The only question then remains, not of the truth of the proposition, but the sense and meaning of it. It is most certain that Christ descended into hell; and as infallibly true as any other Article of the CREED: but what that hell was, and how he descended thither, being once questioned, is not easily determined. Different opinions there have been of old, and of late more different still, which I shall here examine after that manner which our subject will admit. Our present design is an exposition of the CREED as now it stands, and our endeavour is to expound it according to the Scriptures in which it is contained: I must therefore look for such an explication as may consist with the other parts of the CREED, and may withal be conformable unto that Scripture upon which the truth of the Article doth rely: and consequently, whatsoever interpretation is either not true in itself, or not consistent with the body of the CREED, or not conformable to 230 the doctrine of the apostle in this particular, the expositor of that CREED by the doctrine of the apostle must reject. First, then, we shall consider the opinion of Durandus, who, as often, so in this, is singular. He supposeth this descent to belong unto the soul', and the name of hell to signify the place where the souls of dead men were in custody : but he maketh a metaphor in the word descended, as not signifying any local motion, nor inferring any real presence of the soul of Christ in the place where the souls of dead men were; but only including a virtual motion, and inferring an efficacious presence, by which descent the effects of the death of Christ were wrought upon the souls in hell; and because the merit of Christ's death did principally depend upon the act of his soul, therefore the effect of his death is attributed to his soul as the principal agent; and consequently, Christ is truly said at the instant of his death to descend into hell, because his death was immediately efficacious upon the souls detained there. This is the opinion of Durandus, so far as it is distinct from others. But although a virtual influence of the death of Christ may be well admitted in reference to the souls of the dead, yet this opinion cannot be accepted as the exposition of this Article; being neither the CREED can be thought to speak a language of so great scholastic subtilty, nor the place of David, expounded by St Peter, can possibly admit any such explication. For what can be the sense of those words, Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, if his being in hell was only virtually acting there? If the efficacy of his death were his descent, then is he descended still, because the effect of his death still remaineth. The opinion therefore of Durandus, making the descent into hell to be nothing but the efficacy of the death of Christ upon the souls detained there, is to be rejected, as not expositive of the CREED's confession, nor consistent with the Scripture's expression. The next opinion, later than that of Durandus, is, that the descent into hell is the suffering of the torments of hell'; that the soul of Christ did really and truly suffer all those pains which are due unto the damned; that whatsoever is threatened by the Law unto them which depart this life in their sins, and under the wrath of God, was fully undertaken and borne by Christ; that he died a true and natural death, the death of Gehenna, and this dying the death of Gehenna was the descending into hell; that those which are now saved by virtue of his death, should otherwise have endured the same torments in hell which now the damned do and shall endure; but that he, being their Surety3, did himself suffer the same for them, even all the torments which we should have felt, and the damned shall. This interpretation is either taken in the strict sense of the words, or in a latitude of expression; but in neither to be admitted as the exposition of this Article. Not if it be taken in a strict, rigorous, proper, and formal sense; for in that acception it is not true. It must not, it cannot, be 1 'Si [Christus] ad inferos descendisse dicitur, nihil mirum est, cum eam mortem pertulerit quæ sceleratis ab irato Deo infligitur:' which he expresseth presently in another phrase: '-diros in anima cruciatus damnati ac perditi hominis pertulerit.' Calvin. Instit. 1. ii. c. 16. § 10. [p. 132.] 2 [Some copies read: true supernatural death, the second death, the death of Gehenna.] 3 'Quid igitur? Christus persona sua secundum humanitatem pœnam gehennalem nobis debitam passus est, anima principaliter, corpore secundario, utroque causaliter ad merendum, ad nos suo ipsius merito liberandos.' Parkerus de Descensu. 1. iii. § 48. Et statim, § 49. 'Descendisse namque Servatorem, modo supra memorato, ad Haden mortis gehennalis, innumeris patet argumentis.' 231 admitted, that Christ did suffer all those torments which the damned suffer; and therefore it is not, it cannot, be true, that by suffering them he descended into hell. There is a worm that never dieth, which could not lodge within his breast; that is, a remorse of conscience, seated in the soul, for what that soul hath done: but such a remorse of conscience could not be in Christ, who though he took upon himself the sins of those which otherwise had been damned, yet that act of his was a most virtuous, charitable, and most glorious act, highly conformable to the will of God, and consequently could not be the object of remorse. The grief and horror in the soul of Christ, which we have expressed in the explication of his sufferings antecedent to his crucifixion, had reference to the sins and punishment of men, to the justice and wrath of God; but clearly of a nature different from the sting of conscience in the souls condemned to eternal flames. Again, an essential part of the torments of hell is a present and constant sense of the everlasting displeasure of God, and an impossibility of obtaining favour, and avoiding pain; an absolute and complete despair of any better condition, or the least relaxation: but Christ, we know, had never any such resentment, who looked upon the reward which was set before him, even upon the cross, and offered up himself a sweetsmelling sacrifice; which could never be efficacious, except offered in faith. If we should imagine any damned soul to have received an express promise of God, that after ten thousand years he would release him from those torments and make him everlastingly happy, and to have a true faith in that promise and a firm hope of receiving eternal life: we could not say that man was in the same condition with the rest of the damned, or that he felt all that hell which they were sensible of, or all that pain which was due unto his sins: because hope and confidence, and relying upon God, would not only mitigate all other pains, but wholly take away the bitter anguish of despair. Christ then, who knew the beginning, continuance, and conclusion of his sufferings; who understood the determinate minute of his own death and resurrection; who had made a covenant with his Father for all the degrees of his passion, and was fully assured that he could suffer no more than he had freely and deliberately undertaken, and should continue no longer in his passion than he had himself deter mined; he who by those torments was assured to overcome Again, if we take the torments of hell in a metaphorical sense, for those terrors and horrors of soul which our Saviour felt, which may therefore be called infernal torments, because they are of greater extremity than any other tortures of this life, and because they were accompanied with a sense of the wrath of God against the unrighteousness of men; yet this cannot be an interpretation of the descent into hell, as it is an Article of the CREED, and as that Article is grounded upon the Scriptures. For all those pains which our Saviour felt (whether, as they pretend, properly infernal, or metaphorically such) were antecedent to his death; part of them in the garden, part on the cross; but all before he commended his spirit into the hands of his Father, and gave up the ghost. Whereas it is sufficiently evident, that the descent into hell, as it now stands in the CREED signifieth something commenced after his death, contradistinguished to his burial; and, as it is considered in the apostle's explication, is clearly to be understood of that which immediately preceded his resurrection; and that also grounded upon a confidence totally repugnant to Psal. xvi. 8, 9, infernal pains. For it is thus particularly expressed, I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad: moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Where the faith, hope, confidence, and assurance of Christ is shewn, and his flesh, though laid in the grave, the place of corruption, is said to rest in hope, for this very reason, because God would not leave his soul in hell. I conclude, therefore, 232 that the descent into hell is not the enduring the torments of hell: because, if strictly taken, it is not true; if metaphorically taken, though it be true, yet it is not pertinent. 10. The third opinion, which is also very late, at least in the manner of explication, is, that in those words Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, the soul of Christ is taken for his body, and hell for the grave; and consequently, in the CREED, He descended into hell, is no more than this, that Christ in his body was laid into the grave. This explication ordinarily is rejected, by denying that the soul is ever taken for the body, or hell for the grave; but in vain: for it must be acknowledged, that sometimes the Scriptures are rightly so, and cannot otherwise be understood. First, The same word in the Hebrew1, which the Psalmist used, and in the Greek, which the Apostle used, and we translate the soul, is elsewhere used for the body of a dead man, and translated so. And when we read in Moses of a prohibition given to the high-priest or the Nazarite, of going to or coming near a dead body, and of the pollution by the dead; the dead body in the Hebrew and the Greek is nothing else but that which elsewhere signifieth the soul. And Mr Ainsworth, who translated the Pentateuch 1 The Hebrew word is wɔɔ and לא תעזב נפשי לשאול,the Greek wuxi οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν ψυχήν μου εἰς äony, Psal. xvi. 10. But both wand yuxý are used for the body of a dead man, Numb. vi. 6. and it is so translated; for Moses speaking there of a Nazarite, gives this law, All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall come at no dead body, and in ,על נפש מת לא יבא in the original the LXX. ἐπὶ πάσῃ ψυχῇ τετελευτη κυίᾳ οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται. In the same manner the law for the high-priest, Lev. xxi. 11. Neither shall he go in to ועל כל נפשת מת לא יבא,any dead body καὶ ἐπὶ πάσῃ ψυχῇ τετελευτηκυίᾳ οὐκ eloeλevσeral. And the general law, Lev. xxii. 4. And whoso toucheth any thing that is unclean by the dead, Kat d drrouevos והנגע בכל טמא נפש πάσης ἀκαθαρσίας ψυχῆς. Which is of a dead man; that body which polluted a man under the Law by the touch thereof. And Maimonides hath observed, that there is no pollution from the body till the soul be departed. Therefore w and yuxý did signify the body after the separation of the soul. And this was anciently observed by St Augustine, that the soul may be taken for the body only: 'Animæ nomine corpus solum posse significari, modo quodam locutionis ostenditur, quo significatur per id quod continetur illud quod continet; sicut ait quidam, Vina coronant, (Virg. Æn. vii. 147.) cum coronarentur vasa vinaria; vinum enim continetur, et vas continet. Sicut ergo appellamus ecclesiam basilicam, qua continetur populus, qui vere appellatur ecclesia, ut nomine ecclesiæ, id est, populi qui continetur, significemus locum qui continet: ita quod animæ corporibus continentur, intelligi corpora filiorum per nominatas animas possunt. Sic enim melius accipitur etiam illud, quod Lex inquinari dicit eum, qui intraverit super animam mortuam, hoc est, super defuncti cadaver; ut nomine animæ mortuæ mortuum corpus intelligatur, quod animam continebat, quia et absente populo, id est ecclesia, locus tamen ille nihilominus ecclesia nuncupatur.' Epist. 157. ad Optatum, de Animarum Origine. [al. Ep. 190. § 19. Vol. II. p. 705 F.] |