argument lies clearly in the miracle of the resurrection, which is true, because our Lord's soul, his perfect human nature, did not remain in the grave, and under the power of death, and consequently his body did not see corruption. As He is the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, who died for us, meeting the curse of temporal death on the first Adam, so his body and his soul passed into and through the same state that our souls and bodies do when we die-changing what is to be changed, because He was the immaculately Holy Son of God. Our bodies see corruption, our souls do not come back and reanimate our bodies. They remain in the spirit-world. But Christ rose from the dead, having his perfect human nature, both body and soul, in union with Divinity.

Whatever, then, may be the derivation of the word Sheol, or however varied its signification, all agree that it is used in the Sacred Scriptures for the state and abode of the dead, and hence that it means the grave in which the body rests, and the invisible world to which our souls go when they leave the body in death. The poetical description of the gates of death implies that it is something more than the grave. It is true, there are other Hebrew words for the grave, and for pit, corruption, and burying, and sepulchre; but still it is true, that in many passages Sheol must mean the grave, the invisible world, the state and abode of the dead, as a state and a place distinguished from the present life. Any Hebrew Concordance or Dictionary will assist the reader to the places.

On the whole, it seems to me the Creed must be taken either figuratively to mean, that Christ endured in his soul, while still in the body, the agonies of hell; or that the words, He descended into hell, must mean that his body was buried, and his soul went to God, so that He

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completed his work for us by dying just as we do. The first of these views just named, the figurative or metaphorical interpretation of the Article, is adopted by the great Witsius, and many others.

According to this view the meaning is, that not only was the body of Christ given up for our redemption, but that His soul suffered the tortures of condemned and ruined men. This view is taken by the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, in answer to 44th Question, where it is said the words, "He descended into hell, are added, that in my greatest temptations I may be assured and wholly comfort myself in this, that my Lord Jesus Christ, by his inexpressible anguish, pains, terrors, and hellish agonies, in which He was plunged during all his sufferings, but especially on the cross, hath delivered me from the anguish and torments of hell."

This was the exposition of the Reformers generally. Calvin says, that our Lord's descent to hell means not his going to the place of spirits, but His suffering upon earth, in Gethsemane and on the cross, all the torments of hell and the sufferings of damned souls. And it is thought it was owing to the growing popularity of Calvin's views in England, during Elizabeth's reign, that the Article put forth in King Edward's reign suffered the change we have already referred to. But although this is the view of Calvin and a great many of the Reformers, I am not satisfied that it is the meaning of the Creed, or according to the Word of God. Those who hold this view do not agree in telling us what Christ did suffer. They tell us He suffered the extreme wrath of God, or the very torments of hell in his soul, and some of them that his soul actually went to Gehenna, the place of the damned, and suffered there its extreme torments. This view I cannot receive for before our Lord could actually

suffer the torments of lost souls, He must feel the consciousness of personal guilt and degradation, as well as the superadded wrath of God. As I understand the Word of God, this consciousness of degradation—this feeling of personal guilt-is the essence of the fire unquenchable, the life of the worm that dieth not. Now, as a lamb at the temple bore the sins of the people, so Christ bore our sins. But was the lamb guilty of sin? No. The lamb bore the curse of sin, endured the wrath of God as to the penalty it met; but there was no transfer of personal guilt to the lamb. In fact, the lamb was not punished at all. The lamb was sacrificed. So Christ suffered, but He was not punished. He endured the wrath of God due to our guilt, not due to himself. It was our debt, not His own, which He paid. He died as our substitute and in our place, but, according to our view of the atonement, it was impossible for Christ to suffer the actual torments of hell, or to endure in his person the agonies of lost souls in Gehenna. Perhaps we may say He suffered the equivalent of them for his people, but not the actual torments of the lost; for the torments of the damned consist

1. In a consciousness of personal guilt—a feeling that they themselves deserve all that is inflicted on them, both as to degradation and suffering. This our Lord could never experience. There was not and could not be any transfer of personal guilt to Him, but only the transfer of obligation to pay a debt or endure a penalty.

2. The torments of hell comprise utter despair. Doleful region; no hope ever enters there! This cannot be said of our Lord's sufferings.

3. Hell is total separation from God, without any glimpse of his favor. Now, as it is impossible to apply

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these things to Christ, I do not believe that the great men who explain the Creed as teaching metaphorically that Christ endured the torments of hell for the elect, are correct. If the time allowed it, much more might be said on this point; but this must suffice, at least for the present. [See Pearson and Lightfoot on this point.]

The other view to which I alluded a few minutes since, and which is the one I adopt, namely, that Christ died and was buried, and his soul went to God, and that this is simply all the Creed means and all that the Scriptures teach, is sustained, I think, very satisfactorily, and in this way:

1. There is no passage of Holy Scripture that teaches, when properly explained, that Christ either endured the actual torments of hell, or locally descended to the place of damned souls. This statement I am obliged for the present to assume, but if the Lord be pleased to give us his assistance, I will try to prove it in the next Discourse.

2. It has been proved that the descent into hell is not found as a separate, distinct Article in any of the earlier Creeds. It is not in any copy or draught of the Apostles' Creed in use in the Eastern or the Roman churches for at least four hundred years after Christ. It is not in the Creed of Irenæus, nor of Tertullian, Origen, or Cyprian. It is not in the Nicene Creed adopted in A. D. 325, nor in the version of the Nicene Creed used by the Fathers of Constantinople. The words of the Nicene Creed are: "He suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again." But in the Creed called the Creed of Athanasius, of the year A. D. 333, eight years later, we read: "Who suffered for our sins, descended into hell, rose again the third day." Here observe that

was buried is omitted, and descended into hell is used in its place, clearly showing that these phrases were then supposed to be synonymous. How the doctrine that Christ descended into hell, in the sense of the Church of Rome, ever got into the Apostles' Creed, nobody knows, but certainly it was not there before the fifth century, and possibly not until long after. We have the opinion of Erasmus, that it was not formally adopted till long after.

It is to be remembered here, that almost, perhaps, all of the old creeds that recognize the descent into hell in any way, explain it as meaning the same thing as He was buried. The creeds that contain these words, "He descended into hell," omit the words, "He was buried;" while those that have the words, "He was buried," omit the other words, "He descended into hell." It is fairly concluded, therefore, that the one phrase was equal in meaning to the other, and varied merely as a matter of taste. "The churches of the East originally understood by Christ's descent into hell, just what the churches of the West called his burial."*

The only difference, according to the view I have, between the phrases: "Christ was buried," and, "Christ descended into hell," when properly understood, is this: The latter words have a wider meaning, and are to be referred partly to his body and partly to his soul; whereas the words was buried are limited to the body, and do not go beyond the grave. And this is the main reason for retaining the words in the Creed, as we now have it. The expressions used are emphatic as to the reality of our Lord's death and burial. They affirm that his death was a real human death. His soul was

*Vossius.