gion of departed spirits. A few quotations from the Old Testament will serve to show how it is there used. In Jacob's lamentation for the death of his son Joseph, he says, "I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning." The word "Sheol," here rendered "grave," is the same which is usually translated "hell;" so that it might read, "I will go down into hell, unto my son mourning." That the pious patriarch could not have meant the place of torment, we think every one will admit; that he did not mean the grave, literally, is also apparent ; for Joseph was not supposed to have been buried at all; but to have been devoured by wild beasts; his father therefore must have meant that he would go to that place of departed spirits, where the soul of his son had gone. The same expression occurs in that other mournful expostulation with his children. "Ye will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave;" literally, "to hell ;" not, surely to the place of the damned, but to the abode of separate spirits, to the unseen world.

In the translation of the Psalms which we have in our Prayer-books, and which is considerably older than the one in our Bibles, the original sense of the word "Hell" is retained, and is generally used to signify the place or state of deceased souls, or what we commonly call "the other world." Thus David says, "my soul is full of trouble, and my life draweth nigh unto hell:"t which, whether we understand him as speaking in his own person, or in the person of the Messiah, can mean nothing

*Gen. xxxvii. 35.

† Psalm lxxxviii. 2. Prayer Book version.

more than that his afflictions had nearly brought him to another world. So too in the next psalm, "what man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? and shall he deliver his soul from the hand of hell?"* Can he preserve himself from death? or can he prevent his soul from going into the place prepared for all the disembodied spirits of men ? But the passage most applicable to the present subject, is that expression of David, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." That these words were spoken by the Psalmist concerning Christ, we have the authority of the apostle Peter, who quotes them for the purpose of showing that such is their true application; that they also refer to Christ's death and resurrection, appears from the whole tenor of the apostle's argument. He tells the Jews that they have convincing proof, if they will but attend to it, that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had “ crucified and slain,' 99 was their Messiah, inasmuch as the prophecy of David was fulfilled in him; that his body did not lie in the grave long enough to become corrupt, as other bodies do, after death, and as David's own body had become-whose sepulchre was still among themneither was his soul suffered to remain in the invisible world; but had been re-united to the body on the third day; and that Christ had ascended into heaven, and was now seated at the right hand of God the Father. "David," he says, "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his

loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption."'* From this text alone, in the estimation of the most learned Biblical critics, the article of Christ's descent into hell is " clearly and infallibly deduced." The question then arises, what was that "hell" into which our Saviour descended? Was it the hell of torments, or the place of departed souls generally? That it could not have been the former, and that it must be the latter, is evident from his promise to the penitent thief, "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise;" in Paradise; not in heaven, for our Lord did not go into heaven, until after his resurrection, as he tells one of his disciples ;§ not in the grave, for that could be no comfort to the dying malefactor; much less in the abode of the damned, because Paradise is never used to signify a place of misery, but always a region of delight. Nor could we for a moment suppose that Christ would promise the thief, as a reward of his faith, that he should go with him to the hell of torments, even supposing it possible that, for some unknown reasons, our Saviour's soul had gone there. There remains then but this one conclusion; the penitent thief was to be with Christ, on the very day of their crucifixion, in the abode of blessed spirits; in that place, sometimes called "Paradise," and sometimes "Abraham's bosom," where the dead,

Acts ii. 29, 31.

Pearson on the Creed, vol. ii. p. 51, and Horsley's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 94. Luke xxiii. 43. § Acts xx. 17.

which die in the Lord, do rest from their labours," and await, in joyful expectation, the future resurrection of their bodies, and the consummation of their bliss in heaven.

The story of the rich man and Lazarus, as related by our Saviour, serves to strengthen this interpretation. From the parable it appears that the souls of both these persons existed in an intermediate and separate state; they were in that abode of departed spirits, which in many passages of scripture, and also in our Creed, is called "Hell;" yet they were in very different circumstances; the one being in a state of happiness, and the other of misery; the one in "Abraham's bosom," the other in a "place of torment ;" the one looking forward to that greater glory and happiness, which awaits the blessed at the general resurrection, the other anticipating the greater horrors of that day, when "death and hell shall be cast into the lake of fire."

This doctrine of an intermediate state, which is intimately connected with the article of our Creed now under consideration, derives additional confirmation from numerous other passages of scripture, besides those already cited. Thus Stephen's dying petition, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and also the wish which St. Paul expressed that he might "depárt and be with Christ," esteeming it "far better" than to "abide in the flesh," as also that expression of his, "we are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord," all prove that the soul will exist separately from the body, and be susceptible of happiness or misery in that state. In our Lord's transfiguration, Moses and Elias are represented as appearing and speaking with him; an evident proof that the spirits of those holy men were not in a state

of lethargy, but alive to the perception of happiness. From this doctrine of the separate existence of souls in an intermediate state, has arisen that expression in our burial service" Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity."

To every good man, who is prepared for death, it is certainly a thought full of consolation, that death will not seal up the faculties of his soul, as some have maintained, but that he shall enter immediately on the joys of paradise, and there rejoice "in the certain expectation of a crown of glory," hereafter to be conferred on him, when he shall receive his perfect consummation of bliss, in soul and body, at the day of recompense. Death loses much of its terror to the pious mind, when assured that the soul, although separated from its earthly tenement, will still continue to think and act, and will still enjoy the delights of intercourse with its kindred spirits. It mitigates our sorrow for departed friends, and softens the pain of parting from them for a season, to know that death can only kill the body; that the soul is susceptible of boundless pleasure, while its tabernacle of flesh lies mouldering in the dust; that the spirits of all who die in the Lord, are immediately carried by angels to the paradise of God, -into "Abraham's bosom,"-and hereafter, at the general resurrection, in the last day, shall be admitted to more exalted pleasures, and "sit down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."*

* Matthew viii. 11.