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31.

III.

ART. being no other word put for it in that Creed. Afterwards it was put into the symbol of the western church: that was done at first in the words in which Ruffin had expressed it, as appears by some ancient copies of Creeds which were published by the great primate Usher.

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We are next to consider what the importance of these words in themselves is; for it is plain that the use of them in the Creed is not very ancient nor universal. We have a most unquestionable authority for this, that our Saviour's soul was in hell. In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter, in the first sermon that was preached after the wonderful effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost, applies these words of David concerning Ps.xvi. 10. God's not leaving his soul in hell, nor suffering his Holy One Acts ii. 27, to see corruption, to the resurrection of Christ. Now since, in the composition of a man, there is a body and a spirit, and since it is plain that the raising of Christ on the third day was before that his body in the course of nature was corrupted; the other branch seems to relate to his soul; though it is not to be denied, but that in the Old Testament soul in some places stands for a dead body. But if that were the sense of the word, there would be no opposition in the two parts of this period; the one will be only a redundant repetition of the other: therefore it is much more natural to think that this other branch concerning Christ's soul being left in hell, must relate to that which we commonly understand by soul. If then his soul was not to be left in hell, then from thence it plainly follows that once it was in hell, and, by consequence, that Christ's soul descended into hell.

Some very modern writers have thought that this is to be understood figuratively of the wrath of God due for sin, which Christ bore in his soul, besides the torments that he suffered in his body: and they think that these are here mentioned by themselves, after the enumeration of the several steps of his bodily sufferings: and this being equal to the torments of hell, as it is that which delivers us from them, might in a large way of expression be called a descending into hell. But as neither the word descend, nor hell, are to be found in any other place of scripture in this sense, nor in any of the ancients, among whom the signification of this phrase is more likely to be found than among moderns; so this being put after buried, it plainly shews that it belongs to a period subsequent to his burial: there is therefore no regard to be had to this notion.

Others have thought, that by Christ's descent into hell is to be understood his continuing in the state of the dead for some time: but there is no ground for this conceit neither, these words being to be found in no author in that signification.

Many of the fathers thought, that Christ's soul went locally 1 Pet. iii. into hell, and preached to some of the spirits there in prison; that there he triumphed over Satan, and spoiled him, and carried some souls with him into glory. But the account

19.

15.

III.

that the scriptures give us of the exaltation of Christ begins ART. it always at his resurrection: nor can it be imagined, that so memorable a transaction as this would have been passed over by the three first evangelists, and least of all by St. John, who coming after the rest, and designing to supply what was wanting in them, and intending particularly to magnify the glory of Christ, could not have passed over so wonderful an instance of it. We have no reason to think, that such a matter would have been only insinuated in general words, and not have been plainly related. The triumph of Christ over principalities and powers is ascribed by St. Paul to his cross, and was the effect Col. ii. 14, and result of his death. The place of St. Peter seems to relate to the preaching to the Gentile world, by virtue of that inspiration that was derived from Christ; which was therefore called his Spirit; and the spirits in prison were the Gentiles, who were shut up in idolatry as in prison, and so were under the power of the prince of the power of the air,' who is Eph. ii. 2. called the god of this world; that is, of the Gentile world: 2 Cor. iv. it being one of the ends for which Christ was anointed of his Is. Ixi. 1. Father, to open the prisons to them that were bound.' So then, though there is no harm in this opinion, yet it not being founded on any part of the history of the gospel, and it being supported only by passages that may well bear another sense, we may lay it aside, notwithstanding the reverence we bear to those that asserted it; and that the rather, because the first fathers that were next the source say nothing of it.

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Another conceit has had a great course among some of the latest fathers and the schoolmen: they have fancied that there was a place to which they have given a peculiar name, Limbus Patrum, a sort of a partition in hell, where all the good men of the old dispensation, that had died before Christ, were detained; and they hold that our Saviour went thither, and emptied that place, carrying all the souls that were in it with him to heaven. Of this the scriptures say nothing; not a word either of the patriarchs going thither, or of Christ's delivering them out of it: and though there are not in the Old Testament express declarations and promises made concerning a future state, Christ having brought life and immortality to light through his gospel; yet all the hints given of it shew that they looked for an immediate admission to blessedness after death. So David, 'Thou wilt shew me the path of Ps. xvi. 11. life in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand Ps. lxxiii. are pleasures for evermore. Thou shalt guide me here by thy 24. counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.' Isaiah says, that Is. Ivii. 2. 'the righteous when they die enter into peace.' In the New Testament there is not a hint given of this; for though some passages may seem to favour Christ's delivering some souls out of hell, yet there is nothing that by any management can be brought to look this way.

There is another sense of which these words [descended into

Acts ii. 31.

III.

ART. hell] are capable: by hell may be meant the invisible place to which departed souls are carried after death: for, though the See Bishop Greek word so rendered does now commonly stand for the Pearson on place of the damned, and for many ages has been so underthe Creed. stood, yet, at the time of writing the New Testament, it was among Greek authors used indifferently for the place of all departed souls, whether good or bad; and by it were meant the invisible regions where those spirits were lodged: so, if these words are taken in this large sense, we have in them a clear and literal account of our Saviour's soul descending into hell; it imports that he was not only dead in a more common acceptation, as it is usual to say a man is dead, when there appear no signs of life in him; and that he was not as in a deep ecstasy or fit that seemed death, but that he was truly dead; that his soul was neither in his body, nor hovering about it, ascending and descending upon it, as some of the Jews fancied souls did for some time after death; but that his soul was really removed out of his body, and carried to those unseen regions of departed spirits, among whom it continued till his resurrection. That the regions of the blessed were known then to the Jews by the name of Paradise, as hell was known by the Luke xxiii. name of Gehenna, is very clear from Christ's last words, Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise; and Into thy hands do I commend my spirit.' This is a plain and full account of a good sense that may be well put on the words; though, after all, it is still to be remembered, that, in the first Creeds that have this article, that of Christ's burial not being mentioned in them, it follows from thence, as well as from Ruffin's own sense of it, that they understood this only of Christ's burial.

43, 46.

ARTICLE IV.

Of the Resurrection of Christ.

Christ did truly rise again from Death, and took again his Body, with Flesh, Bones, and all things appertaining to the Perfection of Man's Nature, wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the Last Day.

THERE are four branches of this Article: the first is con-
cerning the truth of Christ's resurrection.
The second con-
cerning the completeness of it: that he took to him again his
whole body. The third is concerning his ascension and con-
tinuance in heaven. And the fourth is concerning his return-
ing to judge all men at the last day. These things are all so
expressly affirmed, and that in so particular a manner, in the
New Testament, that if the authority of that book is once well
proved, little doubting will remain concerning them.

It is punctually told in it, that the body of Christ was laid in the sepulchre that a stone was laid to the mouth of it: that it was rolled away, and upon that Christ arose and left the death-clothes behind him: that those who viewed the sepulchre, saw no body there: that in the same body Christ shewed himself to his disciples, so that they all knew him; he talked with them, and they did eat and drink with him, and he made Thomas feel to the print of the nails and spear. It is as plainly told, that the apostles looked on, and saw him ascend up to heaven, and that a cloud received him out of their sight. It is also said very plainly, that he shall come again at the last day, and judge all men both the quick and the dead. So that if the truth of the gospel is once fully proved, it will not be necessary to insist long upon the special proof of these particulars: somewhat will only be necessary to be said in explanation of them.

The gospel was first preached, and soon after put in writing; in which these particulars are not only delivered, but are set forth with many circumstances relating to them. The credit of the whole is put on that issue concerning the truth of Christ's resurrection; so that the overthrowing the truth of that was the overturning the whole gospel, and struck at the credit of it all. This was transacted as well as first published at Jerusalem, where the enemies of it had all possible advantages in their hands; their interest was deeply concerned, as well as their malice was much kindled at it. They had both power and wealth in their hands, as well as credit and authority among the people. The Romans left them at full liberty,

ART.
IV.

IV.

ART. as they did the other nations whom they conquered, to order their own concerns as they pleased. And even the Romans themselves began quickly to hate and persecute the Christians: they became the objects of popular fury, as Tacitus tells us. The Romans looked upon Christ as one that set on the Jews to those tumults that were then so common among them, as Suetonius affirms: which shews both how ignorant they were of the doctrine of Christ, and how much they were prejudiced against it. Yet this gospel did spread itself, and was believed by great multitudes both at Jerusalem and in all Judea; and from thence it was propagated in a very few years to a great many remote countries.

Among all Christians the article of the resurrection and ascension of Christ was always looked on as the capital one upon which all the rest depended. This was attested by a considerable number of men, against whose credit no objection was made; who affirmed, that they all had seen him, and conversed frequently with him after his resurrection; that they saw him ascend up into heaven; and that, according to a promise he had made them, they had received extraordinary powers from him to work miracles in his name, and to speak in divers languages. This last was a most amazing character of a supernatural power lodged with them, and was a thing of such a nature, that it must have been evident to every man whether it was true or false: so that the apostles relating this so positively, and making such frequent appeals to it, that way of proceeding carries a strong and undeniable evidence of truth in it. These wonders were gathered together in a book, and published in the very time in which they were transacted: the Acts of the Apostles' were writ two years after St. Paul was carried prisoner to Rome; and St. Luke begins that book with the mention of the gospel that he had formerly writ, as that gospel begins with the mention of some other gospels that were writ before it. Almost all the Epistles speak of the temple of Jerusalem as yet in being; of the Jews as then in peace and prosperity, hating and persecuting the Christians every where they do also frequently intimate the assurance they had of a great deliverance that was to happen quickly to the Christians, and of terrible judgments that were to be poured out on the Jews; which was soon after that accomplished in the most signal manner of any thing that is recorded in history.

These things do clearly prove that all the writings of the New Testament were both composed and published in the age in which that matter was transacted. The Jews, who from all the places of their dispersion went frequently to Jerusalem, to keep the great festivities of their religion there, had occasion often to examine upon the place the truth of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and of the effusion of the Holy Ghost: yet, even in that infancy of Christianity, in

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