been any while dead, gave the body to Joseph: who buried Him respectfully "in his own new tomb, a sepulchre hewn out of a rock1; "the entrance into which the Jews sealed up, and set a guard over2. And thus were His own predictions fulfilled, that He should be crucified3, the most unlikely of all deaths and at the same time that of Isaiah, that He should not only be buried, but, with the most. unlikely of all burials in such a case, “making his grave with the rich1."

The last part of this Article is, that He descended into hell: an assertion founded on Psalm xvi. 10, where David prophesies of Christ what St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles explains of Him3, that "his soul should not be left in hell;" which imports, that once He was there. And hence, after some time, it was inserted into our Creed, which in the beginning had it not. However, being taught in Scripture, the truth of this doctrine is indubitable: the only question is about the meaning of it.

The first thought of most, or all persons, to be sure, will be that the word hell, in this article, signifies what it doth in common speech, the place where devils and wicked men are punished. And it hath been imagined, that Christ went to triumph. over the devil there, and some add, to rescue part of the souls which he held under confinement, by preaching, as the Scripture saith He did, "to the spirits that were in prison'." But the place of torment is never determinately expressed in Scripture by the word Hades, which both the Scripture and the Creed use in this article, but by very different. ones: though unhappily our translation hath used the same English word for both, instead of calling 1 Matt. xxvii. 57-60; Mark xv. 43-46; Luke xxiii. 50-53. Matt. xxvii. 62-66.3 Matt. xx. 19; John iii. 14; xii. 32, 33. 4 Isa. liii. 9. 5 Acts ii. 24-32, 36.

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Origen against Celsus, 1, 2, s. 42, saith, that Christ converted souls to Himself there, τας βουλομενας η άς έωρα επιτηδειοτέρας. 71 Pet. iii. 19.

the former, what it strictly signifies, the invisible state or region. Besides, we do not read of our Saviour's triumphing over the devil anywhere, but "on the cross'." And "the spirits in prison," to whom St. Peter saith Christ "by his Spirit preached," he saith also were those "which were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." And therefore Christ's "preaching to them by his Spirit," probably means, His exciting by "his Spirit," which "strove with" them for a time, that patriarch to be a "preacher of righteousness" among them, as the same St. Peter, in his other Epistle, calls him. But not hearkening to him, they are now in prison, reserved for the sentence of the last day. This opinion therefore hath no sufficient foundation. Nor would it be found, on further trial, agreeable either to reason or Scripture.

Others have thought the word, translated hell, to signify in this Article, as it seems to do in some passages of the Old Testament, and as the English word anciently did, merely a place under ground, by which they understand the grave. And they plead for it, that the first Creeds, which mentioned our Saviour's descending into hell, used no other words to express His being buried, and therefore designed to express it by these. But allowing that, still our Creed, expressing the descent into hell after the burial, must mean a different thing by it.

And indeed the most common meaning, not only among heathens, but Jews and the first Christians, of the word Hades, here translated hell, was in general, that invisible world, one part or another of which, the souls of the deceased, whether good or bad, inhabit. And this, how strange soever it might seem to the unlearned, yet is by others.

acknowledged'. Probably, therefore, all that was intended to be taught by the expression now before us, is, that when our Saviour died, as His body was laid in the grave, so His spirit went where other separate spirits are. And we should remember, in repeating these words of the Creed, that this is the whole of what we are bound to profess by them. But in what part of space, or of what nature, that receptacle is, in which the souls of men continue from their death till they rise again, we scarce know at all excepting that we are sure it is divided into two extremely different regions, the dwelling of the righteous, called in St. Luke Abraham's bosom, where Lazarus was; and that of the wicked, where the rich man was; "between which there is a great gulf fixed." And we have no proof that our Saviour went on any account into the latter but since He told the penitent thief, "that he should be that day with him in paradise," we are certain He was in the former; where "they, which die in the Lord, rest from their labours, and are blessed';" waiting for a still more perfect happiness at the resurrection of the last day.

How the soul of our Saviour was employed in this abode, or for what reasons He continued there during this time, further than that He might "be like unto his brethren in all things5," we are not told, and need not guess. But probably this Article was made part of the Creed, in order to assert and prove that He had really a human soul, which was really separated from His body. And its residence, during the separation, in the same state and place, where other spirits of just men made perfect"" are,

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1 See Pearson on this Art., p. 239, 240. 2 Luke xvi. 22, 23, 26. 3 Luke xxiii. 43. Non ex his verbis in cœlo existimandus est esse paradisus. Neque enim ipso die in cœlo futurus erat homo Christus Jesus sed in inferno secundum animam, in sepulchro autem secundum carnem. Aug. Ep. 57, ad Dardanum. Pearson, p. 237. Heb. xii. 23.

* Rev. xiv. 13.

5 Heb. ii. 17.

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surely made a vast addition to their felicity. For "Abraham, who rejoiced to see his day"" at a distance, must be inexpressibly more rejoiced to see Him present there. All the good persons, whose going thither preceded the death of our Lord, must certainly partake in the joy. And all who came, or shall come, after, must feel much greater consolation for being in a place where the Redeemer had been seen by such numbers of His saints; and to which in some peculiar sense, His presence is yet continued: for we learn from St. Paul, that the immediate consequence of a pious man's departure hence is "being with Christ"."

But were the reasons of His descending into Hades, or of the insertion of it into our belief, ever so obscure, it may suffice us that the reasons of His sufferings and death are very plain, as well as very important. With these, therefore, I shall conclude this Lecture.

1. The first is, that He might be an example to His followers. For so He became the noblest and most engaging pattern imaginable of that great and hard duty, patient submission to the will of God; since being of a rank infinitely superior to the afflictions of this world, and having done nothing to deserve the least of them, He most willingly chose and cheerfully bore the most grievous that were possible. Well then may we, mortals and sinners, take whatever befalls us, in life or death, meekly and contentedly, "because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who yet when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.' The example also of kindness and love to men He

John viii. 56. 2 Phil. i. 23. See Peters on Job, § 11, p. 399. 31 Pet. ii. 21-23.

showed yet more fully by His crucifixion than by His incarnation: foreseeing, as He plainly did, all the pains and torments He should undergo in executing His great design of reforming and saving mankind; yet deterred by nothing from undertaking it, and persevering in it. If therefore," he so loved us, we ought also," as St. John argues, "to love one another1:" and, " because he laid down his life for us, we ought," if a proper occasion require it, even "to lay down our lives for our brethren?."

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2. A second reason of His dying was, that He might thus confirm the truth of His doctrine; to which it must needs add a very powerful confirmation, that, though the Jews expected a warlike and victorious Messiah, and therefore His taking upon Himself a meek and suffering character must grievously prejudice them against Him, yet He declared from the very first, what you read in St. John, that "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so should the Son of man be lifted up3:" signifying," as the same evangelist elsewhere assures us, "what death He should die." And He all along persisted in this declaration; rejected every opportunity of worldly power; fearlessly taught the most provoking truths, and voluntarily met what He foretold He should suffer. Stronger evidences of sincerity than these, a man cannot give; and therefore St.John thus reckons up the testimonies of Christ's mission: "There are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood"." And St. Paul observes, that before "Pontius Pilate he witnessed a good confession":" on account of which He is called, in the Book of Revelation, "the faithful witness, or martyr."

3. The third, and principal reason of our Saviour's