-with which restriction of its meaning even the Gentile name for the Gentile or mythological Hades, was capable of expressing the real Hades of Scripture and revelation. The composition of the word in the original Greek, is resolvable into elements which require it to signify the unseen or invisible place and that this proper sense of the term was clearly understood by the Greeks themselves, to lie at the bottom of their familiar application of it to the world of departed spirits, appears from that allusion to this proper meaning, which occurs in the Phædo of Plato, (Operum v. page 51, line 16, Bekkeri, 1817,) where Socrates is speaking of the departure of the soul, itself τὸ ἀειδὲς . . εἰς τοιοῦτον τόπον ἕτερον . . . εἰς "Αιδου ὡς ἀληθῶς. In this characteristic circumstance likewise, the Gentile and the scriptural notion of Hades do necessarily coincide and agree together.

...

The adoption then of a word from the Greek language to express what is meant by the scriptural Hades, whether in the Old or in the New Testament-first and properly implies no more with respect to the agreement between the things themselves, than that both the Hades of the Greeks and the Hades of scripture are each denominations for the locality of the soul after death—and each when resolved into its elements, denotes the unseen and invisible region alike. Whether the material agreement between the terms may not go further than this, and the very notion of the locality of Hades, attached to the use of that term in Greek, may not to a certain extent agree with the similar notion which requires to be attached to the scriptural use of the term-is a question, on which we cannot en

ter at present, without anticipating what will come with more propriety hereafter.

It has been already observed, that the name of this locality in the original Hebrew, is Sheol; and the version of that name in the Septuagint in almost every instance, is Hades. It would seem to be only a natural consequence that one and the same word in the original, should be rendered by one and the same word in the translation; and therefore whatever term the translators of the English Bible might have considered the fittest to express the Hebrew Sheol, in the first instance, they should have adhered to the use of that ever after. Instead of this, however, the Sheol of the original is sometimes rendered the grave; sometimes the pit; and sometimes hell; upon which variation we may have something to remark elsewhere. For example, the grave-Gen. xxxvii. 35; xlii. 38; xliv. 29. 31: 1 Sam. ii. 6: 1 Kings ii. 6. 9: Job vii. 9; xiv. 13; xvii. 13; xxi. 13: Ps. vi. 5; xxx. 3; xxxi. 17; xlix. 14, 15; lxxxviii. 3; lxxxix. 48: Proverbs i. 12; xxx. 16: Ecclesiastes ix. 10: Canticles viii. 6: Isaiah xiv. 11; xxxviii. 10. 18: Ezech. xxxi. 15: Hosea xiii. 14, &c.

The pit-Numbers xvi. 30. 33; xvii. 16.

Hell-Deut. xxxii. 22: Job xi. 8; xxv. 6: 2 Sam. xxii. 6: Ps. ix. 17; xvi. 10; xviii. 5; lv. 15; lxxxvi. 13; cxvi. 3; cxxxix. 8: Proverbs v. 5; víi. 27; ix. 18; xv. 11; xxiii. 14; xxvii. 20: Isaiah v. 14; xiv. 9. 15; xxviii. 15. 18; lvii. 9: Ezech. xxxi. 16, 17; xxxii. 27: Amos ix. 2: Jonah ii. 2: Habakkuk ii. 5.

After these general remarks on the use of the

word Sheol in the Old Testament, and Hades in the New-the truth of our fourth proposition, taken in conjunction with those which have been previously established, can scarcely require to be further made out; for if it be once admitted that the souls of the dead, as soon as they are separated from the body by death, are formed into a certain proper society, within a certain proper locality, then so far as the use of a definite term for this locality, both in the Old and the New Testament, can imply that the locality itself is of a corresponding definite kind; that the souls of men, as collected into a certain society by death, do not exist any where, nor after any manner, but in a proper region, the receptacle of all the souls of the dead in common, called Hades -follows of course. Under these circumstances, expressly to specify every instance of the scriptural use of the word Sheol in the Hebrew, or of the word Hades in Greek-and expressly to point out its sense and meaning, as denoting the receptacle of departed spirits, in each of those instances-would be a superfluous task, if not an endless one. I will observe only that the first instance of the occurrence of the word Sheol in the Old Testament is Genesis xxxvii. 35, in the account of Jacob's mourning for the supposed loss of his son Joseph-where our translators have rendered it by the grave. As to subsequent instances, the same word Sheol occurs sixty-two times in the original, and is sixty-one times rendered by "Aions in the Septuagint; and once by @ávaros, in the version of 2 Sam. xxii. 6.

The region of departed spirits is alluded to, Job xxx. 23. as "The house appointed for all living :"

"For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and "to the house appointed for all living:" in the language of which text, so far as to use the name of an house for the region in question, there is a perceptible resemblance to that of John xiv. 2: of which I hope to shew hereafter, that it must be understood of the same thing.

The same region is described, with reference to its characteristic property of being, "Αιδου ὡς ἀληθῶς -the dark, invisible, unseen, region: Job x. 21, 22: "Before I go whence I shall not return, even to "the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

"A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the "shadow of death, without any order, and where "the light is as darkness." Cf. Job xvi. 22.

There is a still plainer description of the same locality, Job xxvi. 5, 6; at least if we adopt the version proposed in Mant's Bible, instead of that of the authorized translation:

"The souls of the dead tremble;

"(The places) below the waters and their in“habitants.

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"The seat of spirits is naked before Him.

"And the region of destruction hath no covering."

In the English version it stands,

"Dead things are formed from under the water; "and (or in the margin with) the inhabitants

"thereof.

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"Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering."

Cf. Job xxxviii. 17: Proverbs xv. 11.

The following passages would perhaps be as ap

propriate as any to shew that in the language of the prophets, Sheol, or Hades, is the supposed common receptacle of all who die-the great or the little, the high or the low, the rich or the poor— not as simply synonymous with the grave, but as a locality sui generis, and comprehending all in common-which no grave does.

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Isaiah v. 14: "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and "their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, "and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.”

Isaiah xiv. 9: "Hell from beneath is moved for "thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up "the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the "earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all "the kings of the nations."

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Ezekiel xxxi. 14: "To the end that none of all "the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the “thick boughs, . . . . for they are all delivered unto "death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the "midst of the children of men, with them that go "down to the pit.

15." Thus saith the Lord GOD....

16. "I made the nations to shake at the sound of "his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them "that descend into the pit: and all the trees of "Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that "drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

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17." They also went down into hell with him "unto them that be slain with the sword;

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18. "To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt