them, and esteeming those things beyond what we have here."-"The countenance of the fathers and of the just, which they see, always smile upon them, while they wait for that rest and eternal life in heaven which is to succeed this region. This place we call the bosom of Abraham.

"But to the unjust, they are dragged by force to the left hand by the angels allotted for punishment, no longer going with a good will, but as prisoners driven by violence.""And not only so, but they see the place of the fathers and of the just, even hereby are they punished; for a chaos deep and large is fixed between; inasmuch that a just man that hath compassion upon them cannot be admitted, nor can one that is unjust, if he were bold enough to attempt it, pass over it. This is the discourse concerning Hades wherein the souls of all men are confined until a proper season which God hath determined, when he will make a resurrection of all men from the dead."*

Such was the belief which it appears, not only from Jewish historians, but from Scripture itself, our Saviour found current among the people with whom he was pleased to live while he resided on earth. They had long been distinguished by the especial favour and protection of the only true God whom they worshipped when the nations around them were involved in the midst of heathen darkness and superstition, and all their Sacred Writings seem to take such a doctrine as understood. We have also evidence that their written and traditionary lore, preserved by their priests, was still more explicit than in their written law, but this was also much vitiated in other matters by additions of their own, so as not to be depended on except in as far as corroborated by the Old Testament. Although neither our Lord nor his Apostles, as far as we can now find, did see fit, or perhaps did think it necessary to confirm their traditionary ideas of it in every particular, yet both he and his Apostles alluded to many of them in such a way as to show, that the principal of them were correct. He spoke of the soul when separated

* Whiston's translation.

from the body, carried by angels at death to Abraham's bosom, a place situated in a region where the just and unjust were both confined or remained for a while within view of each other, but separated by an impassable chasm or gulf; -that souls in this state saw, heard, and could converse ;that they knew each other, were happy or miserable according as their lives had been, and that even those among the unhappy were anxious about the fate of their friends left behind them upon earth.

Josephus mentions many more particulars, none of which were at least contradicted by our Saviour; but if we only admit those he confirmed, by speaking of them as true, it must be allowed that Hades and Heaven are separate and distinct places, the first being only a temporary residence, and the second an eternal one. Christ did not consider this as a doctrine of slight importance,-whether it was believed or not, even provided the ultimate resurrection of man was credited, and his eternal life in a future world,—for he reprehended the Sadducees for disbelieving the continued life of the spirit, and on different occasions his reasonings and moral lessons were grounded upon the souls of deceased men being alive, and upon the ideas which the strictest of the Jews entertained of Hades.

Bishop Burnet observes in his Exposition of the 3d Article in the Creed, that by Hell may be meant the invisible place to which departed souls are carried after their death, and therefore, that by our Saviour's soul descending to Hell is meant "his soul being removed from his body, and carried to those unseen regions of departed spirits among whom it continued till his resurrection."

Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Winchester, in his exposition of the same article, considers that by it is meant "that in the intermediate time," (between the death of Christ and his resurrection) "his soul went into the common receptacle of departed spirits."

The acute and learned author of the Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Rector of St. James's, Westminster, in his Exposition of the Church Ca

techism, explains the word Hell in the Creed to be "the invisible state of departed souls."

Sir Peter King, in his Critical History of the Apostles' Creed, proves, at some length, and with the greatest clearness and force, the existence of a place of departed spirits into which Christ descended in the interval between his death and his resurrection.

Dr. Nicholls, in his Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, asserts the same doctrine, interpreting the descent into Hell, of Christ's descent into the place of separate souls.

Dr. Doddridge paraphrases the words, Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, thus :-"I am fully satisfied that thou wilt not leave my soul while separated from the body in the unseen world." He observes in a note that " ψυχή, which is the word here used, can hardly be thought to signify a dead body, and Hades is generally put for the state of separate spirits."

Although the idea of the place of everlasting torment is now commonly connected with the English word hell, the original meaning of this word was no more than a hidden and invisible place, from the Saxon word helan to cover over. In this acceptation it is used as the translation of the Greek hades.

Dr. Doddridge also mentions that "Our English, or rather Saxon word Hell, in the original signification (though it is now understood in a more limited sense) exactly answers to the Greek word Hades, and denotes a concealed or unseen place." Dr. Campbell observes-"the term Hades signifies obscure, hidden, invisible. To this the word Hell in its primitive signification perfectly corresponded."*

"The word Hell," says Dr. Adam Clarke, "used in the common translation, conveys now an improper meaning of the original word; because Hell is only used to signify the place of the damned. But as the word Hell comes from the Anglo-Saxon helan, to cover or hide, hence the tyling or slating of a house is called in some parts of England (parti

* See Preliminary Diss. VI. part ii. 2.

cularly Cornwall) heling to this day, and the cover of books (in Lancaster) by the same name; so the literal import of the original word Hades was formerly well expressed by it." Dr. C. interprets the words in the Creed relating to the soul of Christ, that it should not be left "in the state of separate spirits."*

Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, very correctly gives as one meaning of hell, "the place of the departed souls, whether good or bad," and illustrates this by the words in the Creed" He descended into Hell," and by Genesis xxxvi. 35. "For I will go down to the grave, to my son mourning."

The word Sheol, as used among the Jews, was derived from a Hebrew word signifying to ask, to crave, to crave as a loan. It therefore denoted, among that people, a place which is an object of universal inquiry, the unknown mansion, about which all men are anxiously inquisitive.

2dly, A place of insatiable craving; which characteristic is frequently assigned it in several parts of Scripture.

3dly, It implied that which is sought for, and is to be rendered back. Sheol is to be understood, not simply as a place of departed spirits, but as a region which is only to form their temporary residence, and from which at some future time they are to be rendered up; thus indicating an intermediate state of the soul between its departure from this world, and some future state of its existence.†

"As the region of the dead or place of the departed, Sheol or hell, is used in the Old Testament. But the Hebrew word for the grave is ¬p (Keber,) the receptacle for the dead body, but not of the soul, and, accordingly, the Hebrew word for soul, we (Nephesh,) is never joined with Keber, but with Sheol, the term denoting the abode of departed spirits. The Hebrew Sheol is never used for the grave, though it is sometimes translated by this word."‡

* Commentary on Matt. xi. 23.

+ See Magee on the atonement, &c. p. 348.; and Horsley's Commentary on Hosea, p. 158. Bishop Hobart.

Bishop Lowth remarks,* that where in our version, Jacob says he will go down to the grave of his son mourning,† Sheol ought to be translated the state or place of the dead, and not the grave. Jacob could not have expected to lay his dead body beside that of his son, whom he believed to have been devoured by wild beasts, and must have meant the place where he supposed Joseph's soul was lodged. Archbishop Secker asserts the same thing.

In the learned Vitringa's Commentary on Isaiah, he quotes this passage and several others in the Old Testament, in which he says the word Sheol ought to be translated not grave but hell, in the sense of a receptacle of departed spirits good and bad. "It is almost needless to remark," says Bishop Hobart, "that the word Sheol or Hades, in this passage, could not possibly mean the state of the damned.”

In the opinion of the Jews, Gehenna, or the place of perdition, was situated in the lowest part of Sheol, but not to be inhabited by any description of beings till after the judgment. "It cannot be supposed that the writers of the New Testament were strangers to the popular belief of their countrymen, and of the heathen generally, with respect to the region of the departed. When they used the term ades, they undoubtedly did so in its settled, universal, and appropriate signification of the place of departed spirits. This was the signification which the authors of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament annexed to the term.""The writers of the New Testament quote from the Septuagint, in which Hades is put for Sheol. They must therefore have considered Hades as expressing what Sheol does in the Old Testament, the place of departed souls or spirits."

According to Bishop Horsley, "The state of the departed spirits while they continue there" (referring to Sheol or Hades) "is a condition of unfinished bliss, in which the souls of the justified would not have remained for any time,

* Lowth on Isaiah xiv. 9.

Hobart.

† Gen. xxxvi. 35.