as it is in the text of the history,) it is probable they did rather suppose the souls of the righteous to ascend, than to be conveyed downward into subterraneous caverns, those μukoì ãdov, 'closets of hell,' as the book of Wisdom calls them; that Bólpos ädov, 'deep pit of hell,' as it is in Ben-Sirach; to ascend, I say, whether into the supreme heaven or no, is not material; but somewhither above, nearer unto God's most special residence, into a happy place.

3. I add that if those ancients had by sheol meant the receptacle or mansion of souls, it is not likely they would have used such expressions as those: The grave (sheol) cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth;' so Hezekiah spake : 'In death there is no remembrance of thee; in sheol who shall give thee thanks?' so David said: and, 'There is no works, nor device, nor knowlege, nor wisdom in sheol, whither thou goest;' so the Preacher; who hardly it seems could say so, if by sheol he meant the place of souls; except he should also mean that souls after death became deprived of all life and The son of Sirach likewise speaks in the same manner: ὑψίστῳ τις αἰνέσει ἐν ἅδου; • Who shall praise the Most High in hell, instead of them which live and give thanks? Thanksgiving perisheth from the dead, as from one that is not: the living and sound in heart shall praise the Lord.'

sense.

I must confess that afterwards (even before our Saviour's time) the word ads was assumed by the Jews, to design (as it did among the Greeks) either the place of souls in common, or more strictly the place of souls condemned to punishment and pain, for their bad lives here: Josephus doth often use the word in the first of these senses; and in the New Testament it seems peculiarly applied to the latter; as in the parable of the rich man, who being év r äen, in hell and torments,' did thence lift up his eyes, and behold afar off Lazarus in Abra