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of faithful souls into hell, since the resurrection of Christ but after him, the ancient doctrine, that all souls go to hell, and remain there till the resurrection-day, generally prevailed in the East, home to this very day: Ambrose, and after him Jerome, and others, entertained the same notion in the West, as Origen had in the East: Austin was uncertain and wavering in his apprehensions hereof the recession from the ancient opinion, occasioned by the mutation of languages and words: the word hell in the apostolic sense, could not according to the propriety of speech, signify any other thing, than the state or place of separated human souls, whether good or bad. The meaning of the word descended; it sometimes only signifies a simple removal from one place to another used in the creed, because it was a popular kind of speech arising from the common opinion, that hell was in the bowels of the earth; from whence it was called by the Latins infernum, and by the Greeks hades, and the like: some of the fathers imagined hell to be in the heart of the earth, others under the earth and some were uncertain of the situation thereof, but all apprehended it to be the common lodge of departed souls; and in a conformity to the common dialect, usually termed the passage thither a descent into hell, as in this article of the creed; by which they meant no other, than that our Saviour's soul being separated from his body, went by a local motion to the unseen kabitation of departed souls, where it remain

ed till his resurrection-day: which is far ther proved from the ends of his going thi ther; which were chiefly these four : first, to sanctify unto his followers the state and place of their souls, during their separation from their bodies: secondly, that he might undergo a necessary and principal part of his humiliation: thirdly, that he might personally, and as the head of his church, conquer death and hell, which he did by return ing therefrom, and bringing the souls of several of the faithful with him: and, fourthly, that he might subject himself unto the laws of death, and be in every thing like unto us: from whence it more evidently appears, that the descent of Christ into hell signifies no other, than the passage of his spirit unto the receptacle of separated souls. The occasion of inserting this clause in the creed, taken from the Arians, Eunomians and Apollinarians, who in a more cunning way than the former heretics, assaulted the humanity of our Saviour, by denying that he had a reasonable soul: the difference between the error of the Arians and Apollinarians herein, proved, that the Arians, or at least some of them, with the Eunomians, held, That Christ's body was void of a rational soul but that which rendered this heresy the more considerable and dangerous, was >the espousing of it by Apollinarius the younger, the most noted person of his age for abil ity and piety; on which account, his fall was a very tender and sensible loss to the church: -the time when he vented his heresy, which

was, that Christ had no human soul, but that his divinity supplied the place thereof: the consequences of which opinion are instanced in several particulars. In opposition whereunto, this clause was inserted in the creed, he descended into hell: which point was pitched upon by the governors of the church, - because of all the arguments used against the Apollinarists, it was the most unanswer, able on which account, it is frequently ur ged by the fathers against them, and its falls in most naturally with the frame of the creed, without disturbing the order thereof; the time of the introduction of this article the first public Catholic creed, wherein it is found, is that of Aquileia, recorded by Ruf * finus, though before that in a private creed of Epiphanius, and even before him in a creed framed by a party of Arians at the council of Ariminum, held Anno 359. Se

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veral probable designs of those Arians herein, as to clear themselves from the suspicion of the forementioned heresy, to disgrace their great antagonist Apollinarius, and by that means to create feuds and quarrels amongst the orthodox; who, finding Apollinarius openly to declare for his heresy, entirely a bandoned him, condemned him in several synods; and at length, according to the example of the Arians, inserted in the creed this antidote against his heresy, That Christ descended into hell; which in the Aquileian creed is expressed in a greater latitude, by descending into the lower parts, wherein the burial might be comprehended and de

signed: but as it is expressed in the Roman, or our present creed, it can have no other than the forementioned signification; which, to prevent mistakes, is again repeated.

W

E are at length arrived to that famous article of our Saviour's "descent into hell the truth whereof was never denied or questioned by any; for the holy scriptures do so expressly assert it, especially that text of St. Peter, cited from the psalmist, [Acts ii 24.] "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption;" that as St. Austin affirms "none. but an Infidel will deny it." But, that which hath rendered this article so noted and observable, are the various senses and different significations that have been given of it: the particulars whereof are so multiplied, that I shall not here go about to enumerate them.

In the articles of religion, set forth in the days of king Edward the sixth, this descent of our Saviour into hell, was expounded by the going of his soul unto the spirits who were in prison, or, in hell, where he preached to them. But in a synod ten years after, in the time of queen Elizabeth, when the articles of the church were framed, which are now subscribed, as Dr. Fuller informs us in

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the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical History, the descent into hell was barely mentioned, without any explication of the manner thereof; the compilers of those articles judging it imprudent and unreasonable, to impose upon others any explanation whatsoever of a point so intricate and obscure, leaving every man in love and charity to embrace that sense there of which seemed to him most genuine and proper; wherein the moderation of the church of England cannot be sufficiently praised, and is a most worthy pattern unto all others in the like cases, that they impose not their particu lar and private expositions of a perplexed and obscure doctrine as articles of faith, and terms, of communion. Seeing therefore, that such worthy persons as the composers of the forementioned articles, have left e very one to his liberty, to pitch upon that in terpretation of this article which he esteems to be most nat ural and easy; it cannot be any way culpable in me, to make an essay towards the explica tion thereof; which, that I may the more ef fectually do, I shall proceed by degrees; and first observe, that what is spoken herein cons cerning our Lord's descent into hell, relates to his soul alone.

As the disposal of his dead body had been Before declared in the term buried, so now