the intermediate state, and during their separation from the body."

Now, as in Heaven, happy spirits are united with their glorified bodies, the place where they abide, when separate from their bodies, is not Heaven, but a region of the place of the departed, styled Paradise.

Dr. MACKNIGHT states that "the name Paradise was also given to the place where the spirits of the just, after death, reside in felicity, till the resurrection; as appears from our Lord's words to the penitent thief."

It may be asked-is not this view of Paradise as a place of enjoyment to the righteous, and yet a part of Hades or Hell, incompatible with the figurative representation of this latter place as an enemy which Christ is to conquer, and from whose power he is to redeem his people—" I will redeem them from the power of the grave," (sheol, or Hell,) Hosea xiii. 14. Bishop Horsley answers this inquiry. "The state of the departed Saints while they continue there," (in sheol, hades, hell, the place of the departed)" is a condition of unfinished bliss, in which the souls of the justified would not have remained for any time, (if indeed they had ever entered it,) had not Sin introduced Death. It is a state, therefore, consequent upon Death; consequent, therefore, upon Sin, though no part of the punishment of it. And the resurrection of the Saints is often described as an enlargement of them by our Lord's power, from confinement in a place, not of punishment, but of inchoate enjoyment only. Our Lord will break the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder,' and set at liberty his prisoners of hope.' And when this place of safe keeping is personified, it is, con

* Com. on 2 Cor. xii, 4.

sistently with these notions of it, represented as one of the enemies which Christ is to subdue."

Against the opinion, that Paradise is a distinct place from Heaven, it may be urged, that St. Paul speaks* of "being caught up into the third Heavens," and "being caught up into Paradise." It was the opinion of all the ancient Fathers that St. Paul speaks of two distinct visions, and of course the scenes of these visions the third Heavens and Paradise, are not necessarily the same. Dr. WHITBY maintains that there were different visions, and that Paradise is distinct from the third Heavens. "The opinion of all the ancients," he observes, " seems to have been this, that he was caught at several times into several places. Hence it doth not follow that Paradise is in the third Heaven +."

The learned Bishop BULL makes the same distinction between the visions of St. Paul, and between Paradise and the third Heavens ; in which he is followed by Dr. DODDRIDGE §. And Dr. CAMPBELL establishes this distinction, in the Preliminary Dissertation which has been so often quoted. The phrase, being caught up, may be supposed contrary to the usual phraseology of Scripture, with respect to Hades or Paradise. But, as Campbell observes, the phrase apnál expresses more the sud

#2 Cor. xii. 1—4.

† Whitby on 2 Cor. xii. 1-4.

Bishop Bull's Ser. Vol. i. 89, 97.

§ Com. on 2 Cor. xii. 1-4. Dr. Macknight and Dr. Adam Clarke are favourable to the same opinion; from which Scott differs, because, he says, the happiness of departed saints consists in being present with the Lord. As if God's blissful presence could not be in Paradise as well as in Heaven.

denness of the event, and the passiveness of the Apostle, than the direction of the motion.

The phrase "paradise of God" may seem to denote Heaven in Rev. ii. 7. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." "Here," as Dr. Campbell observes, "our Lord, no doubt, speaks of heaven, but as he plainly alludes to the state of matters in the garden of Eden, where our first parents were placed, and where the tree of life grew, it can only be understood as a figurative expression of the promise of eternal life, forfeited by Adam, but recovered by our Lord Jesus Christ."

Thus then it appears, from the above view, that the sheol of the Old Testament, and the ads or Hell of the New, means the place of departed spirits, where the souls of the righteous and the wicked abide in separate states of happiness or misery until the day of Judgment; and that into the division of this region called Paradise, the abode of the spirits of the righteous, the soul of our Saviour went, after his death.

The ends of our Saviour's descent, into the place of the departed, were of the most important nature.

1. In this respect as in all others, he was made like unto us. The separation of the body from the soul by death, the penalty of Adam's sin, he, as the second Adam, underwent. His body was deposited in the grave, where our bodies must slumber. And to complete his conformity to us, his soul went to that place of the departed, where our souls are to abide, during their absence from the body. This conformity in all respects to us, sin only excepted, was a part of that humiliation by which he sustained the penalties of our transgressions.

2. And thus, as our Redeemer and head, sanctifying by his presence the place of the departed, he hath divested this secret and retired abode of its terrors, and enlightened it by his mercy and grace. The λa ads, the gates of Hades, he hath opened; and, by his power, they become, to the faithful, the entrance to a joyful resurrection of life and glory.

3. To afford us a pledge of this victory not only over death, but over Hades, over Hell, the place that confines our spirits during their separation from the body, was the last great object of his descent into it. "In hell, in hades, his soul was not left." Neither shall the souls of his people there remain. "He opened the gates of brass; he burst asunder the bars of iron;" and his spirit, disengaged from its prison-house and united to his body, ascended in glory to the regions of heavenly light. And when he who still holds the keys of Hell, of this invisible receptacle of the departed, shall pronounce the sentence "Go forth," the souls of his redeemed shall ascend, in the vestments of a glorified and incorruptible body, to that Heaven where there is "fulness of joy."

The fact, that Christ, in the interval between his death and his resurrection, went into the place of departed spirits, being proved, the existence of this place is, of course, established.

With regard to the position, in proof of the existence of the place of the departed, that an appropriate term dns, answering to the Hebrew SHEOL and to the original meaning of the word Hell as a secret or invisible place, is uniformly applied, in the New Testament, to

this state of departed spirits; it may be satisfactory to review all the passages of the New Testament where the word ans, Hades occurs.

The word ans, Hades, is found only in eleven places, and in all of them it denotes the place of departed spirits.

1. It occurs Acts ii. 27. and

2. Also Acts ii. 31. as applicable to our Saviour's soul being in Hell; the meaning of which, as denoting the place of departed spirits, has been, in the preceding pages, fully considered.

3. Luke xvi. 23. It occurs in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in the same signification. See page

473.

4. Matt. xi. 23. And thou Capernaum which art exalted to Heaven shall be cast down to Hell (ws ädu).

Heaven and Hell or Hades are here figuratively used, Heaven denoting, the highest object, and Hell or Hades the lowest, according to the notions of the Jews and Pagans in regard to the situation of these places. Capernaum being exalted to Heaven denotes her flourishing state, and brought down to Hell her low or depressed condition; even a state in which she would be no more seen; alluding to the signification of Hades, as an invisible place. WHITBY, DODDRIDGE, SCHLEUSNER and CLARKE, agree in this construction of the passage.

5. The words occur in the same sense and application in Luke x. 15.