dition of the dead, or their permansion in death; which is a notion wholly new, and consequently cannot interpret that which representeth something known and believed of old, according to the notions and conceptions of those times. And that this notion is wholly new will appear, because not any of the ancient fathers is produced to avow it, nor any of the heathen authors which are produced do affirm it: nay, it is evident that the Greeks did always by hades understand a place into which the souls of men were carried and conveyed, distinct and separate from that place in which we live; and that their different opinions show, placing it, some in the earth, some under it, some in one unknown place of it, some in another. But especially hades, in the judgment of the ancient Greeks, cannot consist with this notion of the state of death, and the permansion in that condition, because there were many who they believed to be dead, and to continue in the state of death, which yet they believed not to be in hades; as those who died before their time, and those whose bodies were unburied. Thus likewise the ancient fathers differed much concerning the place of the infernus; but never any doubted but that it signified some place or other: and if they had conceived any such notion as the state of death, and the permansion of the dead in that state, they needed not to have fallen into doubts or questions; the patriarchs and the prophets being as certainly in the state of death, and remaining so, as Corah, Dathan, and Abiram are, or any person who is certainly condemned to everlasting flames. Though therefore it be certainly true that Christ did truly and properly die, as other men are wont to do, and that after expiration he was in the state or condition of the dead, in deadlihood, as some have learned to speak; yet the Creed had spoken as much as this before, when it delivered that he was dead. And although it is true that he might have died, and in the next minute of time revived, and consequently his death doth not, precisely taken, signify any permansion or duration in the state of death, and therefore it might be added, he descended into hell, to signify farther a permansion or duration in that condition; yet if hell do signify nothing else but the Div. No XIV.

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state of the dead, as this opinion doth suppose, then to descend into hell is no more than to be dead; and so notwithstanding any duration implied in that expression, Christ might have ascended the next minute after he descended thither, as well as he might be imagined to revive the next minute after he died. Seeing then to descend into hell, according to this interpretation, is no more than to be dead; seeing no man ever doubted but that person was dead who died; seeing it was before delivered in the Creed that Christ died, or, as we render it, was dead; we cannot imagine but they who did add this part of the article to the Creed, did intend something more than this, and therefore we cannot admit that this notion as a full or proper exposition.

There is yet left another interpretation grounded upon the general opinion of the church of Christ in all ages, and upon a probable exposition of the prophecy of the psalmist, taking the soul in the most proper sense, for the spirit or rational part of Christ; that part of a man which, according to our Saviour's doctrine, the Jews could not kill; and looking upon hell as a place distinct from this part of the world where we live, and distinguished from those heavens whither Christ ascended, into which place the souls of men were conveyed after or upon their death; and therefore thus expounding the words of the psalmist in the person of Christ; "Thou shalt not suffer that soul of mine which shall be forced from my body by the violence of pain upon the cross, but resigned into thy hands, when it shall go into that place below where the souls of men departed are detained; I say, thou shalt not suffer that soul to continue there as theirs have done; but shalt bring it shortly from thence, and reunite it to my body."

For the better understanding of this exposition, there are several things to be observed, both in respect to the matter of it, and in reference to the authority of the fathers. First therefore, this must be laid down as a certain and necessary truth, that the soul of man, when he dieth, dieth not, but returneth unto him that gave it, to be disposed of at his will and pleasure; according to the ground of our Saviour's counsel, "Fear not them which kill the

body, but cannot kill the soul." That better part of us therefore in and after death doth exist and live, either by virtue of its spiritual and immortal nature, as we believe; or at least by the will of God, and his power upholding and preserving it from dissolution, as many of the fathers thought. This soul thus existing after death, and separated from the body, though of a nature spiritual, is really and truly in some place; if not by way of circumscription, as proper bodies are, yet by way of determination and indistancy; so that it is true to say, this soul is really and truly present here, and not elsewhere.

Again; the soul of man, which, while he lived, gave life to the body, and was the fountain of all vital actions, in that separate existence after death, must not be conceived to sleep, or be bereft and stript of all vital operations, but still to exercise the powers of understanding and of willing, and to be subject to the affections of joy and sorrow. Upon which is grounded the different estate and condition of the souls of men during that time of separation; some of them by the mercy of God being placed in peace and rest, in joy and happiness; others by the justice of the same God left to sorrow, pains, and misery.

f.

As there was this different state and condition before our Saviour's death, according to the different kinds of men in this life, the wicked and the just, the elect and reprobate; so there were two societies of souls after death; one of them who were happy in the presence of God, the other of those who were left in their sins and tormented for them. Thus we conceive the righteous Abel the first man placed in this happiness, and the souls of them that departed in the same faith to be gathered to him. Whosoever it was of the sons of Adam which first died in his sins was put into a place of torment; and the souls of all those which departed after with the wrath of God upon them were gathered into his sad society.

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Now as the souls at the hour of death are really separated from the bodies; so the place where they are in rest or misery after death is certainly distinct from the place in which they lived. They continue not where

they were at that instant when the body was left without life; they do not go together with the body to the grave; but as the sepulchre is appointed for our flesh, so there is another receptacle, or habitation and mansion for our spirits. From whence it followeth, that in death the soul doth certainly pass by a real motion from that place in which it did inform the body, and is translated to that place, and unto that society, which God of his mercy or justice hath allotted to it. And not at present to inquire into the difference and distance of those several habitations (but for method's sake to involve them all as yet under the notion of the infernal parts, or the mansions below), it will appear to have been the general judgment of the church, that the soul of Christ contradistinguished from his body, that better and more noble part of his humanity, his rational and intellectual soul, after a true and proper separation from his flesh, was really and truly carried into those parts below, where the souls of men before departed were detained; and that by such a real translation of his soul, he was truly said to have descended into hell.

Many have been the interpretations of the opinion of the fathers made of late; and their differences are made to appear so great, as if they agreed in nothing which concerns this point: whereas there is nothing which they agree in more than this which I have already affirmed, a real descent of the soul of Christ unto the habitation of the souls departed. The persons to whom, and end for which, he descended, they differ in; but as to a local descent into the infernal parts, they all agree. Who were then in those parts, they could not certainly define; but whosoever were there, that Christ by the presence of his soul was with them, they all determined.

That this was the general opinion of the church will appear, not only by the testimonies of those ancient writers which lived successively, and wrote in several ages, and delivered this exposition in such express terms as are not capable of any other interpretation: but also because it was generally used as an argument against the Apollinarian heresy: than which nothing can show more the general opinion of the Catholics, and the heretics,

and that not only of the present, but of the precedent ages. For it had been little less than ridiculous to have produced that for an argument to prove a point in controversy which had not been clearer than that which was controverted, and had not been some way acknowledged as a truth by both. Now the error of Apollinarius was, that Christ had no proper intellectual or rational soul, but that the word was to him in the place of a soul: and the argument produced by the fathers for the conviction of this error was, that Christ descended into hell; which the Apollinarians could not deny: and that this descent was not made by his divinity, or by his body, but by the motion and presence of his soul, and consequently that he had a soul distinct both from his flesh and from the word. Whereas if it could have then been answered by the heretics, as now it is by many, that his descent into hell had no relation to his soul, but to his body only, which descended into the grave; or that it was not a real, but only virtual, descent, by which his death extended to the destruction of the powers of hell: or that his soul was not his intellectual spirit, or immortal soul, but his living soul, which descended into hell, that is, continued in the state of death: I say, if any of these senses could have been affixed to this article, the Apollinarians' answer might have been sound, and the Catholics' argument of no validity. But seeing those heretics did all acknowledge this article; seeing the Catholic fathers did urge the same to prove the real distinction of the soul of Christ both from his divinity and from his body, because his body was really in the grave when his soul was really present with the souls below; it followeth that it was the general doctrine of the church, that Christ did descend into hell by a local motion of his soul, separated from his body, to the places below where the souls of men departed were.

Nor can it be reasonably objected, that the argument of the fathers was of equal force against these heretics, if it be understood of the animal soul, as it would be if it were understood of the rational; as if those heretics had equally deprived Christ of the rational and animal soul. For it is most certain that they did not equally deprive Christ of both; but most of the Apollinarians