of judgment;" adding for a farther confirma tion thereof," that Christ, because he was man, was not only dead and buried according to the scriptures, but that he also satisfied this of law of descending into hell, and did not as cend into the heights of heaven before he had descended into the depths of the earth, that there the patriarchs and prophets might enjoy him" And in the same chapter he cons tinues to write, that heaven is not yet open ed to any, the earth, or hell, being yet shut, but, that at the end of the world the kingdom of heaven shall be unlocked:" And in the next chapter, he mentions it as the common belief of the Christians in his age, that all souls went to hell; and speaks both with horror and iderision of the impious practices of the follow sers of Simon Magus, that they pretended by their magical arts to bring the souls of the day prophets from hell;" since, whatsoever specstrums or visions appeared, they were not real souls, but only their resemblances and phan, tasms; "it being impossible for any soul to come out of hell before the judgment-day, as our Lord, in the person of Abraham hath appointed in the parable of the comforted poor nran, and tormented rich man, that no soul shall pass from hell to earth :" Wherefore he concludes in the next and last chapter," that

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all souls are in hell, that there are both punishments and rewards, that both Dives and Lazarus are there, that the soul is both punished and comforted in hell, in expectation of the future judgment."

To Tertullian, the Sibylline oracles may be subjoined, which seem to be a pious fraud of some good intentioned Christian, compiled, probably, about the latter end of the second century in the time of the emperor Commodus, wherein all men who live upon the face of the earth, are said to go down to the house of hades, or to hell.

All men who in this world do dwell,

Muft go to the unfeen gates of hell.

Novation discoursing of the perfection of the creation, shews that all parts thereof are full of the wonders of God's workmanship, not only the heavens above and the earth beneath, but even "those places which lye under the earth, are not empty of distinguished and ordered powers; for that is the place whither the souls both of the godly and ungodly are led, receiving the fore-judgment of their future doom."

Archelaus, bishop of Caschara in Mesopotamia, writes concerning Dives and Lazarus, "That they both died and descended into hell."

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Lactantius warns his readers, "That none of them should think, that souls were immediately judged after death; for they are all detained in one common custody, till the time shall come when the greatest judge shall examine their respective merits.

Athanasius commends and admires the couErage of the martyrs, who, for the sake of Christ, did not fear to undergo all hardships and miseries; and though many of them had weak and infirm bodies, yet they greedily snatched at death, not recoiling at the corruption of their bodies, nor "fearing the paths in hell."

Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, affirms it to be "the necessary law of nature, that bodies should be buried, and that souls should descend into hell;" wherefore the souls of the faithful when they are loosed from their bodies, are reserved for an entrance into the heavenly kingdom by the custody of the Lord, to wit, in the bosom of Abraham, unto which a great gulf hinders the wicked from approaching" And in another place he writes, that immediately after death, the soul of every man goes either to a place of bliss or woe; " of which the rich and poor man in the gospel, are witnesses; the one of whom the angels

placed in the seat of the faithful, even in Ab raham's bosom, whilst the region of punish ment presently received the other. The day of judgment is a retribution either of eternal blessedness or punishment; but the time of death detains every one under its laws, whilst it reserves every one for judgment, either in the bosom of Abraham, or in punishment.”

St. Jerome seems also in some places, to be of the same opinion; as where he "puts this difference between death and hell, that death is the separation of body and soul, but hell the place in which souls are reserved either in happiness or misery, according to the quality of their merits;" And in several places he saith, "That before the coming of Christ, all were alike conducted to hell."

St. Austin writes, that the "time which is interposed between a man's death, and the last resurrection, containeth souls in hidden receptacles, according as every one is worthy 'either of rest or labor."

But here it must not be dissembled or con. cealed, that in the declension of the Greek and Latin tongues, the words hades and inferi became to be chiefly understood in an evil sense, especially in the Latin tongue, where it came to be for the most part, peculiarly ap

plied to the place and state of depart wicked souls; from whence we find amongst the Greeks, that in the days of Origen, some "Christians could not imagine, that the saints before the coming of Christ, went to hell;" unto whom the father replies, "That the ser vants were not greater than their masters, that it was no dishonor for them to go unto that place, whither the Lord himself went, whe descended into hell, that he might conquer it, and deliver from thence the souls of the pious and godly" by which he hath opened for us a passage into Paradise, that so "we, who live in the end of the world, have this privilege beyond the ancient saints, that if we depart out of this life good and'holy, we shall pass by the flaming sword at the entrance of Paradise, and shall not go unto that place, where those who died before the coming of Christ expected him, but shall pass by without receiving any harm from the flaming sword."

Where it is also evident, that Origen him. self receded something from the opinion generally received in the church, in that he would not allow the souls of the godly to go to hell since the resurrection of Christ, as he acknowledged they did before, but sent them to Paradise, which he assigned to be in a dif ferent place from hell, and not in hell, as o