in particular as died like Him; a custom which took its usual course with Jewish, as well as with other, condemned criminals.

II. That custom being here suspended, and exchanged for the opposite custom of the people of God, by a subsequent interference of individual Israelites, concurring, by the singular Providence of God, to fulfil this particular of the Messiah, agreeably to His own predictions concerning Himself, in these several respects;. viz. 1. In the preparation of His body for sepulture. 2. In the preparation of the Holy Sepulchre. 3. In the character of those Israelites, themselves eminent men, but till then secret disciples, and not declared till the circumstance of extreme humiliation made their open profession in this instance more remarkable: by which also a most signal clause in the description of this scene by the Evangelical Prophet was verified, like all the preceding.

Thirdly, That the belief of this circumstance is necessary.
I. Because it is most essential to the assurance of the two
most important truths immediately connected with the
Burial; viz.

1. Of the Death preceding it (which show); and also
2. Of the Resurrection following it.

II. In order to produce a certain correspondence and similitude in ourselves: a conformity declared most expressly in the initiatory sacrament of our religion, and thus repeatedly enforced by the Apostles.

III. In order to show what solemnities become the bodies of the faithful departed, and conformed to their Lord and Head in the passage from death to immortality: in contradistinction to all the various obsequies of the Heathen who died without hope.

Sum up therefore this termination of the central Article of the Christian Creed.

ARTICLE V.

"HE DESCENDED INTO HELL: THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD."

§ 1. "HE DESCENDED INTO HELL."

Respecting the descent into Hell (a doctrine propounded in the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England, but not now with the same restriction of Scriptural interpretation as formerly,)

First, For the history of this dogma of faith: show,

I. That in the place where this Article was first propounded and thence came into the Creed of the Western Church, its terms are general and undefined as to precise meaning.

II. That though in that original place it might be understood as relating to our Lord's Burial simply, it must be here understood as adding something distinct to that Article.

III. That in the Scripture passages on which its truth rests, 1. That of St. Paul might be differently interpreted. 2. That of St. Peter might be so also; this interpret

ation, though the most constant one (and taken for granted in the earliest editions of the Articles where it was cited), being attended with difficulty. [Another interpretation somewhat doubtfully proposed by St. Augustin, has been pursued in Art. II. § 3. Second head, II. 1. B. (3.)] 3. That of the Psalmist, applied by the same Apostle in the Acts, is decisive for the Truth of the Article, being incapable of any other interpretation: leaving therefore nothing to investigate but the precise meaning of that which is thus scripturally proved.

Secondly, For the explication of this proposition, show,

I. That the opinion, broached by one of the most eminent

of the Schoolmen, of a metaphorical descent or virtual operation of our Lord's Spirit in the infernal regions, is inconsistent with the meaning of the Creed.

II. That the opinion of a suffering of the torments of Gehenna or Hell-fire,

1. If taken in the strict literal sense of a temporary

damnation post mortem, endured below by our Lord, is both impossible and unscriptural. 2. If taken metaphorically of the penal sufferings actually endured in spirit by our Saviour on our account during His Life on earth [which is the idea of Herman Witsius, and other Calvinistic expositors of the Creed,]—is, equally with the first opinion, incompatible with the meaning of the Article: which speaks plainly of a time in our Lord's humiliation, to which that penal suffering could not attach.

III. That the opinion of this Article being but a repetition in Hebrew phraseology of that immediately preceding, 1. Is favoured by the possible commutation of the terms by which both the subject and the locality of this Article are denoted, with those of the preceding Article: inasmuch as A. The Hebrew and Greek words ( with which the spirit, the subject of this Article, is denoted,-are in some instances identified with the body, the subject of the preceding Article. B. The Hebrew and Greek words

שאול) Greek words

"Ans) which express the place of this

descent, have been in several biblical instances interpreted to mean the grave.

2. Is nevertheless inadmissible as applied to the Creed or Creeds under discussion;—

A. From the known opinion of him in the fourth century, who first interpreted this Article of the Burial, showing that he did not exclude the descent of the soul of Christ.

B. From the certainty that it would not have been in this Creed annexed to the

Article of the Burial, if it had meant

no more than that.

IV. That the opinion of Hades, meaning here simply the state of the dead, without any locality attached to it, is 1. Wholly new, no such metaphorical meaning of the term adns appearing either in the Heathen classics, or in the Christian Fathers.

2. Contradicted by the various questions respecting the locality of Hades, which on this hypothesis have absolutely no meaning, and particularly by the fact of some dead persons not having been reckoned to be in Hades.

3. Refuted by the place which the Article bears in the Creed, proving that it could not be (as this meaning would necessarily make it),—

A. Either a repetition of the Article "He was dead".

B. Or an expression of His continuance in that same state: the expression "He descended" refuting this.

V. That the opinion of Hades being the place (wheresoever situated, but distinct wholly from the world in which we live,) to which the soul, the incorruptible part of man, is removed at death, the righteous being there gathered to Abel and all the faithful since departed, the wicked to all that have preceded in their sad fellowship,-is

1. The unanimous doctrine of the Christian Fathers: shown in all their writings and confessions of faith, but particularly in the allegation of this doctrine in the Apollinarian controversy. Show

here

A. That unless the doctrine as above stated were universally received in the Church, it could be no argument to prove against those heretics the reality of the human soul of our Lord.

B. That if this Article referred (according to the IIIa interpretation) either to the body's burial, or to the descent with it of the animal soul-the v or fux

it would be no special argument against the Apollinarians; who never denied the existence, either of the human body of Christ, or of its animal soul.

C. That it is therefore, according to the understanding of the early Church (and of the heretics also), referred solely to the rational or intellectual human soul, which the Apollinarians denied to Christ (conceiving its place supplied by the Divine Λόγος).

2. Attended with a discrepancy as to detail-after this definition of adŋs has been admitted: viz. A. As to the position of the place in question, to which Christ descended, viz.

whether

(1.) To the common receptacle of souls generally.

(2.) Or to that part only which contained the blessed.

(3.) Or to that only which contained the damned.

B. Still more as to the object and the efficacy of the descent of Christ; whether it

were

(1.) For the release of the faithful souls from a place of inferior happiness in which they were detained before, and the translation of them to the highest heaven,

(2.) Or for the release of the condemned souls from the fire of Gehenna, and translating them to the celestial happiness; (an opinion which was held for heresy, if the deliverance of all the damned were asserted, but not incompatible with orthodoxy if it were only the deliverance of