The Descent into Hell.

"That Sabbath was an High Day."

THERE is a breathing of peace and repose, of which we become sensible, in reading the account of the eve of the last sabbath of the old dispensation. The contrast is striking between this interval of peace, and the previous scenes of malice and outrage: the shouts and screams of rejection and derision, the sounds of blows, and of preparation for death, and all the bustle and outrage which centred on the eminence of Calvary, where the crucified hung upon their crosses. The noise and business of the city, too, was stilled. The thousands of wayfarers and sacrificers, and the multitude of those passing and hurrying through the streets, noisy and excited in the performance of their various duties, had found their respective homes. The preparations of those faithful ones, who were anxious for the worthy discharge of the last rites of burial for their Lord, were cut short by the proclamation of the sabbath. The peaceful hour of twilight fell upon the world-that general summons to rest from the labours of the day, and to lay aside the burdens of duty.

All "rested the sabbath day according to the commandment;" but none realized the fact that, though the commandment, given prior to the Jewish religion, that mankind should rest upon the sabbath day, remained eternal and general, for Jew and Gentile, for Christian

and heathen alike-a rest typical of the rest of the grave, and of the sabbath of eternity-yet the seventh day of the Jewish religion, and of ancient dispensations, was now superseded; and "the Lord's day was about to dawn upon the world. Henceforward the first day of the week" should be the day of rest until the end of time. This was, therefore, the last sabbath. The law, as delivered by Moses, had found its fulfilment; the day of the first covenant was to be known no more. Christ "had made the first old; and that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."

But there was nothing so still, and solemn, and peaceful as the repose of the dead. Two of those who had been crucified together, had entered the unseen world of the blessed dead; one of them, the Saviour of the world, in order that thus He might be "Lord both of the dead and of the living," and that, whether we live or die, we may be the Lord's. All three, who had lately suffered so much at the hands of men, rested in the death of the body. He who had been lately the object of so many interests, of so many hopes, and of such anxiety and dread, of so much hate and so much love, lay in His sepulchre in death. He rested that day from all the work of redemption which He had wrought. God surveyed the perfect work which the only begotten Son had finished in fullest obedience to His will; "and, behold, it was very good." Into these things "the angels desire to look." "That sabbath was an high day.”

There was but one exception to this scene of outward peace and repose. There is no rest to the anxiety and foreboding of guilt; "there is no peace to the wicked;" and even now, upon the holy sabbath, a deputation of the chief priests and rulers might be seen waiting at the gate of the Gentile governor, arranging for a guard of soldiers to watch the sepulchre of the dead Christ. They feared He might, as He had declared, rise again, to their confusion; but they hoped He might again be slain by Roman swords, on His exit from the tomb, or that, by

some craftily devised story, His reappearance might be discredited. These guardians of public religion did not scruple to break the law, and to pollute the rest of this last sabbath, in the furtherance of their iniquitous schemes.

But what of the dead Christ, whom they had succeeded in cutting off out of the land of the living, and whose body now lay in the silence and peace of the tomb, "with the rich in His death"? His murderers little knew the real issue of their deeds. His voice indeed was stilled upon earth, and His earthly ministry brought to a violent, though not untimely, close; but a fresh and wider scope was now given to His mission, and His work. It had ceased to do with men of the day and of that country, and with the limitations of time. "The middle wall of partition" between Jew and Gentile was thrown down; "the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," and its restrictions were abolished. The Gospel mission has advanced to include the generations of all mankind, of every people, and nation, and tongue; it is henceforward contemporaneous in effect with the duration of the human race-eternity past and future alone can bound it. "Put to death in the flesh, but quickened in spirit," into a more abundant and spiritual life, with extended powers, and influences, and vitality, Christ was set free from the restraints of the body, to range the vast confines of the spirit world. He had gone into the abode of departed spirits, and was there proclaiming the everlasting Gospel with which he was commissioned.

"He descended into hell!" Such is the creed of the universal Church. But between the fact and the meaning to be attached to it, there exist such varieties and difficulties of interpretation, that, as one writer declares, "the literature of this subject is a library."

The truth of this article of the common faith has been held and acknowledged from the beginning; but, as an article of the Creed, it is of less ancient definition than

other articles concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not perhaps found, expressed in so many words, until the close of the fourth century. Still the opinion of the earliest writers, though as varied as that of critics of modern date, as to the work of Christ in Hades, is quite unanimous as to the fact of the "descent into hell."

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Upon a subject so restricted by the paucity and obscurity of direct revelation, and so perplexed by the differences of the opinion of all ages, it can scarcely be hoped that any new light can be thrown. It may be sufficient to lay before the reader some of the leading difficulties of the question, and the assertions and hints of Scripture upon which they are grounded. interest of the work and occupation of Christ in the unseen world, into which all mankind have to enter, and which lies before us all, is infinite. But we shall find, in all that refers to it, that reticence and mystery which surrounds the whole subject of death, and of that world and its inhabitants which lie beyond the grave. Whilst, therefore, it is right to ponder all that is told us, we must be content with the general outline. With regard to this work of Christ, we must accept His assertion as a general one concerning the mysteries of His redemption: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

I. It is evident that there is life, and locality beyond the grave, and an intelligence also of affairs of earth. It is not merely that the dead lie in their graves in the dust of the earth, awaiting the general resurrection, in a state of unconsciousness. It is the testimony of Scripture that all descend into hell, as Christ also descended. The word "hell," however, according to its current use, has a harshness to modern ears; since it has now come to signify only the world of future torment, "prepared for the devil and his angels," rather than, as at first and as in our Liturgy, simply the unseen world. It is an old Saxon word, meaning "covered" or "concealed," and is equivalent in its indefinite signification to the Greek