^ ■^-2 REESE LIBRARY h NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received vis -JVo. Wfe Shelf No,..-.. '¥ C+- -3>> THE Scriptural Doctrine of Hades ; COMPRISING AN INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND WICKED DEAD BETWEEN DEATH AND THE GENERAL JUDGMENT, AND DEMONSTRATING FROM THE BIBLE THAT THE ATONEMENT WAS NEITHER MADE ON THE CROSS NOR YET IN THIS WORLD. REY. GEORGE BARTLE, D.D., PRINCIJ^ OF WALTOff COLLEGE, LIVERPOOL. V^ or THE ^ \ or THE fUNIVEESITY leS^^^-^^df^.-g^SfN V. 39. PHILADELPHIA : J. B. LIPPIlSrCOTT & CO. 1869. i ^z^"?? his fflork is 1 cditatcH BY PERMISSION LEOPOLD IMMANUEL RUECKERT, D.D., DEAN OF THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA, AS A MARK OF p'roVoUND ESTEEM, HIS OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL ALUMNUS, THE AUTHOE. Jena, July, 1869. ooi^rTEiNrTS. PAGE Introduction • . . 17 CHAPTER I. Death the destined portion of all men — The time of its arrival un- certain — God's prerogative — Man's ignorance — The Almighty's supreme wisdom — His universal goodness — God's dealings with Pharaoh in reality no exception — The innocent not involved with the guilty — Jehovah's method of treating the Egyptians characteristic of His righteousness — Why Moses was commanded to appoint a particular time for the working of certain miracles — The investigation of the intermediate state a duty incum- bent upon Christians in general and ministers of the gospel in particular — The leading questions propounded for solution in the course of the work — Reasons for deviating somewhat from Scripture in dealing with the subject of Hades . . .25 CHAPTER IL Mode of conducting the inquiry into Hades — Six different opin- ions respecting death and its consequences — Death not the ex- tinction of man — Human beings not descended from apes, monkeys, or gorillas — A line of noble ancestry highly esteemed by most men — Such discussions futile — God not exalted by them — Every nature in the universe under law — Transformation of a gorilla into a man an impossibility — No radical change in the nature of an animal — ^Various senses of the word soul in the Bible 30 CHAPTER IIL The text supposed by some to teach that death is the extinction of man — A bad explanation worse than no explanation — The dili- gent inquirer after truth often disappointed when consulting (V) vi CONTENTS. PAGE the Scriptural expositors — Bishop Patrick's Commentary on Psalm vi. 5 — Further consideration of the first opinion concern- ing death — Mind and matter essentially contrary to each other — Motion the result of thought — Matter passive — Mind active — Matter obeys — Mind commands — Instrumentality the only connection between mind and matter — Matter destructible — Mind indestructible — Diflference in the creation of vegetables, animals, and man — The common view as to the derivation of the word Adam erroneous 38 CHAPTER IV. Application of Hebrew terms — Adam gave names to all the ani- mals — The name Adam given by God Himself — Meaning of the term Adam — Why so called — Our Lord named Jesus before His incarnation — No other created intelligence denominated Adam — Genesis ix. 5 explained — God inflicts punishment on the suicide — Derivation of the word Adam — Job xix. 25, 26, 27 — New translation — Explanation — Error in the Authorized Ver- sion — Future disembodied state — The words of our Lord on quitting this world — First opinion without foundation — Death not the termination of man's existence 43 CHAPTER V. The good and bad not intermingled in the next world — Both una- voidably mingled in this world — Death closes the probationary state of man — Judas Iscariot — His final doom — The righteous dead rest from their labors — Dives and Lazarus — Prayers of no avail after death — This present world the place of man's probation — All covenants have conditions — Sodom and Gomor- rah — Parable of the wheat and tares — Why the wicked are not severed from the righteous in this world 49 CHAPTER VI. Third opinion as to the state of the dead — Not a state of sleep — Composition of man — Man endowed with two lives — Animal and spiritual life — Instinct the distinguishing feature of the animal life — Spiritual life characterized by reason and con- science — Spiritual life liberated by the destruction of the ani- mal life — God's mode of governing matter, animals, and man — Man's superiority— His power to resist the will of God — Man passes through three stages — Not philosophically true to say the departed are dead — Primary essential attribute — AVhcrein it consists — Primary essential attribute of the soul — Texts of CONTENTS. vii PAGE Scripture alleged in support of the soul's sleeping between death and the general judgment — A sleeping soul not an un- conscious soul 54 CHAPTER VII. The dead not in a state of insensibility — Signification of the word " sleep " in its application to the departed — Words used in the Greek Testament respecting the deceased — 'Airodv^aKELV applied both to men and brutes — KoifLav and Kadevdeuv used in refer- ence to dead men — Awaking presupposes sleeping — Explana- tion of Acts vii. 60 — Difference in signification between the words " to be dead/' and " to be asleep " — Why men after death are said to sleep — Death separates a man's soul and body — Animals extinguished by death — I. Cor. xv. 6 explained — Man's resurrection intimated by the word " sleep " — Scripture proofs for the consciousness of departed souls . • .. .61 CHAPTER VIII. Fourth opinion — Purgatory — Romanists not acquainted with the locality or pangs of purgatory — Five texts advanced by the Papists in proof of purgatory — The doctrine as now professed in the Church of Rome not heard of till 500 years after Christ — St. Matthew's Gospel, xii. 31, 32 — Period of human redemp- tion — Its commencement — Its end — Characteristics of both — Son of man — When Christ ceases to be called the Son of man — The time when He will assume the title of King — " Neither in this world nor in the world to come" — Import of these words — Belief of the Jews in reference to the forgiveness of sins — Examples — Remission of sins at the judgment-day — Explana- tion of the Second of Maccabees (xii. 43-45) — The Apocrypha not inspired — Explanation of the First of Cor. iii. 15 CHAPTER IX. St. Matthew's Gospel, v. 26. — Explanation of our Lord's advice to the debtor — Neither friends nor relatives to liquidate the debt — Reconciliation with God indispensable on this side the grave — Death puts man beyond the pale of change — Extraordinary text of Scripture — Much learning exhibited in discussing it — Several opinions as to the meaning of the text in question — None of them correct — A necessary rule to be observed in the interpretation of Scripture — The word of God not contradic- tory — The impropriety of deducing doctrines without sufiicient discrimination from isolated texts — Scripture to be compared with Scripture — True love to man proceeds from love to God . 75 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. PAGE The view which regards the " spirits in prison" as the happy souls in Paradise cannot be true— Our Lord did not goto heaven be- tween His death and resurrection — Otherwise He ascended into heaven twice during His sojourn on the earth — No one can be ascending into heaven while he is descending into hell — No amount of sophistry can prove heaven and hell to be identical — The great work of Redemption not completed on the cross — The twofold character of Christ — His humanity — His Godhead — Christ addressed as God by the penitent thief — Our Lord's om- nipresence — His ubiquity set forth in Psalm 139 — Christ a sub- stitute for man — Jesus could not be regarded simply as a man by the penitent malefactor — The second interpretation incor- rect — The third and fourth views untenable — The fifth inter- pretation insisted upon by the Romish Church — The errors into which the commentators so generally fall 80 CHAPTER XL If the doctrine of purgatory be true, certain conclusions follow — The first inference, There are two states of probation — Second inference, The insuflSciency of the sacrifice of Christ — Third inference, Human suffering required to supplementalize the sac- rifice of Christ — Fourth inference. The disease greater than the intended remedy — The fifth inference, Christ's merits exceeded by the demerits of Adam — The sixth inference, Moral virtue produced by the confinement of a wicked soul in prison — The seventh inference, Scripture forbids sin, and still encourages man to persist in it — The eighth inference, Our Lord's words of warning deprived of their efficacy — The ninth inference. Prayer ofi'ered by the living on behalf of the dead effectual in the sight of God — The tenth inference, Man justified by works rather than by faith — The first inference proved to be unscrip- tural — God delighteth in mercy — Second commandment — Pur- gatory should be rejected on the ground of mercy — The degree of punishment inflicted ought to be in exact proportion to the sin committed — Scripture proofs — If men are not pardoned here, there is no hope for them hereafter — Death changes a man's condition, but not his nature — Two states of probation incompatible with the tender mercy of the Lord — The antedi- luvians, their wickedness, and its consequences — No other . nations to be condemned by them — Why not — Why God short- ened their days — The people of Nineveh shall rise in the judg- ment against the Jews of our Lord's day — One servant to be beaten with many stripes, another with few — The reason as- signed for this distinction 81 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER XII. PAGE The sacrifice of Christ more than sufficient to make atonement for human transgression — Proofs from Scripture — The atonement proved by the resurrection of Christ — Scripture proofs — The Communion Service in reference to the satisfaction made by the blood of Christ — If men are purified in some purgatorial region, they must leave this world neither in a state of justification nor condemnation — If the best of men suffer in purgatory, why did the penitent thief escape that place of punishment ? — Scripture recognizes only two classes — Proofs adduced from the Bible — The consequences of Adam's transgression and the effects of the sacrifice of Christ compared — Adam only a man — Christ both God and man — Confinement in prison may deter from the commission of crime, but can never produce moral virtue and love — God's means of bringing men to salvation are kind and persuasive — Purgatory a region of punishment — Very few in- stances, if any, of a man's being morally improved by incar- ceration 89 CHAPTER XIII. The seventh inference — Belief in purgatory not calculated to en- courage virtue — Men influenced more by the present than by future time — The terrors of the general judgment disregarded by many believers — If the Bible is true, the doctrine of purga- tory must be false — Purgatory irreconcilable with the tender mercy of Jehovah — Inference eight — The chance of pardon in the world to come renders our Lord's threatenings inefi'ectual — The silence of the Jews when warned by our Blessed Lord about dying in their sins shows they did not expect forgiveness on the other side the grave — Inference nine — The prayers of the living not effectual on behalf of the dead — Death followed by a separation, but not immediately by the general judgment — Inference ten — Men are justified by faith, and not by works — Scripture proofs — Men unprofitable servants when they have done all they are commanded — The righteous who shall be found alive upon the earth at the second advent of Christ will not pass through purgatory, which is a proof that there is no such place 94 CHAPTER XIV. I. Peter iii. 17-22 considered — The explanation commonly given that Christ preached by His Spirit in Noah during the time the Ark was being prepared proved to be absurd — The spirits CONTENTS. PAGE visited by Christ were in their disembodied state, and that which was effected by Christ was done during His disembodied state, or the time which elapsed between His Crucifixion and Resurrection — Assuming that Christ actually preached to the spirits in Hades, it undoubtedly follows that God is changeable, and by comparison it also follows that He is partial in His mercy — The text considered under three heads — It is unscrip- tural to assert that the spirits in Hades could be removed to Paradise, even if they had repented — Christ's sojourn in Hades was a continuation of His sufferings for human transgression — If forgiveness is possible in the next world, why did not God extend His mercy long before to the antediluvians ? — The wicked dead either do not repent at all, or their repentance is of no avail — Hence their unchangeable condition in the next world 99 CHAPTER XV. I. Peter iii. 19, critically examined — The word in the original, trans- lated "preached," fully discussed — If the word "preached," in the text, has the same signification that it generally has, why not followed by an objective case? — Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison objected to on the ground that, unlike every other step in the redemptive history, it was neither foretold nor foreshadowed — Christ's position and condition while in Hades incompatible with preaching — The opinion that Christ preached to the antediluvians with a view to their reformation contra- dicted by the context — The true interpretation of the passage implies that Christ suffered after death — Peter shown clearly to contradict himself, if the common explanation of the text be correct — The pains of dying and the pains of death contrasted — The things the Bible declares to have been done to Christ and for Christ considered — David's prediction of our Lord's suffer- ings in Hades — Peter's intention in using the designations Christ and Jesus Christ throughout the Epistle . . . 107 CHAPTER XVI. The necessity and importance of attending to certain prophetic passages of Scripture — The true condition of Christ's soul during its separation from the body — Christ's suffering in Hades clearly prefigured by a remarkable event in the life of Joseph — The cause generally given of our Lord's agony in the garden of Gethsemaue unreasonable and antiscriptural — His sufferings both in the garden and on the cross reasonably and Scripturally accounted for — If Christ made full atonement on the cross, why manifest such anguish of soul at the moment of victory — Why the two thieves manifested no signs of terror in the face of eternity 117 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER XVII. PAGE Additional passages adduced in proof of Christ's sufferings in Hades — Psalm (cxvi. 3, 4) shown to be exclusively applicable to Christ — If the commonly received explanations of Isaiah (liii. 9) be admitted, a discrepancy between the Prophet and the Evangelist (St. Matthew) must be admitted — The text liter- ally translated and explained — The predictions, *^ He was num- bered with the transgressors," and "He made His grave with the wicked," were literally fulfilled in Christ's death, the former while undergoing His physical, and the latter while suffering His spiritual death 124 CHAPTER XVIII. Jonah ii. 1-4 explained — A remarkable event in the life of Jonah typical of our Lord's suffering in Hades — The event referred to by Christ Himself — The leading points of resemblance be- tween the type and the antitype — The important lessons thereby taught — The passage in Jonah shown to refer exclusively to Christ — The notion that the Prophet being in the belly of the fish represented our Lord's dead body in the grave refuted — The deliverance of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt preceded by three days' darkness — The salvation of the world the result of our Lord's sojourn in Hades — Import of the three hours' darkness at the crucifixion — Reasons why so many have been led to believe the work of the atonement was finished on the cross — No allusion to Redemption in the words "It is fin- ished" — Why Christ could not, and did not, refer to the atone- ment when He said, " It is finished " 133 CHAPTER XIX. The words "It is finished" could not refer to the fulfillment of every prediction and typical representation respecting the atonement — The predictions of Christ divided into two classes — Prophecies fulfilled during His agonies on the cross — Prophe- cies fulfilled subsequent to His crucifixion and resurrection — The fulfillment of the latter prophecies absolutely necessary for man's redemption — The word " It" in the passage " It is fin- ished" shown not to refer to the work of Redemption, but to the fulfillment of a particular prophecy uttered by the Psalmist — John xvii. 4 explained — The works wrought by Christ before His crucifixion — The importance of distinguishing between things done by Christ and to Christ — Granting the atonement to have been completed on the cross, great difficulties present xii CONTENTS. PAGE themselves — If the cardinal doctrine of substitution be main- tained, a belief in a full expiation for original and actual sins by physical death must be abandoned — Physical death either a consequence oi man's disobedience, or it is not — If not a consequence, then death must have been engendered in Adam at his creation — If Christ made full satisfaction for all the con- sequences of man's disobedience, how is it that death has still dominion over us ? — If Christ died to deliver us from spiritual death only, then our redemption is but partial — Certain infer- ences 139 CHAPTER XX. The atonement — The time, place, and manner in which it was effected — The design of the prohibition given to Adam — The consequences of its violation — Four deaths spoken of in Scrip- ture — Two of these are the natural inheritance of every child of Adam, and are experienced in the present world — The other two are experienced in the next world — Did disobedience ema- nate from the soul or from the body of Adam ? — The soul clearly shown to have sinned, while the body was merely the instru- ment — On the principle of justice the atonement must be made by the Soul — Christ's mental anguish in the garden of Geth- semane not sufficient to make full expiation — The Jewish sacri- fices foreshadow Christ's atonement in the next world — The sprinkling of the blood alone saved the lives of the Israelites — The dying and the death of the victim only preliminaries to the expiation of sin 147 CHAPTER XXI. The subject of expiation continued — The atoning efficacy of the Jewish sacrifices consisted in the sprinkling of the blood — The view that the atonement was completed on the cross contra- dicted by the typical import of the two goats on the Jewish day of atonement — The different explanations given of that portion of Leviticus, chapter xvi., which refers to the two goats — These explanations shown to be erroneous — AVhy were goats selected on this particular occasion to be sacrificed ? — Why did the Lord order neither more nor fewer than two goats ? — What reason was there for casting lots ? — These questions fully and satis- factorily answered — The slain goat typical of Christ's physi- cal death, and the scapegoat prefigured His descent into Hades 154 CONTENTS, xiii CHAPTER XXII. PAGE The typical import of "the sprinkling of the blood" — The two goats typified the "deaths" spoken of by Isaiah in reference to Christ — The goat whose blood was shed represented Christ on Calvary, the scapegoat prefigured Christ in Hades — The doc- trine of substitution inculcated by the sin-offering of the two goats — The exact meaning and import of "wilderness" to which the scapegoat was banished — Another reason why Christ suffered in Hades, is that the people of the old as well as those of the present world may, on the judgment-day, bear testimony to the atonement effected by His sufferings — Texts considered which seem to favor the opinion that Christ's sufferings termi- nated in this world — The Scriptural meaning of eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood 162 CHAPTER XXIir. The doctrine of "Substitution" defended — Christ a consenting party in the work of redemption — God the Father not vindictive in offering up His Son — Love and mercy actuated the Son in offering Himself up — Love and mercy alone must be ascribed as the cause which moved the Father to permit the Son to be sacrificed — " Substitution " cannot be denied on the ground that the substitute has not suffered all the consequences entailed through the offender's disobedience — Adam and Christ the rep- resentatives of human nature — The disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ contrasted — The question as to the length of time Christ suffered — The reasons generally given why Christ descended into Hades considered — The absurdity and futility of transubstantiation 169 CHAPTER XXIV. The Nonconformists* view with respect to the locality of the soul prior to the general judgment considered — If their opinion be correct, the judgment-day shown to be a solemn mockery — The devils not yet finally judged — Numerous passages of Scrip- ture brought to bear on the subject — The five opinions as to the locality and condition of the soul between death and the gen- eral judgment summed up — Conclusion 181 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. PAOB The doctrine of the Church of England with respect to the locality and condition of the soul between death and the general judg- ment — Literal meaning of the words "Sheol," "Hades/* and "Hell" — The uniform signification of these words in the He- brew and Greek Scriptures — The inconsistency of the translators of our Authorized Version in using for "Sheol" and "Hales " expressions totally different in meaning — The error accounted for — A knowledge of Hebrew and Greek as well as Latin essen- tial to a right understanding of the Sacred Scriptures — The words in the Greek Testament for " Hades," " Grave," and " Hell," explained — A list of the leading names by which Hades is designated throughout the Bible — Isaiah xxxviii. 17 ex- plained 190 CHAPTER XXVL The part of the universe in which Hades is situated — God*s word alone decisive on the subject — Human objections in such mat- ters of no weight — God's ways not man's ways — Bishop Pear- son's opinion of "Sheol" and "Hades" considered — "Sheol" and "Hades" never used in the Bible for the grave or re- ceptacle of the human body — Hades always represented in Scripture as being underneath the earth— Why those who go to Hades are said to descend — Genesis xxxvii. 33, 35, fully ex- plained — Explanation of Genesis xv. 15 — The distinction be- tween death, going to Hades, and burial clearly pointed out and proved by texts of Scripture — Exposition of Numbers xvi. 33 — Examination of Philippians ii. 10 199 CHAPTER XXVII. The number of compartments into which Hades is divided — Laza- rus in the upper and Dives in the lower Hades — The national belief of the Jews at the time of our Lord's first advent — The Jewish creed in reference to Hades confirmed by the Saviour — The respective conditions of the rich man and Lazarus both in this world and the next — No passing from the lower to the upper Hades — The nature of Abraham's answer — Lower Hades proved to be a place of punishment by numerous texts of Scrip- ture — Explanation of Psalm vi. 5 — The difference between Hades and Gehenna — Hades, or the Intermediate State, not the abode of that complete happiness and misery that will be realized after the general judgment — This doctrine proved by texts of Scripture 204 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XXVIII. PAGE The first and second death — The first and second resurrection — The Millennium — Christ will not reign personally during the millen- nium — The departed spirits communicate with one another — The duty to be performed by the angels on the day of judg- ment — There will be degrees of exaltation and degradation in the next world — The wicked dead conscious of what has trans- pired, but not conscious of what is transpiring in this world — The righteous dead are conscious of those facts only which God vouchsafes to communicate 212 INTRODUOTIOK. It may, perhaps, be expected that I should assign some reasons for giving to the world the following Treatise on the Doctrine of Hades, or the Intermediate State of Souls between Death and the final Day of Retribution, when all men shall render an account of their conduct to the Supreme Judge. In the first place, then, it may not be improper to in- form the reader that I was induced to write upon the subject in question, partly in deference to the request of numerous friends who had heard a course of my Sermons on the Doctrine of Hades, and to whom the theme was quite new; and partly because I felt convinced by the prevailing ignorance of people generally, that it had been much neglected, and that even the great body of Chris- tians, who are well acquainted with the doctrines of our Holy Religion in other respects, cannot be said to possess all the information they ought on this particular branch ; but what determined me more than any other considera- tion was a consciousness of the importance of the sub- ject itself, and the desirability of making others acquainted with the same ; for there is no denying the fact that, un- less we have a correct knowledge of this theological point, it is simply impossible for us to penetrate into the depth of Scripture, and to discover the beauty and har- mony that everywhere pervade the word of the Living God. On the contrary, many important passages will remain unintelligible and enigmatical ; and when we make inquiries as to their import, we may expect the answer which we have so often received, namely, That .2 (17) 18 INTRODUCTION. there are many things in the Bible not to be understood ; that we must exercise our faith, and all the apparent difficulties and perplexities will be explained in the next world. Who is not familiar with language of this descrip- tion ? To speak of Christ as the Substitute for man is perfectly true ; but to make that substitution consist, sim- ply and absolutely, in His death upon Calvary, because He said, ^' It in finished,'''' must ever indicate a most im- perfect and superficial acquaintance with the deeper meanings of the Bible; nor can the doctrine of ''Substi- tution," in any proper sense of the word, be made to harmonize with such views. A few moments^ reflection ought to convince those who thus regard and represent the great work of the Atonement, that they are building their house upon a sandy foundation which is utterly in- defensible, deceiving themselves and others, and practi- cally contradicting the express testimony of the Almighty Himself. So little, indeed, was actually known in that part of the United Kingdom in which it pleased Providence to place me respecting this great doctrine, that on my preaching a sermon relative thereto, in a somewhat prominent church, considerable excitement was, in consequence, caused, and much discussion and controversy ensued. Some of the members of the congregation, in whose presence the discourse was delivered, showed manifesta- tions of bewilderment, and even went so far as to say they considered such doctrines repugnant to the word of God. Let it be further noted that this sermon, of which I am now speaking, was addressed to members of the Church of England ; and if we find among that large, respectable, and influential body of Christians such an entire absence of all knowledge of the Scriptural doctrine of Hades, what amount of information can possibly be expected from many of the other religious denominations who do not, I think, profess, as a body, to believe in the detention of departed spirits within the confines of any region, distinct and separate from Heaven or Hell,^ during the interval elapsing between the time of death and the day of Judgment ? A few days after the delivery of the INTRODUCTION. 19 sermon, I was waited upon by a member of the congre- gation, and, during our conversation, he very politely in- formed me that he did not agree with me on the su{)ject of the *' Intermediate State -/^ and the reason assigned was to this effect — that he had been for a long time a regular member of that church, and yet had never so much as heard the doctrine hinted at by any of my pre- decessors, some of whom were men of considerable ability that had succeeded in gaining more than a local reputation. I expressed to him my surprise that a gen- tleman so intelligent as he should have any great objec- tions to make against one of the doctrines of that Church of which he was professedly a devoted member. I also took the liberty of apprising my friend that he would be placing me under great obligations to him, by pointing out to me any passage or passages in God's holy word whence it could be inferred, directly or indirectly, that the soul of man, on its departure from the body, goes immediately into Heaven or Hell, properly so cqlled. I further stated that, if he could discover even a single text which appeared decisive on the point, I would at once candidly admit that there was no foundation for the doctrine enunciated by me on the previous Sunday, and that the Established Church, of which he and I were members, must, so far as Hades was concerned, be con- sidered to be in error. In order that he should have every facility and means for establishing the views which he previously held, I intimated to him my willingness to wait patiently and allow him any length of time he might require to search the oracles of God in order to strengthen his position. He took advantage of this offer, and said a month would give him sufficient time to settle the point between us. Accordingly, he returned at the expiration of the appointed time, and informed me that he could mention one text of Scripture which would, in his judg- ment, be sufficiently decisive to establish the truth of that which he had been taught, and which he believed. The text to which he referred was duly explained to him, upon which he admitted that he had failed to make out his own case, and that the doctrine of the '' Intermediate 20 INTR OD UCTION. State" could not be satisfactorily refuted on the authority of Scripture, and of course it would be impossible to confute it upon any other authority. Those passages which appear to militate against the doctrine under con- sideration, and one of which was mentioned by this gen- tleman, will be fully discussed and explained when I come to answer the objections usually alleged against Hades, or the locality in which disembodied spirits dwell until the morning of the general resurrection. The text of Scripture supposed to be sufficiently strong and deci- sive against Hades occurs in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (v. 8). I am not exaggerating when I say that numbers of professing Christians have not hesitated to assert that they never heard of such a doctrine as that of the '' In- termediate State," or anything approaching to it, until it was brought before their notice by myself; nor can it with truth be denied that many of the ministers of differ- ent denominations of religion have persistently refrained from handling this doctrine ; but upon what grounds they have chosen to maintain such profound silence I cannot understand, and it is perhaps unnecessary to institute any special inquiry. I may here inform the reader that in 1859, and again in 1863, I preached a course of Sermons on the '' Doc- trine of Hades," and in 1864 I published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled '*Six Discourses on the Intermediate State ;" a portion of which will be found embodied in the present work. It is not improbable, however, that some divines have labored under an impression that the sub- ject was too philosophical and abstruse to be brought be- fore a mixed congregation, and therefore have thought it prudent to abandon it altogether. Others may have been deterred from bringing the matter prominently forward lest it should be supposed that they sanctioned and taught the doctrine of purgatory. Many, I doubt not, have been silent from a conviction that it was unde- sirable to agitate or disturb the minds of their hearers with a doctrine the knowledge of which appeared to them by no means necessary to salvation. Truth and candor, INTRODUCTION. 21 however, compel me to say, from my own personal knowledge, that there are not wanting those who assert that nothing is revealed in the Scriptures respecting the subject of Hades or the condition of the soul between death and the general Judgment. These assertions have been made even by ministers of the Gospel ; and if they treat the '' Doctrine of Hades" in such a manner, we need scarcely wonder at any amount of ignorance we may meet with among those who certainly ought to be enlightened on this part of Revelation. It is the opinion of many that there can be nothing revealed in the Bible about the condition of the soul between death and the final Judgment, or rather they deny such a con- dition altogether, because they do not find the words In- termediate State expressly mentioned in the word of God. This sort of reasoning appears about as weak and puerile as it would be to say that the " Lord's Supper" should be withheld from women because we are not ex- pressly told in the living oracles of God that they ever received that Sacrament. If we are not to compare scripture with scripture, and deduce such truths as are undeniable by inference, we must at once give up infant baptism in our Church, for I do not recollect ever having read in the Bible that an infant was baptized. For the same reason we might deny the existence of three Persons in the Godhead, because the word Trinity is nowhere found in the book of revelation. It is perfectly true that we do not find in Scripture the words " Interme- diate State," nevertheless it is equally true that the doc- trine itself is clearly taught therein, and to omit its in- vestigation is obviously to neglect our duty. Again, I may be permitted to caution my readers against imagin- ing that an inquiry into the intermediate condition of the soul is a subject of speculation, and therefore, under such circumstances, the wiser plan would be to leave the mat- ter alone altogether. I have no hesitation in saying that many will declare it to be a matter of pure speculation, and unprofitable, if not presumptuous, for any man to undertake an exposition of that which has not been clearly revealed in Scripture. Yes, they will naturally go much 22 I^TR OD UCTION. further than this, and assure us that, having carefully read the Bible, and having at the same time studied the opinions of the most eminent men on all the leading theological points, they have the best of grounds for be- lieving that Scripture really and truly teaches no such doctrine ; for had it so done, they must of necessity have become acquainted with it. Those who argue in such a manner set a limit to knowl- edge, and measure other men's abilities by their own stand- ard, which is both improper and un-Scriptural. For are we not told in the plainest language, even in the Bible itself, that among men there are diversities of gifts, and that it is the same Spirit that gives to every individual to profit withal ? After knowing this, shall I presume to say that certain parts of the Bible are inexplicable, merely because I do not understand them ? If it be true that men have different intellectual endowments, can we not justly infer that what may be a most perplexing difficulty to one man might be an easy and simple thing to another ? Every day's experience bears testimony to the truth of what is here stated ; and in corroboration of these re- marks it may be laid down as a fact, that every individual is capable of excelling, and therefore distinguishing him- self, in some one thing, if not in more than one thing. Yes, I do not recollect having met with a youth who did not in a short time manifest some prominent development which indicated his character. And what is this but the distinguishing feature in his nature, and the germ from which good or bad results may in a great measure be ap- prehended ? We should also not lose sight of this impor- tant fact — that whatever we find revealed in tKe word of God, that revelation was made by the Almighty to the end that we should examine it and obtain from it as much information as possible. And if we fail to do so, or are careless and neglectful about it, what is the use of such spiritual knowledge from heaven ? If we had nothing to do with that state which lies be- tween death and the resurrection, and if it in no way concerned us, the reader may depend that I should not have wasted either his time or my own in discussing any- INTRODUCTION. 23 thing so unprofitable. Since, however, we are certain one day to enter this invisible region of the dead, and probably remain there for centuries prior to the morning of the resurrection, it appears to me both desirable and reasonable that we should strive to know something about this future condition of our spiritual existence, and more particularly so as we have it revealed in the Divine Records. Let me also impress upon the minds of my readers that, in giving this book to the world, there is no desire on my part to provoke controversy or to arouse any bitter feelings in the minds of those who may view the subject of Hades differently from what I do. I make no preten- sions to infallibility. My sole aim throughout the book has been to arrive, if possible, at the truth ; and, if I have failed in the attainment of that object, I shall at least have the satisfaction of feeling that it will not have been the result of intention. Should the language used in some parts of the work be thought too strong or dogmati- cal, I can assure the reader that I have no wish to arro- gate to myself any superiority, or even to make any at- tempt at dogmatizing over the minds of others. The subject is one deserving the most serious consideration of all thoughtful Christians ; and a deep conviction of its importance may, I hope, be regarded as some little justification on my part for using language of a somewhat decisive character. Having now explained the grounds upon which the following work was undertaken, and having endeavored to account, in some measure at least, for the subject of the ** Intermediate State" not receiving that degree of atten- tion to which it is so justly and pre-eminently entitled, I conclude this introductory poftion by expressing an earn- est hope and sincere desire that what is presented in the subsequent pages may be read with interest and profit, and that it may be the humble means of inducing many that have more leisure than I have to investigate for them- selves so important and vital a doctrine as that revealed in Scripture concerning Hades. Walton College, 1869. ^ OK TllJJ 'A [uuiversity: THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. CHAPTER I. Death the destined portion of all men — The time of its arrival uncertain — God's prerogative — Man's ignorance — The Almighty's supreme wis- dom — His universal goodness — God's dealings with Pharaoh in reality no exception — The innocent not involved with the guilty — Jehovah's method of treating the Egyptians characteristic of his righteousness — Why Moses was commanded to appoint a particular time for the working of certain miracles — The investigation of the intermediate state a duty incumbent upon Christians in general and ministers of the gospel in particular — The leading questions propounded for solu- tion in the course of the work — Reasons for deviating somewhat from Scripture in dealing with the subject of Hades. We are taught, and convincingly taught, even every hour of our existence, that death is the common and des- tined portion of mankind, though we do not know under what circumstances or when that solemn period may arrive in which we are to realize the painful separation of soul and body. This grave event has been, and it ever will be, a secret to the wisest among us ; for, not- withstanding all the important revelations made by God to man during the dispensations of His grace, there ap- pears to be one thing which He never communicates, and which, on the contrary, He claims as His own special prerogative. This special prerogative is exercised by ' God in withholding from the knowledge of man the exact point of time at which the event shall actually take place. We have it recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark (xiii. 3, 32, 33) that four of our Lord's apostles, namely, Peter, (25) 26 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. ^Andrew, John, and James, went privately to their Divine Master and requested Him to inform them when the de- struction of Jerusalem, to which event He had previously called their attention, and the end of the world, were to be accomplished ; and the answer elicited from our Redeemer on that occasion was given in the following words: ''Of that day and hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but ' the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray : for ye know not when the time is." And on another occasion we find our Lord, in the Acts of the Apostles (i. T), addressing His disciples in these words: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power." From the two passages just quoted out of the Scriptures, we clearly perceive that men are not per- mitted to be participators in those momentous secrets which belong to God alone ; and this great fact, when viewed in connection with man's free-will and responsi- bility, is certainly a mark of supreme wisdom and uni- versal goodness. The account of God's dealings with Pharaoh and the Egyptians, which we find recorded in the Book of Exodus, may be thought to contradict what ^ is stated above, but it is not so in reality; for, in telling •^Pharaoh that such and such a plague would be inflicted at such a time unless he allowed the Israelites to go out of Egypt, the object was twofold, namely, to deal in all fairness with that haughty monarch of Egypt, and at the same time to show kindness to those who did believe in what the Almighty threatened, and thereby to afford them an opportunity of escaping, so far as the}^ were concerned, the impending punishment. In fact, I do not think that any other mode of procedure would have been practicable without involving the righteous with the wicked, which would have been unjust. In Exodus (ix. 17, 21) we thus read: "As yet exaltest thou thysel) against my people, that thou wilt not let them go ? Be- hold, to-morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof, even until now. Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in'the . SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 2T field ; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die. He that feared the w^ord of the Lord among the servants of Pha- raoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses; and he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field." This passage from the word of God at once shows the reason for fixing the time when the specified punishment was to be inflicted ; and therefore does not militate against the views pre- viously expressed. So powerful and irresistible is that monster Death, and so impartial in his operations and overwhelming in his influence, that be is justly called the king of terrors. It is through the universal dominion and all-controlling sway of this humiliating foe, that men of every rank and condition in this life are brought to a level. Though he be the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously day by day; though he be the tyrannical autocrat arrayed in his scarlet vesture and crowned with the royal diadem, or the wretched creature whose pov- erty compels him to gather his scanty pittance from door to door; yet all must, without exception, be reduced to their primitive clod. Every time we hear the solemn toll of the village church-bell, or listen with breathless silence to the minister's voice sounding over the regions of the dead, we are reminded that another soul has left its earthly tabernacle, has bidden adieu to this world with all its changing scenes, has winged its flight to that in- visible world whence it will never, never return. Now, since all men are by nature subject to death, and since it is appointed by the behests of Heaven that all men, whether good or bad, shall rise from the dead in order to render an account of the deeds done in the body, and to receive a just recompense of reward, it is at once the duty and interest of all, especially of Christians and ministers of Christ, to ascertain, if possible, what is to become of us during that long interval of time elapsing between the dissolution of our mortal bodies and immor- tal souls, and the reunion of the same bodies and souls; 28 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. or, in other words, to determine what is the condition of man between death and the general judgment. To make this very important subject easily understood, and as readily comprehended, I shall propose for consideration the following questions, and endeavor to give to each a full and satisfactory answer : 1. What is the real composition of man? 2. Does his nature comprise a body, a soul, and a spirit? and if so, what shall we regard as the philo- sophical distinction existing in the three respectively ? 3. If it can be clearly shown that man is a compound being, and that the destruction of one element is not the death of the other, where is the soul or the spiritual per- sonality while the body decomposes and putrefies in the grave ? 4. Is the soul or the spiritual personality, during its separation from the body and reunion with the same body, active or passive ? — that is, does the soul exercise its faculties when absent from the body, as it did while in the body, or are those faculties partially or completely suspended ? 5. What is the actual condition of the soul in its sepa- rate state of existence ? Ay^e these immortal natures clas- sified, and can they hold communion with each other ? 6. What is the nature of that happiness and misery which the separate souls enjoy or suffer during the inter- val between death and the general judgment ? 7. In what part of the universe are the souls of the righteous and wicked dead detained, prior to their resur- rection at the last day ? I believe it will be found that the foregoing questions embrace every feature of importance respecting death and its consequences ; and therefore my undertaking will be sufficiently discharged by furnishing such clear and defi- nite answers as will tend, if possible, to leave no doubts on the mind of the reader as to the correctness of our views in reference to the '' Doctrine of Hades." The evidence which I shall produce from the Bible will, doubtless, be sufficient for the minds of most Chris- tians ; and if I had to deal with them alone there would SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 29 be no need for my going beyond the sacred oracles of God ; but since my book may possibly fall into the hands of those who ignore, or profess to ignore, the Scriptures, I may be pardoned for branching out a little in another direction, to meet the demands of such readers. It would be absurd in the extreme to argue with people from the contents of a book in which they do not believe. It is better to meet them upon their own grounds. CHAPTER 11. Mode of conducting the inquiry into Hades — Six different opinions re- specting death and its consequences — Death not the extinction of man — Human beings not descended from apes, monkeys, or gorillas — A line of noble ancestry highly esteemed by most men — Such discussions futile — God not exalted by them — Every nature in the universe under law — Transformation of a gorilla into a man an impossibility — No radical change in the nature of an animal — Various senses of the word soul in the Bible. Now, in order that the reader may thoroughly under- stand the subject under consideration, and that justice may be done to all parties concerned, I deem it necessary to investigate the opinions held by the religious world touching death, and the consequences thence arising to us all. My proceeding will be conducted after this man- ner, because I am most anxious to act candidly and honor- ably toward those who have their own opinions, and who differ from the doctrine taught by our Church. Since there are no fewer than six different opinions respecting the state of man after death, and since all possess dis- tinctive characteristics, I shall examine each view in its proper order, taking every precaution to state it fairly ; and if I find in Scripture any text or texts which seem, even in the slightest degree, to countenance the opinion under investigation, I shall not fail to bring it forward for no other purpose than that of giving to it full weight ^ in the course of the argument. I now invite the careful attention of the reader to the first of the six prevailing opinions, by which it is believed that death is the extinc- ^ tion of body and soul. I need scarcely apprise those who peruse these pages how much the minds of many people have been distressed and struck with the greatest apprehension, lest argument- (30) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 31 ative evidence should be advanced to show that man de- scended from some inferior kind of animals, the names of which, except one or two, there can scarcely be any necessity for my ipentioning in this place. It is curious and important to notice the amazing length of time re- quired by these learned professors for this wonderful transformation, — a transformation, indeed, which, viewed! from any point we please, is a stupendous miracle. To ' my mind the best way of dealing with a subject of this character is, to ascertain from the supporters of such a doctrine what they really mean by the word transforma- tion. And, secondly, what length of time they consider requisite for this mighty achievement. After this has\ been fully ascertained, it would not be out of place to inquire whetiier they could furnish a solitary instance of one animal having been changed into another of a differ- ( ent nature. The previous questions are almost certain to receive either no reply, or rf they do elicit a reply, it will be one of an unsatisfactory character. It is un- doubtedly one of the most extraordinary events recorded in the history of man, that there should be found, es- pecially in the nineteenth century, a human being whose philosophical researches could possibly lead him to be- lieve that he descended either from an ape or a gorilla. Most, if not all people, are proud to acknowledge a line of noble ancestry ; but in this case we find the very re- verse to be the truth. Is this a mental delusion, or does it arise from a wish to ignore the word of God ? No ^ doubt, some will say that the desire of those who hold such views is to arrive at the truth ; to which we cannot but reply that the method adopted for gaining this point is, to say the least of it, most unaccountable, and may well excite the wonder of any one possessing an ordinary share of common sense. Did I for one moment imagine that my ancestors, how remote- soever, had been con- nected either with the ape or gorilla tribe, I most as- suredly would keep the matter a profound secret; it should never escape from my lips. Supposing, however, that it could be shown with some appearance of probability that mankind have sprung from such a low origin as that of 32 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. monkeys, what advantage would arise from a knowledge ^ of the fact ? In what respect could the supposed truth benefit us ? Would the Creator be exalted in our estima- tion ? Should we be induced to think more highly of the Bible ? Is not information of this description calculated to make skeptics, and infidels, and even atheists ? In my judgment, such uncertain and unprofitable studies proceed upon a disbelief in the Bible, or from a wish to be thought wise above what is written ; and they only leave those who pursue them in a world of labyrinths and perpetual doubt. The best way, however, to deal with the subject is to put it upon its own basis, and to discuss it with every care and attention. By these means we shall have an op- portunity of ascertaining the merits and demerits of this singular theory. Let us proceed, then, in the following manner, to investigate the subject philosophically, and then it is to be hoped that we shall be able to draw cor- V^rect conclusions. Every nature in the universe has in its very essence a special law operating upon it and in it every moment of its existence, and this special law continues its operation in the same manner at the beginning, the middle, and the end of that nature's existence. We admit that there may be a possibility of frustrating this law to some small ex- tent ; but then the result will always be a change for the worse, and consequently the effect will be manifest by the degeneration of the animal which may happen to be the / subject of experiment. So long as this natural law is not frustrated by experiments or otherwise, the nature will advance in regular and proper order till it arrive at that particular point or limit which is the boundary allotted to it by the Creator Himself. Had this nature inherent power to convert itself into anything it pleased, we might in all truth say that it would be under no law except such as its own whimsical and capricious fancy thought proper to invent and then establish. And, indeed, supposing one of the inferior animals should entertain a notion — and it must be admitted that such a notion would be ambitious — of becoming a man, the question is, could such an idea be realized in his lifetime, or must some generations pass SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, 33 away before his original intention of improving his species could be accomplished ? If, for instance, a gorilla were on some sudden occasion struck with an idea that he would like to be a man, or, in more simple words, should feel a strong desire to change his nature into human nature, how must he proceed to obtain his object ? He must either possess the inherent power to effect what he wished, or else he will be necessitated to remain as he is, with the wish unaccomplished. Perhaps it may said the change would be slow, and in that case efifecteaM)y de- grees. We would then ask, How many generations are re- quired for the gradual change to reach perfection, that is, for the gorilla to be transformed into the man ? As we are aware that a very long time is necessary, we have no ob- jection to allow a million years, and in all conscience this ought to be considered time enough. What then is want- ing for the effecting of this natural miracle ? If a million years are requisite for the gorilla to become a man, and that so great a change cannot be brought about in less time, we reasonably conclude that there cannot be the proper amount of power in the original himself for his transfor- mation into one of the human species. Seeing, then, that this animal has not the requisite force to transform his own nature into that of another character, the accom- plishment of the object, or the carrying out of the orig- inal gorilla^s design, must depend upon the inclination of his posterity, some of which would be certain to differ from their great ancestor ; or we should have in this par- ticular instance such a specimen of unity and concord as must forever remain without a parallel in the existence of man. Further, whence did the gorilla derive his first . Bft ftl m ist cannot fail to produce an impression of the first magnitude on the minds of all that may be inclined to question the fact of man's continuous existence after he has passed the Jordan of death. The words are pecu- liarly striking, as a moment's consideration must show; (38) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, 39 and if they cannot be properly explained, the next best thing is to leave them alone. On a subject of such vital importance we maintain that an incorrect exposition is worse than no exposition. Is it really a fact that in death no man can remember God, and that in the grave no one is capable of giving Him thanks? If this be true, the maintainers of the doctrine already mentioned have some apparent grounds for their views respecting death, and those who think differently will have the onus of pro- ducing an interpretation which is proved to be correct by the analogy of Scripture. Any inquiring mind, when it comes in contact with a text of this description, naturally wishes to know the meaning thereof, and for the attain- ment of its object opens the works of some distinguished commentator, where a proper solution of the difficulty is expected to be found; but, alas, how often indeed do we open the works of these expounders of God's word to be disappointed, or to find as many different shades of opinion as will leave us in difficulties of a more formidable char- acter ! Our remarks may be verified by quoting a paraphrase of the passage under consideration from the Commentary of Bishop Patrick, and it is in the following words: " For there I can have no opportunity to do Thee ser- vice, the dead being utterly unable to commemorate Thy wonderful works and propagate the memory of them to posterity. As long as I live I will show forth Thy praise ; but who can celebrate Thy name and instruct Thy people in the grave ?" A careful perusal of the fourth and fifth verses of this Psalm will convince any one that no such meaning as that assigned by the bishop can be admitted. It is not my intention to inquire at present into the true signification of this text, as I have determined to reserve it for its proper place. I have said thus much concerning the words of the Psalmist, lest my readers should be led to imagine that I might pass it over in silence ; but this is not by any means my intention. Let us now proceed with a further consideration of the first opinion, which holds that death is the destruction, 40 SCRIPTITRAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. or, more fitly, the extinction, of the compound being whom we designate man. We emphatically deny that death is the extinction of man. For it may be laid down as a fact that no two things in nature are so radically distinct from each other, and so completely contrary, as mind and matter. And therefore how any one can bring himself to believe that they are one and the same thing, is to me absolutely inconceivable. Matter is dead in its essence, and it will forever remain in that inanimate state, unless some external powers are brought and applied to it for the purpose of removal. Matter, in consequence of its essence, has no inherent power of motion, and if it has no inherent power of motion it must be utterly incapable of thougjit ; for, speaking accurately on the subject, motion is the result of thought, or action in obedience to a deter- mination of the will. In fact, thoughts are the parents of actions, whether good or bad. And no man will deny his capacity to change his own thoughts, and the power to effect this change must be in the man himself. Well, if in the man, to what part shall we ascribe its residence ? We cannot give the virtue to the body, for in that case we should be endowing our animal frames with an in- tellectual apparatus which they never did possess, and which they are absolutely incapable of possessing. And / note further that, if matter were capable of thinking, reasoning, or planning, there can be no assignable cause why man should be one iota more intelligent than a bird, a fish, or a horse. Assuming it to be true that matter is . capable of thinking, wherever matter is found we should ( expect thought or intelligence. Matter may be distinguished by its passive state, mind by its active principle ; mind commands, matter obeys. That which in its essential nature does think, and that which in its essential nature does not think, cannot be the same thing. They are as diametrically opposed to each other as light and darkness, life and death. The only connection between mind and matter resolves itself into instrumentality. The body is simply the in- strument or channel through which the mind operates. Hence it is that, when the functions of the body are ob- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 41 structed by disease, the operations of the mind, and not the mind itself, are to some extent retarded. Again, matter is divisible, and therefore destructible; while mind or spirit is single in its essence, and therefore inde- structible. We shall now consult the philosophy of the Bible for additional proofs on this point. On closely investigating the successive steps in crea- tion, as detailed in the first chapter of Genesis, we learn how striking was the formation of man in comparison with that of brutes. We find the latter have belonging n, to them only one element, that of the ground which be- came a beast as soon as the command issued from Jehovah ; nor does there appear to have been any difference — in the mode of bringing into existence — between animals and the produce of the earth, for precisely the same sort of language is employed by the sacred historian. In Gen- esis (i. 11) we read these words: — ''And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind." Thus we find God speaking about the produce of the ground. And by turning to the twenty-fourth verse of the same chapter, we see the same sort of language used respecting the various kinds of animals: — ''And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind.'^/^ From the foregoing texts it is evident that Scripture makes but little difference between animal and vegetable life; and this uniformity and consistency are practically recognized by the Almighty in commanding man to eat the flesh of animals as well as the herb of the field. Do we then find such language used in regard to the creation of man? Is it said in the divine injunction, "Let the earth bring forth man" ? By no means. " God said (Gen. i. 26), We will make man in our own image, according to our own likeness." This language concerning the crea- tion of man must have been employed designedly to im- press upon Biblical readers and students, in every age of the world, the amazing difference between human nature and all other natures under the sun. Jehovah's expressly declaring that man should be made in the image of God, 42 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. stamps Adam and his posterity with an awful dignity, to which no other created intelligence can presume to aspire. To regard man as on a level with animals, or to suppose that he sprang from them, must be the essence of infidelity and a preposterous absurdity. Before I pro- ceed further with our subject, it will not be improper to explain why the progenitor of the human race was called by the name of Adam. The prevailing opinion on this point has stood firmly for two thousand years, nearly every religious denomination appearing quite satisfied with the common explanation. We beg respectfully to /^ state that we differ from this generally received view, and we do so on the ground of its absurdity. We have no weakness for giving credence to this or that doctrine because it happened to be believed by some few great men, or the multitude at large. Those who hold the common opinion about the origin and meaning of the word Adam tell us that it means ^^red eartli,''^ and that the name was applied to the first man because God made him out of the ground. Looking at this account super- ficially, we may say that it carries with it the appearance of truth ; but the moment we go beyond the surface our eyes are opened, and as a natural consequence we think differently, because we think more accurately. Now, if the father of the human race received the name of Adam simply because he had been made out of the earth — and after all it was only his body, and not the man himself, that originated from the ground — how comes it to pass that all the brutes are not called Adams as well as man? for they were formed out of the ground in the same manner as our ancient forefather. And this will be seen on referring to the second chapter of Genesis and the nineteenth verse, where it is written: — '' Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field \ and every fowl of the air.'^ CHAPTER lY. Application of Hebrew terms — Adam gave names to all the animals — The name Adam given by God Himself — Meaning of the term Adam — Why so called — Our Lord named Jesus before His incarnation — No other created intelligence denominated Adam — Genesis ix. 5 explained — God inflicts punishment on the suicide — Derivation of the word Adam — Job xix. 25, 26, 27 — New translation — Explanation — Error in the Authorized Version — Future disembodied state — The words of our Lord on quitting this world — First opinion without foundation — Death not the termination of man's existence. From what little was said in the last chapter, it is easy to see the absurdity of the commonly received interpreta- tion respecting the signification of Adam, and at the same time learn how very inconsistent it must be to assign no better reason for his obtaining that name, and handing it down to posterity. In the application of Hebrew terms V to animals, things, or persons, it was customary, in the first place, to discover the most prominent feature in the animal or thing to be named, and after having obtained this information, the name was imposed upon the subject or recipient of such designation. It was upon this com- mon-sense method that all the various kinds and different sorts of animals were brought to Adam to see what he would call them. He must have examined them, and on finding out the distinguishing feature in each, he would impose the name in strict accordance with that feature, in order that the nature of the animal might be stamped in the name. Now, let it be remembered that the first man gave names not only to all the animals, but even to his own wife ; but it may be asked. Who gave Adam his name? God Himself gave Adam his name, because it was applied to him before his formation; God used the expression ''Adam," when He said man should be made in His image, and consequently our great ancestor re- (43) 44 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. ceived the name of Adam before his creation, just in the same manner as our Lord was called Jesus by the angel prior to His conception in the womb. This account is written in the Gospel of St. Luke, the second chapter and twenty-first verse. It will hence follow that God Him- self called the first man Adam ; and why ? Because man was to have something peculiar belonging to him. The word Dl»s, or Adam, is derived from noi, a root, in the original language, which signifies to resemble, to be like ; and therefore Adam denotes similitude, or resemblance, and the name is exclusively used of him and his posterity because they were made in the image or likeness of God. This name has never been given to any created intelli- gence except man, because he alone, of all creatures, was stamped with the Divine image. Were we to test the mighty range of God's stupendous creation, ascend- ing to the greatest heights and descending into the low- est depths, we could not find even a solitary creature which has been created after the likeness of God, with the exception of man. We have no Scriptural authority whatever for concluding that even the angels have be- longing to them this mighty and wonderful dignity, by virtue of which there is a close relationship existing between man and God. This may be assigned as one reason why our Lord took upon Himself human nature (Heb. ii. 14), being made in all respects like unto His brethren, sin only excepted (Heb. iv. 15). I would then endeavor to impress upon the reader this important fact, — Adam signifies image, and the appellation was given to him on account of his having been made in the likeness of God. And now we leave the matter to the discretionary powers of any one, to determine whether the commonly received explanation of this word or that which has just been given is the more likely to be correct. After know- ing all these extraordinary facts as to man's nature and dignity, is it not the greatest folly to imagine that he could possibly be the offspring of any brute? We need only mention such a view for it to be condemned with indignation by every mind capable of exercising its facul- ties aright. SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 45 These points, however, I shall endeavor to make more evident when I come to discuss the supposed torpidity of man's soul. That death is by no means the termina- tion of man's existence will appear from an investigation of what may be properly designated one of the most striking passages in the Bible; and we are of opinion that if this text had received due attention, no question could have arisen as to whether the Old Testament Scriptures teach the immortality of the soul, as well as the doctrine of rewards and punishments. The portion of Scripture to which we refer will be found written in the ninth chapter of Genesis and the fifth verse. The\ words are: "And surely your blood of your lives will I require ; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man ; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man." The first part of this verse is supposed to denounce suicide, and the second homicide ; and therefore it may not be improper to ask what a beast has to do in the matter. When a man loses his life through what happens to be inflicted upon him by another, or if he should lay violent hands upon himself and thereby destroy his own life, in what respect can we make a brute responsible ? Those who imagine the common translation to be correct, will probably un- derstand the passage to mean that any beast that shall have caused the death of a human being should be killed ; but surely the text can have no such signification, unless it be by implication. It is almost beneath the sacred historian to place the brute creation in so prominent a position ; for would not common sense teach any man that a beast which had, through the ferocity of its nature, caused the death of a human being, ought to be killed immediately, or at least be prevented for the future from committing such violence? It must also be noted that the punishment here spoken of is to be inflicted, not by deputy, but by Jehovah Himself, which w^ould hardly have been the case if the words referred to a beast. '' From the hand of every soul, that is, after the soul is severed from the body, I will require it," saith the Al- mighty. The position of the word rendered beast in this 46 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. passage shows most clearly that it cannot have that sig- nification. The proper meaning of the word riTl in the text under consideration is the soul of man ; and there- fore, instead of the present translation, we should render the words thus: ''And surely your blood of your lives will I require ; from the hand of every soul I will de- mand it." This translation makes the sense clear and intelligible, furnishing, as it does, a truth of the first im- portance. Since, then, we are taught that God will re- quire punishment from the suicide, it may be asked how this can be accomplished when the corpse only remains. Scripture says, ''from the hand of every soul will I re- quire it." Though the body and soul, through the hand of death, cease their connection with each other till the resurrection morning, yet the soul still survives, and from this soul it is said, "I will require it." This word soul in the Hebrew is now called "living "or "iaiperishable," because it has ceased to perform its functions through the instrumentality of a perishing body. From this highly important passage of the Sacred Scriptures we learn that the soul survives the body, that it is responsible to God, and that punishment can and will be inflicted upon it when separated from its fleshly habitation. And' as this soul, when separated from the body, is said to be living or imperishable, we are justified in concluding that death is not the extinction of man. It cannot be denied, then, that this single text of Scripture teaches in the clearest manner conceivable both the immortality of the soul and its continuous responsibility to God after death. (See Hebrew Review and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature, V^vol. i. p. 208.) The next portion of Scripture to which I shall invite attention will be found in the book of Job (xix. 25, 26, 27), where it is thus written : " For I know that my Re- deemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms de- stroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." In the 25th and 2r)th verses we find six wards put in italics, which shows they are not in the original, SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 4^ having been supplied by our translators to complete the sense. Now, as we do not consider this rendering faith- fully reflects the original, we must produce a translation which will convey the true meaning of the sacred penman; — "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and He shall hereafter stand upon the earth. If after my skin they destroy this body, yet out of my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes and not another's shall behold." According to the preceding trans- lation it is evident what must have been the sacred writer's meaning when he was speaking of his calamities. Job knew that his Redeemer lived, and believed that He would at the last manifest Himself upon the earth as the Judge of all men and vindicator of the righteous. But he goes further, and asserts that if after his skin they (mean- ing the boils with which he had been smitten) should destroy his body (by the disease proving fatal), yet they could not destroy him, that is, his soul, for out of his flesh he should see God, whom he would see for himself. The great error in the passage of the Authorized Version con- sists in making the inspired writer say he should see God inhis fiesh, whereas he expressed his conviction that he would see God out ofhisfiesh, even while the latter was decomposing within the silent precincts of the grave. The doctrines inculcated by this remarkable text are: (1) A future disembodied state of existence ; (2) The general Resurrection; and (3) The final Judgment. Here, then, we see Job teaches us that, at death, he would main- tain his own personal identity, and that in this state he expected to be with God, and to hold communion with Him. Death, in the opinion of this inspired writer, is therefore simply the liberation of the soul from the body. The original runs thus : nts^nm, yet out of, or separated from, my flesh. If man does not possess a higher origin than the mere dust of the earth, what signification shall we attach to those words of our Redeemer, who said, on quitting this world (Luke xxiii. 46), '' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" ? Although his body re- mained upon the cross, and afterward was buried in the tomb, yet his spirit or soul he delivered into the hands of 48 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. his heavenly Father. Holy Job, too, testified (xxxii. 8) that '' There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." And in Eccles. (xii. T) we are informed that at death ''The dust returns to the earth, and the spirit to God who gave it." The former of these insists that there is a spirit within man, while the latter demonstrates that he is a compound of earth and spirit ; the one at its separation returning to its primitive clod, the other to Him who is the father of spirits. And Zechariah (xii. 1) acquaints us of Jehovah '' Who formeth the spirit of man within him." And this clearly shows the spirit to be a principle distinct from the earthly frame. '* Handle me and see," saith our Lord, *'for a spirit hath not flesh and bones." (Luke xxiv. 39.) Having advanced arguments and quotations from Scrip- ture to show that death cannot be the extinction of man, we may fairly conclude how utterly destitute of founda- tion is the first opinion that we have been combating, and how such a notion is calculated to involve facts, princi- ples, and creeds in the utmost confusion, making man, who is the lord of creation, level with the perishing brutes, as well as casting a sad reflection upon God. For what object could the Almighty have in view, supposing He in- ^ tended death to terminate our existence? What is the use of his threatenings against vice, and his exhortations to virtue, if we are not to receive the rewards or suff"er l^the punishments after death ? I am sorry to say that many of those who regard death as the end of man's ex- istence, would be too glad to find that it really was the extinction of soul and body. CHAPTER V. The good and bad not intermingled in the next world — Both unavoid- ably mingled in this world — Death closes the probationary state of man — Judas Iscariot — His final doom — The righteous dead rest from their labors — Dives and Lazarus — Prayers of no avail after death — This present world the place of man's probation — All covenants have conditions — Sodom and Gromorrah — Parable of the wheat and tares — Why the wicked arc not severed from the righteous in this world. Having finished our observations on the first view of this interesting subject, we now pass on to inquire into the truth of the Second Opinion, which holds and main- tains that there is one and onli/ one common receptacle for the dead ; and that into this place all are cast, whether good or bad ; and within its mighty precincts they remain till the great day of judgment. Assuming this opinion to be true, we are bound to conclude that Cain and Abel, the first murderer and the first martyr, Judas and Saul, the apostles and all the prophets, the atheist, the infidel, the skeptic, the blasphemer, and indeed every shade of character, are at this moment mingled together in the ut- most confusion ; and, if in the utmost confusion, no doubt, in the greatest misery. Now, to mingle the good and the bad in such a manner, after their term of probation is ended, must be unjust, because it would be involving the innocent with the guilty ; and to do this is incompatible with the righteous attributes of that God at whose hands every man will be rewarded according to his deeds. We know, by experience, that the good and the bad are unavoidably iniermingled in the present world, not only because the providence of God has so decreed that the wheat and the tares should grow together till the time of the harvest, but because it is required by that probation- arv state through which every man is compelled to pass. 4 (49) 50 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. These matters are altered bj death, when the probationary career ends and stern judgment begins ; but it is surely quite out of the question to suppose, even for a moment, that the regenerate and unregenerate should be placed in that juxtaposition in which the one could interfere with the other. We may depend that the righteous dead can find no pleasure among the wicked dead ; neither are w^e to suppose the wicked spirits capable of enjoying happi- ness in the society of the righteous. The jumbling together of the different classes, and the making of no distinction between them, strikes at the foundation of our ^notions of justice. It is neither impossible nor improb- able that there may be found those who take an analogical view of the subject, and argue the point in this manner : When assertions are made to the effect that gross injustice would be committed by the intermingling of the righteous and wicked dead in that world which lies beyond the grave, how comes it to pass that we do not as a rule con- sider it a violation of justice for the two characters to be mingled together in the present world ? Glanced at super- ficially, this objection seems to have some foundation in reason and justice, but when we carefully examine it, we find it has no logical basis. The two cases, in fact, are by no means parallel, and therefore the conclusions drawn from the one cannot in fairness be deduced from the other. This present world is the place of man's probation, and consequently the good and the bad are unavoidably min- gled together; but since death is the limit of man's proba- tion, his doom must, by virtue of that event, be irrevo- cably fixed. The one is the time of sowing, the other that of reaping. In the next world there is no probation, and therefore no involving of the innocent with the guilty. ^11 covenants have certain conditions, and all conditions have prescribed limits. That there will be a separation between the just and the unjust immediately after death, may be inferred from the fact of the Almighty's declaring to Abraham that He would spare all the inhabitants of Sodom for the sake of ten righteous persons, provided that number could have been found within the precincts of that notoriously wicked city. Does this great fact look SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF mat B&y. ''' §fE ^J- like including the innocent in the puniHhttfeit ofeyae ■* ^ - guilty ? Surely not. ^"^^-/POT;' 'Tl Our views are also confirmed by the parable*^p*tCforr<{fe ^^ '^ by our blessed Lord in St. Matthew's Gospel (xiii. 24-30), where we read these very significant words : '' Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field : but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the house- holder came and said unto him. Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field ? from whence then hath it tares ? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The Ser- vants said unto him. Wilt thou then that we go' and gather them up ? But he said. Nay ; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest ; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers. Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them ; but gather the wheat into my barn." We learn from this portion of Scripture that the tares are not allowed, even in this world, to exist among the wheat for their own sake, but exclusively on account of the wheat. God, in His providence, permits the wicked and the righteous to remain together in this state of probation, lest by remov- ing the former, an injustice or wrong might be inflicted upon the latter. Such is the import of these words, *' Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them^ We may hold the most powerful con- viction that there is no possibility of the bad molesting the good, neither can the former derive any consolation from communion with the latter. The wheat and the chaff, the sheep and the goats, even before the resurrec- tion, must be kept separate from each other. There is, however, no need to multiply arguments for the establish- ment of our teaching upon this point, as the Scriptures themselveg are clear and decisive. We are distinctly taught by the Bible that there is a proper place for each individual at the separation of body and soul ; each ad- 52 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, vancing to that particular locality which has been pre- viously marked out for him, according to the manner in which he conducted himself during his probationary career. We must all recollect what is written concerning that man of whom Scripture testifies (Matt. xxvi. 24) that it would have been far better for him had he never been born. I allude to Judas Iscariot, who is said, in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles and the twenty-fifth verse, to have fallen through transgression from his minis- try and apostleship, that he might go to his own place. f Mark the words ; that he might go to his own place. And what can such language signify, but that Judas was con- veyed into a region which was peculiarly adapted to so notorious a sinner I We are told too in the book of Reve- lation (xiv. 13) that the dead, who die in the Lord, are blessed, that they rest from their labors, and that their works do follow them. These assertions could not be true, if the good and the bad are placed in such a way that there is no bridge between them. Instead of the pious resting from their labors after death, they must, according to this opinion, be commencing a protracted existence of misery ; for how could any one be otherwise than wretched in the society of such characters as that of Judas, who sold his Lord and Master for thirty pieces of silver? Again, we have a more decisive foundation upon which to build for the confirmation of what we are now submitting to the consideration of the reader. In the Gospel of St. Luke (xvi.) we find a most com- plete refutation of that view which is content to put the saved and lost souls into one locality, where there is no partition. For in that narrative we read of Dives and Lazarus, the one immediately after death cast into a prison of anguish, deprived of everything but sheer existence, and asking for a drop of water to cool his thirsty tongue ; while the once suffering pauper was in the bosom of Abraham, enjoying repose and happiness. And it ought to be further noted, that when the rich man raised his eyes, he saw Abraham afar off. The distance, indeed, between the rich man and Lazarus is so immeasurably great, in respect of time, that were one of the lost spirits SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 53 to undertake the journey, it must be absolutely impossible for him to accomplish the same, though he were to be traveling daring all the ages of eternity I Abraham also informed the unfortunate creature, that the individual, who formerly lay at his gates covered with wounds, was now comforted, while he (Dives) was tormented. And, to give the whole affair a climax, " the father of the faith- ful'^ declared in calm but decisive language, which ex- cludes every glimmering of hope, that '* besides all this there is between us and you a great gulf fixed, in order that they, who would pass from hence to you, cannot ; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." This language appears so clear and conclusive that we think it a waste of time to bring forward any additional passages for corroboration. And therefore we feel justi- fied in saying that the second opinion concerning the state of the soul after death, has been, in the preceding part of this chapter, sufficiently answered. CHAPTER VI. • Third Opinion as to the state of the dead — Not a state of sleep — Com- position of man — Man endowed with two lives — Animal and spiritual life — Instinct the distinguishing feature of the animal life — Spiritual life characterized by reason and conscience — Spiritual life liberated by the destruction of the animal life — God's mode of governing mat- ter, animals, and man — Man's superiority — His power to resist the will of God — Man passes through three stages — Not philosophically true to say the departed are dead — Primary essential attribute — Wherein it consists — Primary essential attribute of the soul — Texts of Scripture alleged in support of the soul's sleeping between death and the general judgment — A sleeping soul not an unconscious soul. The Third Opinion demanding our careful medita- tion is that which supposes the soul, as soon as it leaves the body, to enter into a state of profound sleep and in- sensibility ; in which condition it remains till the resur- rection. And this period of time, during which the soul continues unconscious, may be twenty, a hundred, or even several thousand years, depending, of course, in this respect, upon each person's hour of death and the day appointed for the final judgment of the world. I believe this view was countenanced by a late arch- bishop, who has been followed by many that are not in the habit of thinking for themselves. In concluding a discourse upon this subject. His Grace makes the follow- ing statement : — '' Upon the whole, then, I think that the notion of the soul, when separated from the body, entering immediately on a state of enjoyment or suffering, which is to last till the resurrection, has at least as many reasons against it, as for it, in Scripture." Such are the views of a late dignitary of our Church, and it now remains for us to examine this opinion, to see whether or not we should follow it without further advice. Our object cannot be better accomplished than by considering the (54) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 55 composition of man and the nature of that death to which all men are doomed. This we think will throw some light on the question at issue. To obtain a complete notion of man's nature, we must begin with his creation, which we shall regard as the basis of the subsequent remarks, and which is necessary for a clear understanding of the subject. In Genesis (ii. T) we read that ''the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the' ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." From this verse it is manifest that the creation of man involved two distinct operations, each of which was intimated when God declared that he should be fashioned after the Divine image. The Lord God fashioned or shaped the body of the first man out of the moist clay, but after this model- ing, the frame could be nothing but a mere machine, and therefore inanimate. This, then, we consider to be the first operation, and it is implied in the words "we will make man or human nature in our image," words which undoubtedly have a reference to Jehovah incarnate. The second operation, and the most important in the formation of Adam, was the breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. Now, the word here rendered '' life" is plural in \ the original, and therefore denotes lives. And the text will then read : ''And Jehovah God formed this very Adam from the dust of red earth, and breathed into his nostrils a spirit of lives, therefore that Adam became ay living person." According to this text, and nothing can be plainer, man at his creation had infused into him by the Almighty two lives, each of which has its own peculiar functions to perform. One of these lives may be called animal, and is that by virtue of which his physical frame is enabled to perform all its natural operations. The life which imparts power to the physical frame for the performance of its natural functions consists in the blood, and so far as this animal life is concerned, man stands on a level with brutes, inasmuch as they have a life of the same character. The Jews were strictly prohibited from eating the blood of any animals killed in sacrifice, but were 56 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. always commanded to pour it out upon the ground, or to use it in sprinkling the altar and other things pertaining to the temple. They were not to eat the blood, because it was impregnated with life ; and this is that animal life of which we have been speaking, and one of those breathed into the body of our progenitor at his creation. The distinguishing feature of this animal life, which is common to men with the beasts of the field, is instinct. Hence we find that both men and brutes have instinct, and this instinct sometimes displays itself with such per- fection, that many have concluded that inferior animals are endowed with reason. No doubt there is great diffi- culty in ascertaining where instinct ends and reason begins. That the actions of men and brutes should occasionally resemble each other is not by any means so very strange, since one sort of life is common to both. The greatest, however, of all distinctions remains to be mentioned, and it is this ; — that man possesses two lives and brutes only one, hence death is not merely the de- struction, but the extinction, of an animal. The other and nobler life breathed into Adam was the immortal spiritual life, which enables man to hold communion with God both here and hereafter. The distinguishing features of this spiritual life are reason and conscience. It is the immortal part which can never perish ; and on this ac- count it is that our Lord told his disciples (Matt. x. 28) ^' not to fear them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, yea, rather to fear Him who hath power to destroy both body and soul in hell.^' This text clearly shows that men may destroy the animal life, which is in the blood, and still there remains a spiritual life which no man can even touch. And these remarks and argu- ments are further demonstrated by a consideration of our Lord^s words to the penitent thief; for He promised that repenting malefactor that he should be with Him that very day in Paradise, and this was to be effected after the animal life of the culprit had been destroyed ; yes, more than this, the destruction of the dying man^s animal life was absolutely necessary in order that the spiritual life he possessed might be in Paradise with his Lord and SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 57 Master. It was on account of man having in his body a spiritual life that our Redeemer was induced to breathe upon his apostles and to say (John xx. 22), ''Receive ye the Holy Spirit. '^ The animal life could derive no benefit from all the external breathing in the world ; it was the spiritual life in the apostles which became the recipient of that divine breath, through whose power their souls were vivified. This is the reason of Job's saying (xxxiii. 4), *' The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." It may be observed that this spiritual life continues in the body so long as the animal life remains, but on the destruction of the latter the former departs and returns to God who gave it. Our statements on this subject appear still more evident from the different ways in which God exercises authority over matter, animals, and men. We would ask the reader to V bear in mind that God governs matter hj force, brutes by instinct, and man by reason. Hence it is that God says to man (Isa. i. 18), "Come and let us reason to- gether.'^ No created existence can ever array itself f against the will of God, or in any way violate his be- hests, unless it possess the faculty of reason. Man's power to resist the will of God demonstrates his supe- riority to every other animal in creation, and proves that he has the faculty of reason and is capable of forming an independent judgment. From the foregoing observations, and especially from the words of our Lord, we see that death is simply the separation of soul and body. Let us notice, in the second place, that every man is bound to pass through three stages before he reaches his final home, or destination ; and in each stage he never loses his personal identity, because it is a continuation of the same life and same consciousness which never leave him, for, if they did, he could not be the very identical person. The first of these gradations is realized at man's natural birth, or when he is born into this world; and, for dis- tinction's sake, I call this development his temporal birthday. The second mighty change is effected when the soul and body are severed from each other by the cold hand of death, the latter being committed to the 58 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. ground, " in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life," and the former returning to God; and this state in human existence I designate man's intermediate birthday, which extends from the time of death till that of the resurrection. The final, or third change, which man is compelled to undergo, comes to pass at the morning of the resurrection, or the universal Easter, when the bodies and souls of all men shall be reunited; and this change I denominate man^s eternal birthday. By the term death, then, as applied to a human being, we are to understand nothing more than a temporary disunion between a mortal and an immortal nature, or the separation of a perishing body from an imperishable soul. And this notion of death being simply a severance is actually implied and presupposed in the idea of a resurrection and the reunion of the two natures, for it would be absurd to speak of the resurrection and reunion of our souls and bodies if they had not been previously united and previously separated. And permit me to say that, in speaking of the departed, we have no more right, neither have we, in strict philosophical language, any more authority to assert that a man is dead because the soul leaves his body, than we have a right to say that a bird is dead merely because it makes a hole in its shell and passes out of its present habitation into another state of existence of quite a different character from that in which it previously lived. The living creature steps out of the limited abode where it was confined, living and thriving, while the shell, its former habitation, is left behind to decay and perish. Let us note, further, that everything in nature possesses a peculiar characteristic, which makes the thing to be what it is, and without this feature the thing in question could not be what it is. This peculiar characteristic is called by logicians the primary essential attribute of a thing. A few examples will be sufficient to illustrate our meaning and make it easily comprehended. I suppose that every one in his proper senses knows what a ball is, or that it is something round. Now, we ask. What is the primary essential attribute of the ball, or what can be SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 59 the distinguishing feature which makes the thing in ques- tion to be a ball ? We answer by saying that 7'otundity, or roundness, constitutes the primary essential attribute in the ball, because if we destroy the rotundity of the ball, by making it square, the thing no longer remains a ball, and therefore we call it by some other name which is equally calculated to mark out its particular feature. Again, we would ask. What is the primary essential attribute of water ? And we say softness is the primary essential attribute of water, for if we take away softness from the fluid it no longer remains water. When, for instance, this liquid is converted into something else by intense cold, we call it ice ; and this distinction is highly proper and of immense utility in all the practical concerns of life. Now, every existence under the sun has some peculiar feature belonging to it, or what is logically called the primary essential attribute, which makes that thing to be what it really is, and clearly distinguishes it from all other things. Let us apply these remarks to the soul of man by asking and answering the following question : *' What is the specific characteristic, or primary essential attribute, in a human soul ?" We believe that thinking is the primary essential attribute of the soul ; but how shall we define this thinking? Thinking I define to be\ silent invisible action, which is the primary essential attribute of the soul ; and therefore, should the soul completely cease from thinking, it must by virtue of that change lose the primary attribute, and with such a loss it cannot be a soul in the proper signification of the , word. Should the soul, therefore, at death, discontinue to think, by falling at once into a profound sleep, and by losing all consciousness, from that moment we justly cease to regard it as a human soul. Since our souls are capable of dwelling within the confines of a perishing body, making their effects known, felt, and recognized through the instrumentality of such gross material as that of which our animal nature is composed, is it not pre- sumable that the same souls will have the power of act- ing far more freely w^hen they shall be liberated from such a burden ? To my mind, it appears more amazing 60 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. that a spirit can act through the instrumentality of life- less aud sluggish matter than that it should perform its operations without that sluggish matter. All the body can accomplish in its union with the soul is to retard the action of the latter, because in the body it acts mediately , I while out of the body it acts immediately. We shall now mention some of the texts of Scripture that have been alleged in support of the opinion which considers the soul to be in a state of sleep between death and judgment. In the Acts of the Apostles (vii. 60) we thus read: "And Stephen kneeled down and cried with aloud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' And when he had said this, he fell asleep." And in St. John's Gospel fxi. 11), ''Jesus saith unto his disciples, ' Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.' " From these and other passages of a like character, it has been concluded that the soul, imme- diately after its separation from the body, enters into a state of sleep. Notwithstanding the high authorities and distinguished dignitaries who have come forward to support this view, we are prepared to assert that the word " sleep," in its application to the dead, never signifies that the soul is wrapped in a state of unconsciousness. In my humble opinion, there cannot be found in the whole of Revelation a solitary passage where the expression " sleep" can have any such meaning ; and we shall not spare either time or pains to prove and establish beyond refutation what we are now advancing. On a subject of such incalculable importance as this, we must do our utmost to settle the question, and thereby produce har- mony and concord among those whose minds at present are full of doubt, and distracted by uncertainties and the variety of opinions which unfortunately prevail in the religious world. I hope, in the subsequent pages, to de- monstrate and clearly establish the fact — that the soul does not sleep during its separation from the body, although some supposed high authorities would have us believe the contrarv. CHAPTER YIL The dead not in a state of insensibility — Signification of the word " sleep " in its application to the departed — Words used in the Greek Testament respecting the deceased — 'AnoOvrjoKecv a.pplied both to men and brutes — Kocfiav and Kadevdetv used in reference to dead men — Awaking presupposes sleeping — Explanation of Acts vii. 60 — Diflfer- ence in signification between the words *'to be dead" and "to bo asleep" — Why men after death are said to sleep — Death separates a man's soul and body — Animals extinguished by death — 1 Cor. xv. 6 explained — Man's resurrection intimated by the word "sleep" — Scrip- ture proofs for the consciousness of departed souls. In the concluding portion of the last chapter I stated my conviction that, when persons are spoken of after death as being asleep, the inspired writers do not intend to impress the minds of their readers with a notion that the dead are in a state of insensibility or unconsciousness till the resurrection. The word '' sleep ^' is used by them in a very different sense, as I shall endeavor to show im- mediately ; and when I have done so, it will remain for the judicious reader to draw his own conclusions, and to judge impartially which of the two harmonizes most with Scripture. Now, in the original language of the New Testament we find three Greek words used in reference to those w^ho have departed this life, and these three words in question are : dTioOvijffxetv (apothneskein), which means to die ; xoLixav (koiman)and xaOeodecu (katheudein), both of which signify to sleep. The word ar.oOwrjdxetv, **to die,'' is ap- plied both to men and animals, without any distinction whatever, and is confined or limited in its signification to death, there being in the word no reference to the indi- vidual or any intimation of him after his decease. In a word, the notion of death, or the simple act of dying, is all that the expression ever means, and on this account it (61) 62 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. can be applied, and it actually is applied, to any and every creature in which there is the breath of life. In St. Matthew's Gospel (viii. 32) we see the word employed in speaking of the death of some swine. The verse thus reads : '' And he said unto them (the devils), Go ; and when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine, and behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.'' The original word in this verse for '' perished" is d-iOwMv^. Again, in the same Gospel (xxii. 24, 2Y) we find the expression applied to the death of man, when the Sadducees came to our Lord and said to Him, ''Master, Moses said if a man a-oOdvrj, die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother." And the narrative goes on to say, in the twenty-seventh verse, that '' Last of all the woman (oLTziOavs) died also." We may now plainly see that d'<)dvij(Txev> is used in an unlimited sense. All the information either expressed or impHed in the word is, that the man or animal died. It never hints or in any way suggests an idea respecting the effects or consequences of such death. Hence, while d7:()d'^rj(7xetv is general in its application, the other two expressions, namely, xaOeudetv (katheudein) and xot/iav (koiman), are used in a special sense, being confined to men who are dead There is not a solitary instance in the sacred record where we can find these two words used in reference to the death of brutes. Where Scrip- ture speaks of the death of an animal, it nowhere says such and such an animal fell asleep ; and we shall show the reason of this very proper and highly important dis- tinction. Let it be clearly understood, then, that the ex- pression sleeping implies waking, and therefore whenever we find in the Bible this word ''sleeping," used of the deceased, it never means that the soul is in a state of un- consciousness, but the very contrary, denoting, as it does, that the deceased will 7nse again. And now surely we can experience little difficulty in perceiving with what propriety and beauty the word is applied to the departed, and what a "sure and certain hope'* it ought to inspire SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 63 in the hearts of all those that the dead have left behind to lament and deplore their loss. It may not be im- proper to state here that our English word cemetery is derived from one of these Greek expressions which signify to sleep, and consequently cemetery literally means a dor- mitory or sleeping-place. In the Acts of the Apostles (vii. 60) we learn that Stephen, while the enemies of Jesus were busily engaged in stoning him, ''fell asleep." The words '' he fell asleep,'^ then, according to our expla- nation previously given, imply two things ; the first is, that Stephen died, and the second, that he was to rise again. Had the narrative simply informed us that Ste- phen died, his death would have been announced to us without any intimation of his resurrection ; but since the sacred historian informs us that the martyr fell asleep, he indicated to us the fact of Stephen's death and the cer- tainty and expectation of his resurrection. The next por- tion of Scripture I wish to explain in this part of my work, is written in the Gospel of St. John (xi. 11, 12, 13, 14), and I shall quote the whole of the passage before commenting upon any portion of it. ''And after that He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said His disci- ples, Lord, if he sleep he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death ; but they thought He had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.'' From this passage we learn that when our Lord said " Lazarus sleepeth," He meant that Lazarus was dead; but the disciples, not clearly understanding the meaning of our Redeemer's words, at once concluded that Lazarus was simply and literally reposing in sleep. Hence they say, " Lord, if he sleep he shall do well ;" then said Jesus unto them, plainly and distinctly, "Lazarus is dead." The grand and palpable distinction then between these expressions, "to be dead" and "to be asleep," when they are used in reference to such as have left the present world, is this : "To he dead^^ simply expresses departure from this life, without intimating anything further as to what may transpire respecting the deceased. "To he 64 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, asleep " implies and involves a death which is sooner or later to be followed by a resurrection of the deceased person. In saying, therefore, that Lazarus was asleep, our Saviour implied not only that Lazarus was actually dead, but He also hinted that he would rise from the dead. Had our Divine Master simply said, Lazarus is dead, He would, in thus speaking, have given no inti- mation of His friend^s resurrection. This sleeping, then, as I have now pointed out, and which I feel most anxious to impress upon the minds of those who peruse these pages, is applied exclusively to men who are dead, on ac- count of their resurrection from the dead. Should it be asked why the word '' sleeping'^ is never used in reference to the death of animals, my answer is that, according to Holy Scripture, no animal is destined to rise again ; for if brutes are to participate in the resur- rection it is absurd for the Bible to confine the application of the word to men. Hence it is evident that death can only separate a man's soul from his body, while it com- pletely extinguishes an animal. It may not be useless to mention a few texts more to show the truth of our assertions. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 6) we are told by the apostle that our Lord, after His resurrection, '' was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remained unto that present time, but some were fallen asleep." Here St. Paul speaks of some who were at that time still alive, and therefore could bear their testimony to the fact of Christ's resurrection; while he mentions others who had been witnesses also of the same fact, but were now- fallen asleep, — ^that is, they were dead. The contrast in this passage, it will be readily noticed, is not between the living and the sleeping, for that could be no contrast at all, but between the dead and the limng. Another pas- sage of Scripture, which I think ought not to be omitted while we are upon this subject, is written in St. Luke's Gospel (viii. 52, 63) : '' And all wept and bewailed her, but He said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead." Now, in these words, we should carefully observe SGRIPTURAL DOCTRINE Olffj^SiES^^ ^[^'^ OF T] v\ /^ -^ -it J y y that the friends of the damsel knew sSfiMijas^deed^- and ^ they said so, and even derided Jesus whehsSXtpTdthem " that she was not dead, but asleep. The previ&os-explana- tion of the word ''sleep" will clearly show in what sense our Lord used the expression. This damsel was actually dead in the same manner as Lazarus, and yet our Lord employs the term sleep in both instances ; and, in this case. He said the maid was not dead, but asleep. Here let it be particularly noted that our Lord declared, in an unmistakable manner, that the damsel was not dead, but asleep, and yet she was really dead. How, then, shall we account for our Lord's havin^^ made such an assertion ? There certainly must have existed in His mind a distinc- tion between the condition of death and that of sleep, in respect of any one deceased; a distinction which the people did not appear to understand, otherwise there could have been no foundation for their derision. In makinc^ the declaration then, our Redeemer wished to give His hearers more correct notions of death, by teach- ing them to use, in speaking of the departed, an appro- priate term, which combines a past event and q> future result, because the death of every human being must necessarily be succeeded by a resurrection, when cor- 7mption shall be changed into incorruption, and mortality into immortality. When our Redeemer said the maid was asleep, he thereby intimated that she would rise again, and that that change was upon the point of being accomplished. Whenever the souls of the departed are spoken of as being asleep, the expression is always used in reference to their resurrection, and is undoubtedly the most appro- priate term that could be applied to them. There is another text in St. Matthew's Gospel (xxvii. 52), in these words : " And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose.^^ This text is so clear and decisive as to require no further remarks. Now, if our previous exposition is founded upon truth, where, in Scripture, can we find the authority for assert- ing that the soul, at death, falls into a profound sleep, con- tinuing, as it must do, in a torpid condition, and with the 5 66 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. total loss of all sensibility till it shall be awakened by the blast of the archangePs trumpet, when the Lord Himself shall descend to call the dead from their graves ? So far is the Bible from inculcating the doctrine of an unconscious state of the soul between death and the resurrection, that it utterly condemns it, and demonstrates that such teach- ing is ''grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God." Did not our Lord tell the penitent malefactor that he should be with Him that day in Paradise ? Though the Roman soldiers and blaspheming rebels might take that dying malefactor, break his bones, dash him to pieces, and afterward grind his body to powder, yet while they were thus busily em- ployed with the culprit's body, his spiritual personality was in Paradise; but what advantage could his soul derive from its presence in such a region, if it must be utterly insensible to, and as absolutely incapable of, the enjoyment ? Locality, with its enjoyments, loses all dis- tinction to an unconscious soul. Moreover, can anything be more explicit than the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the former of whom was in a place of torment, and the latter in one of felicity? Both were conscious, sentient, reflecting beings, capable of enjoying happiness and suffering misery. And indeed if the soul is wrapped up in a state of sleep at death, how came it to pass that our Lord went to the spirits in prison, and yet did not sleep among them ? Surely He could not be an exception to the general rule in so important a matter. In Isaiah (Ivii. 2) the separate souls are said to walk in their up- rightness, and in several places in the Book of the Reve- lation they are represented as worshiping God, singing and crying aloud, and serving him day and night ; but how can the disembodied spirits do these things if they are in a profound sleep and absolutely insensible ? If the soul sleep during its separate condition, how is it that Moses, fifteen hundred years after his death, held a conversation with our Redeemer at His transfiguration ? The same may also be affirmed of Elias, who was present on the Mount. (See St. Matthew's Gospel, xvii. 1, 2, 3.) Again, we are told (Lul^e xx. 31, 38) that " God is not SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 6Y a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.^' Be it observed, however, that the departed can in no vi^ay be said to live unto God, if their souls are all the time in an unconscious state. Instead of living unto God, they vs^ould be dead unto Him. To live unto God implies relationship, and a full consciousness of that rela- tionship. If the soul were sleeping, we might say that it existed, but we could not with propriety assert that it lived unto God. Again, these words, '* I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," imply that the souls of the patriarchs, after death, were as fully alive and as conscious of their connection with God as ever they were during their sojourn on this side the grave. This inference I draw from the fact that the Almighty calls Himself ''the God of Abraham" after Abraham was dead, and He designated Himself *' the God of Isaac," not only after his death, but even while alive on the earth, as may be seen by referring to Genesis (xxviii. 13), where we read, ''And behold the Lord stood above the ladder, and said unto Jacob, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac." Now, at the time these words were spoken to Jacob, Abraham was dead and buried, but Isaac was still living, as will be perceived by reading the context. If the Al- mighty is not a God of dead but of living persons, and calls Himself the God of Isaac before the patriarch dies, and also after he is dead, it must follow conclusively, that the soul of Isaac not only continued its existence after departing hence, but also that it was as capable of enjoy- ing happiness with God out of the body as it was while in the body. To be the God, then, of Isaac in this world and to be the God of Isaac in the next world, cannot imply less than the same degree of relationship, union, and consciousness in both conditions. We now draw this chapter to a close by repeating what we have already . said, — that the soul, at death, does not enter into a state oi profound sleep, but continues its own conscious existence, with a capacity to enjoy happiness or suffer misery. CHAPTER YIII. "Fourth opinion — Purgatory — Romanists not acquainted with the locality or pangs of purgatory — Five texts advanced by the Papists in proof of purgatory — The doctrine as now professed in the Church of Rome not heard of till 500 years after Christ — St. Matthew's Gospel, xii. 31, 32 — Period of human redemption — Its commencement — Its end — Characteristics of both — Son of man — When Christ ceases to be called the Son of man — The time when He will assume the title of King — "Neither in this world nor in the world to come" — Import of these words — Belief of the Jews in reference to the forgiveness of sins — Examples — Remission of sins at the Judgment day — Explanation of the Second of Maccabees (xii. 43-45) — The Apocrypha not inspired — Explanation of the First of Cor. iii. 15. The Fourth Opinion about the condition of the soul after its severance from the body is that of the Roman Catholic Church, and is very well known by the name of purgatory, which signifies a locality in which the souls of men, according to the teaching of that religious denomi- nation, are cleansed by fire from their carnal impurities, as a preparation for their reception into heaven. The dogma of this Church is that nearly all, if not all, the souls of the best men (to say nothing of the bad ones) have some slight stains upon them, which require to be effaced be- fore they can enter heaven. The Romanists do not pro- fess to know much either of the region, or the nature of the pangs suffered in purgatory, neither are they certain how long t\iQ departed spirits remain therein; and yet they believe that those in that condition are benefited by the prayers, alms, and Masses offered to God on behalf of their souls. If it should so happen (and it must often happen) that a soul in purgatory has no relations left on earth, or if these relations are so poor that they cannot pay, the Church exercises charity toward such a soul by remembering it in her Masses, and by offering prayers on (68) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 69 its account. The Papists advance five texts for the proof of purgatory, and therefore it will be my duty to mention these, and to give them at least that amount of consider- ation which the subject requires. It may be observed that this doctrine of purgatory, as it is now professed in the Church of Rome, was not so much as heard of till five hundred years after Christ, and it did not become an established dogma for some centuries after that. The most important of all the passages of Scripture which seem to countenance this doctrine is found in the Gos- pel of St. Matthew (xii. 31, 32), and is in these words: ''Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blas- phemy shall be forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." In explaining these words of our Lord, we must bear in mind that we have nothing to do with the nature of that sin which is called the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost ; our business is with the forgiveness of it. The latter portion of verse 32 will be better understood by a literal translation, thus: ** Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him — oors h rouro) rcD alwui oure h ruj fxiXXo'^rc — neither in this age, nor in the impending age,^^ These two ages signify all the time during which human redemption is going on. The first age commences with the fall, and promise of a Saviour (Gen. iii. 6, 1, 8, 15), and terminates with Christ's Ascension (St. Mark, xvi. 19). The second age begins at the Ascension, and ends with the general Judgment, when the mediatorial kingdom of the Messiah will terminate (1 Cor. xv. 28), and He Himself shall as- sume the character of Judge. The former of these ages was characterized by numerous sacrifices, prophecies, types, dreams, and visions, and personal manifestations of our Lord in the form, and last of all in the nature, of man ; while the latter is marked by His human absence and Divine presence. Hence He said to His disciples, *' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the YO SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. age" (Matt, xxviii. 20), the meaning of which is, that He would be with His people to help and succor them till such time as the Divine sentence shall have been passed upon them. I may also remind the reader that our blessed Lord calls Himself the Son of man till the end of the second age, when redemption is to cease, after which He drops the title and designates Himself the King. He goes under the denomination of the Son of man by His own authority so long as the wheat and the tares are mingled, but as soon as the sheep and the goats are sev- ered He ceases to call Himself the Son of man, and takes the title of King instead. This account is written in St. Matthew^s Gospel (xxv. 31, 34). Now, that we may clearly understand our Lord's meaning when He says, certain sins shall be forgiven '' neither in this world, neither in the world to come,'^ it is necessary to bear in mind that the Pharisees divided the totality of each individual's sins into three parts, which they believed would be re- mitted at different times in consequence of their under- going certain processes, by virtue of which they enter- tained no doubts as to the salvation of any Jew. They imagined that one-third of their sins would be canceled by repentance and the day of atonement ; another part, by the trials, diseases, and hardships through which they have to pass ; while they supposed that death blotted out the remaining portion. This doctrine, that death wipes off one-third part of their sins, is founded upon a text in Isaiah (xxii. 14), and is expressed in these words : ^* And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of Hosts." These words pnon-i;; (''till ye die") are not to be understood as implying that the iniquity spoken of in the text would be purged after death, but that it would never be purged. The precise import of this language will be evident on referring to the First Book of Samuel (xv. 35), where it is thus written: ''And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death," which surely could not mean that he went to see him after he was dead. When our Lord, therefore, informed them that the sin SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 71 against the Holy Ghost should not be forgiven, either in this age or in the impending age, He was striking at the foundation of their groundless notions, by showing that to what extent soever redeeming love and Divine mercy might be magnified toward fallen creatures, still there does exist a culminating point in the plan of His moral government and terms of forgiveness, beyond which there is no possibility of going without a manifest viola- tion of justice, which could neither be expected nor granted. We are not to understand our Redeemer's words as implying that since the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost would not be forgiven in the world to come, there were other sins which could be pardoned after death. His meaning is that under no change of dispen- sation could that sin ever be forgiven. Our Lord says, " neither in this age nor in the impending age,'' because that mode of speaking was common among the ancient Jews; for when they wished to state that they would never forgive any one, it was expressed by saying they " would not forgive hint, nei^ther in this world, neither in the world to come." And therefore St. Matthew, in writing his Gospel primarily for the benefit of the Jews^ expresses himself in accordance with their peculiar man- ner of speaking. Rabbi Eliezer, for instance, shows that the Samaritans have no portion in the world to come, be- cause it is said, *' It belongs not to you to build with us in this world, nor in the world to come." And in another Rabbinical writer there is also mention of a sick man re- questing his son to give him some meat and drink, which the physician had forbidden him, threatening, if he re- fused, not to forgive him " in this world nor in the world to come." That the preceding exposition of the phrase, ^' neither in this world, neither in the world to come," is strictly correct, will be found abundantly proved by com- paring St. Mark's Gospel (iii. 29), where we have these words: '^But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." In this text it will be noticed that St. Mark explains St. Matthew's phrase, *' neither in this world, neither in 72 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. the world to come," by the word never. St. Luke uses the same sort of language, as may be seen on referring to his Gospel (xii. 10), where he thus speaks: "And who- soever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him." To say, therefore, as St. Matthew does, that the sin shall not be forgiven, ** neither in this world, neither in the world to come," is merely to state that it shall never be forgiven, as we have abundantly proved. As regards sins being remitted at the judgment day, we may observe that it is simply putting, as it were, a seal or stamp upon that forgiveness which the faithful recipient obtains while on this side the grave. It is on account of this great truth that our Blessed Lord, in the Gospel of St. John, says (iii. 36), *' He that believeth on the Son hath ever- lasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." The next passage advanced in proof of purgatory is in the 2d Book of Maccabees (xii. 43-45), and thus reads : " He sent to Jerusalem 2000 drachms of silver to offer for a sin-offering, being mindful of the resurrection. (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for . the dead.) And also in that he perceived that there was great favor laid up for those that died godly. (It was a holy and good thought.) Whereupon he made a recon- ciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin." These quotations, taken by the Bomish Church from the Book of Maccabees, are of no weight in the ar- gument, because that book has no evidence of inspiration, being rejected even by the Jews, who never allowed it a place in the canonical Scriptures. These Apocryphal books are never used by our Church to establish any doctrine, as will be seen by reference to the sixth Article. Nor have we any evidence that our Lord ever recognized those works which were produced after the spirit of inspi- ration had ceased. A critical examination, however, will show that the whole passage is against purgatory. For it may be fairly asked, What inducement had Judas Mac- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. ^3 cabaeus to send his sum of 2000 drachms of silver to Jerusalem to be offered for a sin-offering ? Because he was mindful of the resurrection. As the forty-third verse informs us, he believed those who had been slain were to rise again and continue their existence in another world, and this conviction alone moved him to provide a sin-offering in their behalf. But it must be remembered that Judas did not expect the dead to derive any benefit from the offering till after the resurrection, while souls in purgatory are said to be made safe through the sacri- fices in their behalf before the resurrection. Hence we reasonably conclude that this passage in the Book of Maccabees does not sanction, but actually condemns, the Romish purgatory. And, indeed, were there such an ordeal for souls to pass through in order for their entire purification, we are bound to conclude that the oblation once offered for the sins of the world was not absolutely complete, but required to be supplementalized by a penal fire on the other side the grave. Such a notion is de- grading to the sacrifice of Christ, through whom alone the guilty can be cleansed from their sins. Another text is brought forward to establish the doctrine of purgatory, from the First of Corinthians (iii. 15), and is thus expressed: *'If any man's works shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by fire." The plain meaning of this simple text is this : that the Chris- tian instructor who shall teach doctrines which do not harmonize with the fundamental principles of Chris- tianity, and consequently on being examined are con- demned by the Lord, shall suffer loss; that is, he shall lose that reward which would have been given to him had he been a faithful and efficient teacher of Christ's doctrine. He himself shall be saved, though his work perish, and yet with great difficulty, just as a man es- capes with his life from a house on fire. The text does not say the minister shall be saved through fire, but he shall be saved so as hy fire ; that is, on being judged, such a man shall save his own life, but it will be effected with a very narrow escape. A careful reading of the whole chapter from which this text is taken will show 74 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. that our interpretation is correct. After having cleared the ground thoroughly by faithfully explaining such pas- sages of Scripture as seem to favor purgatory, we shall be better prepared for laying before the reader the doc- trine of the Church of England respecting Hades, or the Intermediate State of the departed dead. CHAPTER IX. St. Matthew's Gospel, v. 26. — Explanation of our Lord's advice to the debtor — Neither friends nor relatives to liquidate the debt — Recon- ciliation with God indispensable on this side the grave — Death puts man beyond the pale of change — Extraordinary text of Scripture — Much learning exhibited in discussing it — Several opinions as to the meaning of the text in question — None of them correct — A necessary rule to be observed in the interpretation of Scripture — The word of God not contradictory — The impropriety of deducing doctrines with- out sufficient discrimination from isolated texts — Scripture to be com- pared with Scripture — True love to man proceeds from love to God. Having in the last chapter upon the *' Doctrine of Hades'^ examined and explained three of those passages of Scripture which have been advanced by the Romanists for establishing the dogma of purgatory, I shall pass on to notice very briefly the fourth text, which they consider highly favorable to their opinions respecting the condi- tion of departed souls. It is written in St. Matthew^s Gospel (v. 26), in these words: ''Yerily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence,, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." In the preceding verse of the same chapter our Lord is giving counsel to such as are engaged in lawsuits, and in order to be reconciled, as well as to avoid consequences, He advises the debtor to make friends with his creditor, or the one who is bring- ing him to justice. In verse 25 He says : "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him ; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison." Here we see the defendant is strongly urged to settle his affairs with the plaintiff while they are on the way — that is, while they are going to the court of justice, so that no trial may be necessary, and that the former may be dismissed and escape the im- (t5) 76 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. pending danger of being cast into prison. We shall best succeed in explaining this passage by supposing that a certain man owed his neighbor a sum of money, and the latter, finding he could not get payment after several times requesting the same, at last insisted that, if the debt was not liquidated within a certain time, the offender should be imprisoned till the money was paid. If the defendant has the requisite means to pay the bill, he will undoubtedly do so, to avoid the consequences. Suppos- ing, however, the poor debtor has not wherewithal to pay, and the only income he has or can expect depends entirely upon his own exertions. What then? In such a case, what can his creditor expect by casting him into prison ? Perhaps he fancies that the debtor's friends will come for- ward on his behalf and settle the amount ; and, in an earthly point of view, this may sometimes happen to be the case. Let us note further that our Lord says: ^' If the man be cast into prison, he shall not come out of the dungeon until he has paid the uttermost farthing.'' Now, if this debtor has not the money to pay his creditor's bill, no income except what depends upon his own exer- tions, no friend to become his substitute in liquidating the debt, and, in consequence of this inability, he be cast into prison to remain therein till the uttermost farthing be paid, what is the legitimate conclusion ? The conclusion is that the debtor can never come out of prison. Our Lord does not say that the offender shall not come out of prison till the debt shall have been paid, or till friends have liquidated it; but He asserts that the debtor must pay the amount /izmseZ/; thus : *' Yerily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." We see, then, the debt must be paid not by friends, not by relations, not by any individual whatever, but by the debtor himself, who can never so much as hope to settle the matter, because the adversary has put it entirely beyond his power. To pass from an earthly to a spiritual meaning, which is the one principally intended, we may observe that the words to " agree with our adversai^y quickhf are intended to urge upon us the necessity of making our peace with God SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 1*J while on this side the gra,ve, and to lose no time about it, as death may seize us at any moment ; because if the debt has not been paid while we are on our way — that is, while passing through our probationary state in this world — we shall be delivered at death to the Judge, who will consign us into the hands of the executioner, and we shall be cast into the prison of the lost until the debt be paid, and it will require no less than eternity itself to liquidate it. The words plainly and solemnly teach that the man who is not reconciled to God before his death will never be reconciled to Him after his death. And therefore these words of our Lord, which have been brought forward to encourage a belief in purgatory, ab- solutely destroy the doctrine ; for our Savior's words evi- dently imply that, if the matter is not amicably settled while the plaintiff and defendant are on their way to the Judge, a verdict will be given for the former and the latter must be consigned to prison. If the case once come into court and be submitted to the Judge, the con- demnation and imprisonment of the defendant are certain. He has allowed matters to go too far ; his fate is sealed. Death has put him beyond the pale of change. I now pass on to consider the text, which of all others may be pronounced the most extraordinary ; and cer- tainly it is one of the most peculiar and difficult to be dealt with in the whole of Revelation. Its difficulty and importance may, to some extent, be imagined, when it is borne in mind that both the ancient and modern commen- tators and theologians have written so much upon it that their productions would be sufficient to make a moderate- sized library, and, notwithstanding all this learning and erudition, the passage is still involved in much obscurity; and the solution which I shall propose will, if I do not mistake, differ entirely from the expositions of any of those that have hitherto written on the subject. Even some well-educated people think that this portion of Scripture is altogether beyond explanation ; but, for my own part, I must say that I am very far from entertaining any such notion. Let my readers weigh carefully what is to be submitted to their notice, and then let them draw their 78 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. own inferences. The text is written in the First Epistle of St. Peter (iii. 19), where the sacred narrative thus reads : *' By which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison." There are no fewer than five interpretations of this passage, every one of which has many able advocates. The first considers the '' spirits in prison" as meaning the happy souls of *' Paradise," into which our Lord and the penitent malefactor are supposed to have gone after expiring on the cross. The second, as denoting the lost souls in hell to whom Christ preached after His crucifix- ion. The third regards the "■ spirits in prison" as refer- ring to the Gentiles who were in bondage to pagan vices, and to whom our Lord preached, not in prison, but by His apostles. The fourth, as referring to the antedilu- vians to whom Christ preached by Noah, while they were in this world, but whose spirits are now chained in prison. The fifth interpretation is the one maintained by the Romish Church in support of purgatory. We shall now briefly consider these different views and see how far they agree with Revelation ; but, before doing so, I must be permitted to lay down this canon, namely: The interpre- tation of any single passage of Scripture, which contra- dicts the general tenor of the Bible, cannot he admitted as the correct interpretation. The neglecting of this very essential rule has laid the foundation of many differences and numerous controver- sies among professing Christians. We have no more grounds for thinking that the Bible teaches opposing doc- trines than we have reason to believe that God is capable of contradicting Himself. If we accustom ourselves to select merely isolated texts of Scripture, for the purpose of drawing certain conclusions therefrom, we shall find in the end that we have grievously failed to get the mind of the Spirit. No such procedure will ever enable a man to arrive at the truth. Every text, and particularly one containing a prominent doctrine, must be measured and weighed by the standard or general tenor of God's word; otherwise it is almost impossible to escape both confusion and error. In order to establish the soundness of our SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. ^^ views on this point, we need only refer to our Lord's words as recorded by St. Luke (xiv. 26) : '' If, saith He, any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Now, sup- pose we were to take this single text as it stands in St. Luke's Gospel, without any reference to other passages bearing on the same subject, and begin to proclaim to our fellow-creatures that the first essential step toward any one becoming a real Christian, is to destroy all natural affection toward those relatives who are near and dear to him ; what a monstrous doctrine would this be, and how preposterous and shocking to contemplate, especially under the sacred name of Religion ! The very thought of any man so treating his father and mother, brothers and sisters, in order to become a follower of Jesus, is revolting and painful in the extreme ; but if we carry out our rule as laid down above, and refer to the parallel text in St. Matthew's Gospel (x. 3*7), we learn the true meaning of the text in St. Luke. The words in St. Matthew are : "• He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." We plainly see that the doctrine inculcated in the two texts is, that our Blessed Lord must occupy the first place in our affections. Indeed, the more we love God, the more we shall love our brethren, and thereby fulfill the Divine command, which is to love our neighbor as our- selves. Love to man must spring from love to God, or it can scarcely be regarded as pure or unselfish. CHAPTER X. The view which regards the ^' spirits in prison" as the happy souls in Paradise cannot be true — Our Lord did not go to heaven between His death and resurrection — Otherwise He ascended into heaven twice during His sojourn on the earth— No one can be ascending into heaven while he is descending into hell — No amount of sophistry can prove heaven and hell to be identical — The great work of Redemption not completed on the cross — The twofold character of Christ — His human- ity — His Grodhead — Christ addressed as God by the penitent thief — Our Lord's omnipresence — His ubiquity set forth in Psalm 139 — Christ a substitute for man — Jesus could not be regarded simply as a man by the penitent malefactor — The second interpretation incorrect — The third and fourth views untenable — The fifth interpretation insisted upon by the Romish Church — The errors into which the commentators so generally fall. The first of these views, which regards the " spirits in prison'^ as referring to the happy souls in Paradise, can- not by any possibility be correct, unless we are prepared to admit, with some theologians, that our Lord, in His human spiritual personality, went into Paradise after His death, and remained there till the time of His resur- rection. Some understand *' Paradise" to mean heaven itself, and, consequently, all those that hold the previous opinion must believe that our Lord, after giving up the ghost, went directly to heaven. If this view is to be re- garded as correct, our Redeemer must have ascended into heaven twice during His sojourn on earth ; once in His body, and once out of His body; which is not very likely, nor do I know any portion of Scripture that will warrant us in believing any such thing. We have one Ascension clearly marked out, but certainly not more. Again, in the Apostles' Creed we express our belief that Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried; that He de- scended into hell, and the third day He rose again from the dead ; and that He ascended into heaven. Now, if (80) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 81 the word " Paradise," as many think, denotes heaven properly so called, and our Lord ascended into it imme- diately after death, He certainly did not descend into hell ; unless ascending into heaven and descending into hell are to be considered as identical in signification. . One of these statements must of necessity be untrue. No amount of sophistry can make one believe that heaven is hell, and that while a man is in the very act of ascending into the former he is actually descending into the latter. It is perfectly true that our Lord, in His spiritual personality, did not go into Paradise between His death and His resur- rection ; for had He done so, the great work of hum^n redemption must have been finished when He expired on the cross, which we know could not have been the case. The belief that our Lord went into heaven or Paradise is based upon a passage written in the Gospel of St. Luke (xxiii. 42, 43), where we read that the dying malefactor said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comesi into Thy kingdom ; and Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shall thou be with me in Paradise. For a right understanding of these two verses, we must bear in mind that the penitent malefactor set forth the twofold nature of Christ, and therefore our duty is not to lose sight of this great fact. In saying to the other cul- prit. This man hath done nothing amiss, the penitent thief thereby acknowledged Christ's humanity ; but in saying unto Jesus, *' Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom, '^ he unquestionably recognized and acknowledged the Godhead of Christ. Now, since the dying penitent had sufficient discrimi- nation to perceive the twofold nature of Christ, the ques- tion thence arising is simply this: Did he address the Redeemer in the capacity of a man, or did he regard Him as God'^ The answer given by Christ to the penitent thief must be of the same nature as the request made by the suppliant. The helpless culprit spake to Jesus as the Supreme God, and he was answered by Jesus as the Supreme God. The manhood of Christ is not to be thought of either in the request made or in the answer 6 82 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. given. The words ''with me" are to be understood as referring exclusively to the Redeemer in His Divine char- acter. Christ as man was in the dark side of Hades, and therefore in the locality of the impenitent thief. The meaning, therefore, of the promise made by Christ to the suppliant was that the soul of the penitent malefactor, on its release from the body, should be in Paradise among the blessed, or in the happy part of Hades, enjoying union with Jesus as the Omnipresent God, We find this omni- presence of God or Christ set forth in a most sublime manner in Psalm cxxxix. Y-12, where we thus read : ''Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there ; if I make my bed in Hades, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me ; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee ; but the night shineth as the day : the dark- ness and the light are both alike to Thee." It must be further impressed upon our minds, that the penitent thief quitted this world in a forgiven state, and therefore he was entitled to go into a place of happiness; but the case was otherwise with Christ, who, being a substitute for sinful man J died as it were in an unf or given state, and consequently He had to suffer for a specified time, in the other world, that measure of punishment allotted by Divine justice to sinful man. It is quite beyond the question to suppose that the penitent malefactor regarded Christ simply as a man ; for he must have felt perfectly convinced in his own mind that He, who was nailed with him to the cross, could be of no service whatever to him, unless He were more than human. The whole narrative demonstrates, beyond all contradiction, that that dying thief most firmly believed not only in the humanity, but also in the Deity of Christ, and therefore he cast himself entirely upon Him for pardon and salvation. Taking this view of the conversation which transpired between our Saviour and the penitent thief, we can very well under- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 83 Stand why he said, '' Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.'' We cannot admit the second interpretation, because hell is the place prepared for the damned after the day of judgment (Matt. xxv. 41), and therefore neither Christ nor the lost spirits could have been in that region. The third and fourth views appear untenable upon two grounds — first, because what our Lord is said to have done was effected in His own person, and therefore it could not have been accomplished either by Noah or any other prophet; and secondly, Christ was in His disembodied state (L Peter iii. 19), and so were the spirits among whom He was placed, and consequently the event happened between His crucifixion and His resurrection. Having, I trust, fairly and satisfactorily disposed of four of the opinions respecting the import of the text which represents Christ as preaching to the ** spirits in prison," I shall now investigate the fifth interpretation, which is maintained by the Romish Church in support of the doc- trine of purgatory. Let us, then, proceed upon the as- sumption that the text in the Epistle of St. Peter is actually designed to teach that there is such a locality as a purga- torial region, in which sins are remitted and souls purified : we are bound by such assumption to make admissions which are by no means sanctioned by Scripture ; and on a subject of such vital importance we must not depend upon opinions, but on the living oracles of God. The great mistake into which the commentators on this text appear to have fallen, is in considering it separately, and without reference to the general tenor of the Bible. We have already shown that this system of interpretation is very unsafe, and sure to lead to the most erroneous con- clusions. CHAPTER XL If the doctrine of purgatory be true, certain conclusions follow — The first inference, There are two states of probation — Second inference, The insufiiciency of the sacrifice of Christ — Third inference. Human sufi'ering required to supplementalize the sacrifice of Christ — Fourth inference, The disease greater than the intended remedy — The fifth in- ference, Christ's merits exceeded by the demerits of Adam — The sixth inference, Moral virtue produced by the confinement of a wicked soul in prison — The seventh inference. Scripture forbids sin, and still en- courages man to persist in it — The eighth inference, Our Lord's words of warning deprived of their efiicacy — The ninth inference. Prayer oifered by the living on behalf of the dead effectual in the sight of God — The tenth inference, Man justified by works rather than of faith — The first inference proved to be unscriptural — God delighteth in mercy — Second commandment — Purgatory should be rejected on the ground of mercy — The degree of punishment inflicted ought to be in exact proportion to the sin committed — Scripture proofs — If men are not pardoned here, there is no hope for them hereafter — Death changes a man's condition, but not his nature — Two states of proba- tion incompatible with the tender mercy of the Lord — The antedilu- vians, their wickedness, and its consequences — No other nations to be condemned by them — Why not — Why God shortened their days — The people of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment against the Jews of our Lord's day — One servant to be beaten with many stripes, another with few — The reason assigned for this distinction. If the doctrine of purgatory be true, there is no es- caping from the following inferences : — 1. That there are two states of probation ; one upon the earth, and another in the next world. 2. That the sacrifice of Christ is of itself insufficient to make a complete atonement for human transgression. 3. That human suffering in its disembodied state is essential to supplementalize the atoning blood of Christ. 4. That the consequences of Adam^s disobedience were of greater magnitude than the effects of the remedy pro- vided by the obedience of Christ. 5. That the demerits of Adam exceed the merits of Christ. (84) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 85 6. That the confinemont of an obstinate sinner in prison and the positive infliction of punishment, will pro- duce in him genuine repentance, and inculcate the princi- ples of moral virtue and love. t. That Scripture forbids man to commit sin, and yet encourages him to persist therein. 8. That the words which our Lord addressed to His followers, to the effect that unless thej repented they should die in their sins, are deprived of their weight and solemn significance. 9. That prayers offered by the living on behalf of the dead are effectual in the sight of God. 10. That justification is the result of works rather than of faith. The first of these inferences must certainly be rejected, for the contrary doctrine is everywhere taught in Scrip- ture, and inculcated for the most substantial of all reasons. We are sure that God is pre-eminently a God of mercy, and that He has at all times peculiar pleasure in the exer- cise of that Divine attribute. So saith the Prophet Mi- cah (vii. 18) in these words: *' Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the trans- gression of the remnant of His heritage ? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy." Yes, all the attributes of the Divine Being in His deal- ings with fallen man appear to have been made sub- servient to that of mercy. We have a remarkable exhibi- tion of this great truth in the second commandment of the Decalogue. By that commandment we learn that God ^'visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him ; but shows mercy unto thousands in them that love Him and keep His commandments.'^ Where can we find a more striking contrast than that which is set forth in this Di- vine injunction? By this visiting the sins of the fathers upon the descendants unto the third and fourth genera- tion, we seem to be taught the great consoling truth that the Almighty will not inflict one iota of punishment be- yond what the necessities of the case actually demand ; while His mercy is boundless, because it extends not 86 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. merely to the third and fourth generation, but unto thou- sands of generations in them that love and obey Him I The inspired writer (Ps. cxviii. 1) may well exhort his readers, saying, '' O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: because His mercy endureth forever.'^ Now, we hesitate not to assert that two states of pro- bation are incompatible with the mercy of God, and there- fore one of them ought to be excluded from His moral government and terms of forgiveness, and that, too, for reasons the most obvious. In order, then, to establish this view, it is necessary to bear in mind that, upon the principles of justice, there must ever be an exact ratio or just proportion between the offense committed and the degree of punishment inflicted; and, therefore, the fewer a man's sins are, the less punishment he will have to un- dergo. This doctrine accords with all our notions of jus- tice, and is that which we find taught in various parts of the Bible, and notably in the Gospel of St. Matthew (xvi. 2t), where we have these words: 'Tor the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then He shall reward every man according to his works." In the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 81) it is also declared that ** God hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assur- ance unto all men in that Ha hath raised Him from the dead." From our previous remarks and the two passages of Scripture here quoted, it is manifest that the longer a man is allowed to continue in a state of probation and to persist in a sinful course, the greater will be his punish- ment at the day of judgment. Let us suppose, for exam- ple, that an impenitent sinner, through his own evil heart of unbelief, has failed to obtain pardon during the first state of probation, and enters upon his second proba- tionary^ state in an unpardoned condition, and conse- quently under the curse of an angry God: what grounds have we for presuming that he will, in the next world, accept those offers of Divine grace which he spurned and rejected here ? Reasoning analogically upon this subject, should we not rather conclude that, instead of changing SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 87 for the better, he would in all probability become more hardened and in every respect more degenerate ? If, then, no reformation actually take place in him during his second state of trial, his guilt is only deepened in the sight of God, and his punishment infinitely magnified, because of his having neglected repentance and faith throughout two states of probation. In fact, the length- ened period of time granted to him hardens his nature, and furnishes him with opportunities for treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath (Rom. ii. 5). Unless there was an absolute certainty that the second period of trial would accomplish that desirable change in a man which the first state of probation had failed to effect, it is obvious to the most superficial thinker, that the offender would be far better without a second state of probation. The question now suggesting itself is this : Does death in itself possess any special feature calculated to produce a beneficial change in man ? We say, without, the fear of contradiction, that death does not effect any favorable alteration, because its very essence, as we have already shown, consists in severance or separation. Death is neither more nor less than the distinctive separation of an immortal soul from a mortal body, and therefore the condition of the individual, but not his nature, is changed. In a word, a man's condition is changed by death, but his nature remains the same. Hence the man who dies in sin continues in that condition, and therefore we say with the preacher (Eccles. xi. 3), *' In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." We assert then that the mercy of God is more signally displayed toward sinful man, by permitting him to have only one state of probation ; and in the event of there being no prospect of his ceasing to do evil and learning to do well, the shorter that period is, the better it must be for the sinner. We have it on Divine record, that there was a time when men lived to be nearly a thousand years old, but the result was, that they trampled beneath their feet all laws, whether human or Divine, and filled the whole earth with rapine and murder. God, therefore, out of mercy to mankind, short- 88 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. eiied their days, and, in shortening their days, dimin- ished the punishment of the wicked in the world to come. In consequence of these antediluvians having lived so many years upon the earth, they became such monsters of iniquity and such notorious sinners, that they have never been equaled by any succeeding generation of men. Though we learn from our Lord's own words that the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with the Jewish people who were alive during His sojourn on earth, and shall condemn them, because they repented at the preach- ing of Jonas, but the Jews did not repent when a greater than Jonas was among them (Matt. xii. 41) ; yet it is never stated in the New Testament that the antediluvians shall rise in judgment and condemn other nations, and for this very reason, because their sins, in consequence of their longevity, were far more in number and of a deeper dye than those of the rest of mankind. Their sins were greater, and consequently their punishment, upon the ground of justice, must and will be proportionately severe. In the Gospel of St. Luke (xii. 4 1, 48) it is thus written : ''And that servant which knew his lord's will, and pre- pared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have com- mitted much, of him they will ask the more." I trust that I have now sufficiently answered the first unavoid- able inference from the admission of the doctrine of purgatory. CHAPTER XIL The sacrifice of Christ more than sufiicient to make atonement for human transgression — Proofs from Scripture — The atonement proved by the resurrection of Christ — Scripture proofs — The Communion Service in reference to the satisfaction made by the blood of Christ — If men are purified in some purgatorial region, they must leave this world neither in a state of justification nor condemnation — If the best of men suffer in purgatory, why did the penitent thief escape that place of punish- ment? — Scripture recognizes only two classes — Proofs adduced from the Bible — The consequences of Adam's transgression and the effects of the sacrifice of Christ compared — Adam only a man — Christ both God and man — Confinement in prison may deter from the commission of crime, but can never produce moral virtue and love — God's means of bringing men to salvation are kind and persuasive — Purgatory a region of punishment — Very few instances, if any, of a man's being morally improved by incarceration. According to the second inference, the sacrifice of Christ was insufficient to make a complete atonement for human transgression. What saith Scripture on this point ? In the Acts of the Apostles (iv. 12) it is expressly declared that we have salvation in Jesus only: " For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." In St. John's Gospel (iii. 16) we read: *' God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." St. Paul asserts, in his Epistle to the Romans (iv. 25), that *' Christ was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification ;" and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 26) it is thus writ- ten : '' For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." It would be easy to multiply texts of Scripture to show -the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ to atone for our sins, but these which we have here produced afford evidence in abundance. We may never- (89) 90 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, theless observe that if our Blessed Lord had not made, by His atoning death, the most ample satisfaction for man's guilt. He could not have risen from the dead. His resur- rection from the dead must ever be regarded as the clearest proof that He paid the full penalty of God's violated law. Upon this great truth depends the resurrection of all men. Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul saith (XV. 2 1, 22), " For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." And lastly, our Church declares in her Communion Service that Christ '* made by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." Touching the third inference, that human suffering in its disembodied state is required to supplementalize the sacrifice of Christ, we may observe that, if this doctrine be true, men leave the present world in what may be termed an intermediate state or condition ; that is, they are at the time of death, strictly speaking, neither in a state of justification nor condemnation. A protracted period of time is required to determine whether they are to be finally condemned or finally saved. Where is such a doctrine as this to be found in the Bible ? If the best men are compelled to enter the purgatorial region for the purpose of being cleansed from some slight stains of guilt, which are supposed not to merit eternal damnation, how came it to pass that the penitent thief did not go there ? Surely, if a good man is obliged to pass through a penal ordeal after death, as a sort of preparation for heaven, that dying malefactor, who repented only at the last hour, ought not to have been an exception. That the penitent thief never entered into any place of punishment, is mani- fest from the words of our Divine Redeemer, who declared to him, in the plainest language imaginable, that he should be even that day with Him in Paradise. Scripture recog- nizes two classes, and only two, — the good and the bad — the lost and the saved — the ju^t and the unjust — the sheep and the goats. There is no such thing in the sight of God as a man half pardoned and half condemned — half U^SE ..'' SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF MADEEj y t^T ^ v^t lost and half saved. In the Gospel of St. S^0..j^,m) ^^Ty our Lord's words are these ; '' Marvel not attni^j" for the ^fk hour is coming, in the which all that are in the giuves '_j_£^^^ shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have "^ done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." If the fourth inference be true, then the consequences of Adam's disobedience far exceeded the effects of the remedy provided in the obedience of Christ ; but we know that such is not the case, and that the contrary is the truth. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (v. 19), thus speaks: wcTTzep yap did r/jq TrapaxoTJ^ rod ivog rhOpcoTroo d/xaprwXo). xaTS(7Tddr](Ta'^ ol ttoXXo), outoj xal dcd t^<; oitaxor^q too ivog dUaun xaTa(TTad7](jovTat ol ttoXXoi. '^ For as through the dis- obedience of the one man the many were constituted sin- ners ; so also through the obedience of the one (man) the many shall be constituted righteous. '* From the fifth chapter of this Epistle, and especially from verses 12, 18, 19, we learn that the disobedience of Adam involved both himself and all his posterity in the guilt of sin ; but we are also taught the important doctrine of universal redemp- tion. The words ol noXhu (the many) occur in both parts ,of the verse, and»signify the whole human race, exclusive of the offender and the Redeemer. Hence the merits of the second Adam not only equal but far surpass the de- merits of the first Adam. We should also remember that the first Adam was of the earth, and only a living soul ; while the second Adam was a quickening spirit, and the Lord from heaven. See the First Epistle to the Corin- thians (xv. 45-4*7). It is also written in Romans (v. 16), "And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift : for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification." Through the one offense of Adam, condemnation passed upon all men ; but through the blood of Christ the sins of all men are or can be washed away. Now, David tells us (Ps. xl.) that his iniquities were more in number than the hairs of his head ; and if such was the case with a man after God's own heart, what must be the iniquities of the most aban- doned sinner ? And yet his catalogue of transgressions, 92 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF UADES. in comparison \Yith the sins of all men in every age and in every nation since the foundation of the world, would be a^ insignificant as a single drop of water when com- pared with the vast ocean. All these facts demonstrate the superiority of the atoning blood of Christ to remedy the evil of Adam's disobedience. It stands in need of no assistance from purgatory. Respecting the fifth inference, that the merits of Christ are exceeded by the demerits of Adam, it will be sufficient to bear in mind that the latter was a mere man, while the former was both God and man. Hence we are told by St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans (v. 20, 21), that ** The law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our I^ord." We must admit by the sixth inference that confinement in prison, and the infliction of punishment upon an obsti- nate sinner, will inculcate the principles of love and moral virtue. The confining of an immortal soul in prison, coupled with any degree of punishment whatever, may extort a feigned repentance and deter from crime ; but it is utterly incapable of producing love, gratitude, or moral' virtue. Human nature is often hardened and rendered more obdurate by the infliction of punishment, which is calculated to foster a secret feeling of hatred and revenge. Confine an immortal soul in the agonies of Hades for a thousand years, and if it is not bad at the commencement, it certainly will be by the expiration of that time. God's means of bringing men to salvation are kind and per- suasive in this world; and why should He adopt different measures in the next world ? Purgatory is a place of punishment, but the infliction of punishment will not im- plant the principles of love and gratitude in the human heart; and since this house of correction does not change the nature of man for the better, it is evident that pur- gatorial torments are absolutely incapable of restoring a man to the favor of God. No man was ever yet im-* proved in his moral condition by being cast into jail and SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 93 detained therein. He will, as a rule, loave the cell in which he has been confined more desperate and hardened. Scarcely any other effect can be expected. Are there, I would ask, many instances on record of men having been morally improved by incarceration ? No one, who has the slightest acquaintance with human nature, will ever believe that imprisonment can effect in man a beneficial moral change. Daily experience confirms the truth of this statement. CHAPTER XIII. The seventh inference — Belief in purgatory not calculated to encourage virtue — Men influenced more by the present than by future time — The terrors of the general judgment disregarded by many believers — If the Bible is true, the doctrine of purgatory must be false — Purgatory irreconcilable with the tender mercy of Jehovah — Inference eight — The chance of pardon in the worjd to come renders our Lord's threat- enings ineffectual — The silence of the Jews when warned by our Blessed Lord about dying in their sins shows they did not expect for- giveness on the other side the grave — Inference nine — The prayers of the living not effectual on behalf of the dead — Death followed by a separation, but not immediately by the general judgment — Inference ten — Men are justified by faith, and not by works — Scripture proofs — Men unprofitable servants when they have done all they are com- manded — The righteous who shall be found alive upon the earth at the second advent of Christ will not pass through purgatory, which is a proof that there is no such place. By the seventh inference we have to believe that the Bible warns men to abstain from sin, but virtually en- courages them to continue therein. That a belief in the doctrine of purgatory is more calculated to encourage vice than to lead to virtue, is manifest from the very nature of man. We know too well how all men are more or less influenced by sur- rounding circumstances, and how much they think of the present in comparison with either the past or the future. So great, indeed, is the impression made upon the minds of most men by things near at hand, that even the terrors of the general judgment, and the possibility of falling into the hands of an angry God, often fail to produce those salutary effects upon man which might reasonably be expected. The temporal concerns of this world actually influence men in this manner who believe that their eternal doom will inevitably be sealed at death, and who do not for a moment imagine the possibility of any change beyond the grave. If things present exercise (94) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 95 such mighty and all-absorbing power over the minds of those who are convinced that this world is the only place of moral trial, how much more would they be likely to influence them for the worse, if they could only feel per- suaded that they had another chance in the next world, in event of their having failed to make their peace with God while on the earth ! In fact, if the doctrine of pur- gatory were true, men have a hundred motives to persist in vice where they have only one to incite them to the practice of virtue. Let such a doctrine be universally admitted, and then the great barrier to a sinful course is broken down, and a gate opened for filling the whole earth with violence. To permit such a state of things would not be a manifestation of mercy on the part of Jehovah; but we know that His delight is in mercy. The seventh inference, then, seems altogether incom- patible with the nature of man and the tender mercy of God. It must also be rejected on the ground of making the Bible contradict itself, or representing it as com- manding one thing and encouraging the contrary. If inference eight were correct, our Lord's words, which He addressed in so solemn a manner to His hearers, must have been almost without weight or sig- nificancy. In the Gospel of St. John (viii. 24) He thus spake : '' For if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." Now, if there be a purgatorial locality in which men can be purified within a certain time, our Lord's words, to say the least, must be materially weak- ened, nor can it be supposed that they would excite any amount of alarm in the minds of those who are almost wholly occupied with temporal things. Every one who felt sure of a secondary state of probation, would still have the inward feeling that, if he did die in his sins, there was a prospect for him in the future, and oppor- tunities given for making himself right and happy for- ever. Hence, upon the assumption of the truth of pur- gatory, we deduce the fact that there would be nothing terrible in our Blessed Redeemer's threat; which we cannot admit to be the case. We may here remark that had the Jews, to whom our Lord addressed these words, 96 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. *' Ye shall die in your sins," believed in the probability of repentance and reformation in the next world, they would have intimated to Him that they were not so deeply concerned as to the state in which death might find them, inasmuch as they would have time for settling their spiritual concerns during their disembodied state. The silence of the Hebrews on the occasion in question seems to justify the conclusion that they had no expec- tation of changing their condition in the world to come. They knew that their eternal doom must be fixed by the cold hand of death, and therefore they did not attempt to rebut our Blessed Lord's solemn declarations. Of the ninth inference, which leads us to believe that the prayers of the living on behalf of the dead are effectual in the sight of God, we may observe that this is sufficiently answered by the fact that there is not a state of probation in the next world, and consequently any prayers offered to God for the benefit of the departed must, in the very nature of things, be without effect. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 2Y) we learn, '' It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Now, what is this judgment for, but to separate the wheat from the chaff, to sever the good from the bad, to draw forever the line of demarkation between those who die in Christ and those who perish in their sins ? The word judgment in this text does not mean the general judgment, but that separation which takes place imme- diately after death. By inference ten it would seem that men are justified by works rather than by faith; and this we know is not the doctrine of Scripture. We are justified by faith, and not by works. This is evident from many texts that coald be advanced. We will, however, mention the fol- lowing as being sufficient to establish the doctrine. In the Gospel according to St. Luke (xvii. 10) we thus read: "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say. We are unprofitable ser- vants: we have done that which was our duty to do." In these words our Divine Master declares that when SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 97 wc have done all that He commands us, we are unprofit- able servants. And, I would ask, where is the man that does all, or even half, of the things he is commanded? If we are unprofitable servants after we have done all that we are enjoined, how must that unprofitableness be increased when we do only a portion of that which we are commanded? Can we, after reading such a text, ever dream of being justified by our works ? No ; they are altogether excluded from the ground of justification. Again, in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians (ii. 8, 9) we have these words: "Eor by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.^^ The subordinate position taken by works in the justification of man is evident from the Book of Revelation (xiv. 13), where it is thus written: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." Here be it observed that the works of those who die in the Lord neither precede nor accompany the departed, hut follow them, which clearly shows that they are not to be regarded as the cause of justification. If works were the cause of our justifica- tion, it would be necessary that they should go before the departed on his way to eternal happiness, whereas Scripture saith they folloiv. Let us, then, avoid falling into error by supposing that works alone are the basis of our justification. Though good works spring from a true faith and are pleasing to God, yet they are not the cause of justification. '* We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not by our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification." (Art. XI.) As regards good works, the 12th Article of our Church thus speaks : ''Al- beit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and 1 98 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruif It is then undeniably the doctrine of Scripture and of our Church that/ai^/i, and not works, is the cause of man's justification. The doctrine of purgatory is also condemned by what will actually take place at the end of the world ; for at the Second Advent of our Blessed Lord, we know that all those who shall be found alive on the earth will be taken away to the general judgment, and pass imme- diately after that solemn event either into hell or heaven. Now, if the souls of all good men have to pass through the ordeal of purgatory for special purification prior to their entrance into heaven, how comes it to pass that the righteous, who shall be living on the earth at the second appearance of Christ, should be an exception? Why should they have the privilege of escaping that punish- ment through which, according to the Romish Church, all other righteous individuals are compelled to pass ? If such teaching is not absolutely false, then the Bible cannot speak the truth when it asserts that God is no respecter of persons. That the living righteous will escape purgatory is manifest from these words (I. Thess. iv. 17) : '' Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them (the righteous dead, after their resurrection) in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.'' We plainly see, then, that from what point soever purgatory is viewed, it is contradicted and condemned by the word of God, upon which alone we depend for accuracy of in- formation. We may also observe that when our Lord appears the second time, at the end of the world, the righteous who shall be found alive, will not even be required to enter Hades. CHAPTER XIY. I. Peter iii. 17-22, considered — The explanation commonly given that Christ preached by His Spirit in Noah during the time the Ark was being prepared proved to be absurd — The spirits visited by Christ were in their disembodied state, and that which was effected by Christ was done during His disembodied state, or the time which elapsed between His Crucifixion and Resurrection — Assuming that Christ actually preached to the spirits in Hades, it undoubtedly follows that God is changeable, and by comparison it also follows that He is par- tial in His mercy — The text considered under three heads — It is unscriptural to assert that the spirits in Hades could be removed to Paradise, even if they had repented— Christ's sojourn in Hades was a continuation of His sufferings for human transgression — If forgiveness is possible in the next world, why did not God extend His mercy long before to the antediluvians ? — The wicked dead either do not repent at all, or their repentance is of no avail — Hence their unchangeable condition in the next world. We must now attend to that portion of Scripture con- cerning which so much has been said and written. Though the whole difficulty lies in the words, " By which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison," yet it will to some extent be obviated by quoting the text, and so much of the chapter as seems to bear upon the subject. St. Peter thus speaks (I. Pet. iii. U-22) : ''For it is better if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also He went and preached to the ' spirits in prison ; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of (99) 100 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ : who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God ; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him.'^ According to the above translation of St. Peter's words, we are given to understand that Christ suffered for sins, was put to death in the flesh, raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit, and by the same Holy Spirit went and preached to the spirits in prison, namely, to those spirits who were once disobedient in the time of Noah. It may be observed that the mention of the name of Noah has led many expositors of Scripture to deny absolutely the preaching of our Lord to any disembodied spirits; and therefore by this preaching to ''the spirits in prison" they understand that Christ went by his Spirit in Noah, as an inspired prophet, and preached to the ante- diluvians for the space of the one hundred and twenty years during which the Ark was being prepared. They seem, however, to forget that Christ is represented to have effected in His own person that which He is de- clared to have done. He was '' quickened by the Spirit, by which Spirit He also went and preached to the spirits in prison." Who went and preached? The answer is, Christ, who was "■ put to death in the flesh, and quickened by the Holy Spirit." Now, to deny that Christ Himself went to ''the spirits in prison," is as preposterous in my judgment as it would be to assert that He was not " quick- ened by the Spirit." When the word of God so clearly and so emphatically declares that Christ was made alive by the Holy Spirit, and by the very same Holy Spirit went to the spirits in prison, I say we are taking a most unwarrantable liberty with the statements of the inspired writer by asserting that the visit to " the spirits in prison" was effected by Noah and not by Christ. If Christ did not visit those spirits personally. He was not quickened by the Holy Spirit to whose almighty opera- tion both are ascribed. The one cannot be true and the other false. They must both stand or fall together. The introduction of Noah as the deputy of our Redeemer in preaching to the people of the old world, is a sure indica- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 101 tion of the weakness of this almost universally received explanation. I believe there is no Scriptural authority- whatever for asserting that our Blessed Lord ever per- sonally preached to the antediluvians during the 120 years immediately preceding the general deluge, which, according to the best chronologists, took place about 1656 years after the Creation of the World. Both the render- ing of the passage in question is incorrect, and, what may be regarded as a natural consequence, the explana- tion is equally erroneous. This will be considered in its proper place. That which Christ is said by the apostle to have effected was done during His disembodied state, and those spirits whom He visited were also in their disembodied state. In other and plainer words, they were the souls of those antediluvians who perished in their sins at the Noachian deluge. Hence this going to the spirits in prison transpired during the time that elapsed between our Blessed Lord's crucifixion and His resurrection. ISTow, we are told that Christ "■ went and preached to the spirits in prison." That He actually went to those unbelieving spirits in the prison of Hades is an absolute certainty, and His paying those lost souls a visit at that particular time, and under the peculiar circumstances, cannot be looked upon as being done with- out a substantial reason and without a special object. When, however, we come to deal with His preaching to those spirits, we encounter some very grave difficulties arising from its apparent inconsistency with numerous declarations of the word of God. Let us then, in the first place, proceed upon the as- sumption that Christ in His disembodied state not only went but actually preached to the separate souls in Hades : we must inquire as to the nature of that preach- ing, and the effects with which it was attended. Did our Lord go to that dungeon of the damned for the express purpose of preaching the everlasting gospel to those fallen spirits, in order that they might be reclaimed and restored to the Divine favor ? If such were the object of our Lord's descending to those invisible regions of the dead, it seems remarkable that there should be no intima- 102 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRIJ^B OF HADES. tion of it in any other portion of the Bible ; and even in St. Peter's Epistle there appears nothing beyond an inci- dental allusion. It is true, these people of the old world were suddenly swept from the face of the earth on ac- count of their enormous transgressions, and it may, in consequence of that terrible judgment, be affirmed that this special proclamation of the gospel to them by our Blessed Lord was an act of Divine mercy by way of compensation for that awful judgment visited upon them at the deluge. Would not this, however, indicate a change of mind on the part of God, or imply that the punishment formerly inflicted upon them exceeded the magnitude of their offenses ? Allowing the preceding re- marks to be true, we are under the necessity of asking why the same gracious act of mercy was not extended to the miserable inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. If repentance and faith were preached to one portion of mankind as a compensation for a sudden removal from the face of the earth by an omnipotent stroke of Jehovah, why should another portion of mankind, who had suffered a similar fate, be deprived of the same, or like, advan- tages ? If we compare the length of their lives and the enormity of their sins, we must admit, on the score of justice, that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had stronger claims for hearing the sound of the gospel in the other world than the antediluvians. Another reason why the people of Sodom had stronger claims upon the Divine mercy than the antediluvians was this: the latter were allowed one hundred and twenty years for repentance and the necessary preparation ; while the former were not permitted to have any such definite warning. Were it true, then, that God thus dealt with those who perished at the deluge, and yet withheld the same gracious offer from the inhabitants of Gomorrah, who were destroyed by fire from heaven, such proceeding seems very like making the Divine Being a respecter of persons; but we know that that is not in accordance with His transcendent holiness. Moreover, if the destruction of a generation of men at any one time, on account of their iniquities, is to be considered as a substantial reason SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 103 for tendering them offers of salvation at some future period in the next world, then the gospel ought to be preached to those Jews who were destroyed by thou- sands when Jerusalem was taken by the Romans. Again, the present world is to be destroyed by fire, and therefore the wicked who will be swept from the face of the earth at that terrible catastrophe should be regarded as objects of the Divine clemency, so that the glad tidings of salvation ought to be preached to them some two or three thousand years after the day of judgment ! Who are to be the preachers of the everlasting gospel to these wicked dead? Will our Lord Himself visit them for that special purpose ? Surely not ; for His mediatorial king- dom will cease the very moment that He assumes the character of the Judge. Will the work be accomplished by men or by angels ? Certainly by neither; for as soon as judgment begins the probationary career must of ne- cessity terminate. We cannot see, then, why the gospel should be preached to one portion of the wicked dead, and yet withheld from another portion equally or prob- ably more deserving. Supposing we take the most favor- able view of this matter, and admit the preaching of Christ to the prisoners of Hades, we are left in the dark as to the effects of His preaching. We may nevertheless deal with the subject in this manner ; — 1. Either all those condemned souls repented, believed, and were saved ; or 2. All continued in their infidelity, and were left in the same state of condemnation in which Christ found them ; or 3. A part of them repented and obtained pardon ; while the rest remained in their obstinacy, and therefore under condemnation. The effects of our Lord^s proclaiming the gospel to the wicked dead must come under one of the preceding heads ; and hence it will follow that all those that repented and were saved must have been removed at once from the prison of condemnation aud conveyed to the abode of the regenerate in the region of paradise called Abraham's bosom. This removal from the prison of Plades to the 104 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. paradise of the blessed we know to be both unreasonable, unseriptural, and impossible. I make this assertion on the authority of Christ Himself, and for its condrmation I refer the reader to the Gospel of St. Luke (xvi. 25, 26), where we read these decisive words: "But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And be- side all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: in order that they who would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." Now, these are the words of our Lord Himself, in which He has declared the impossibility of the regenerate dead passing from their happy abode to the region of the unregenerate dead, and also the im- possibility of the wicked leaving their dungeons for the paradise of the righteous. Then, since there is no going from one region to the other in the next world, we have a proof of the unalterable condition both of the righteous and the wicked dead. And if it were possible for the wicked to repent and become good, it might also be pos- sible for the good to change and become bad. The con- clusion from what has been said resolves itself into this, namely, that since there is no possibility of changing the condition of either the righteous or the wicked in the world to come, preaching the gospel to them could be neither more nor less than a waste of time, and indeed a solemn mockery. Whether our Blessed Lord, after His decisive declaration in the parable above mentioned, could be guilty of tantalizing the lost souls in Hades by pre- tending to preach to them in order for their reformation, I leave the reader to determine. Should it, however, be insisted upon that Christ really did go to the other world for the purpose of preaching to the departed dead, His preaching must be understood as implying nothing more than a personal communication of the cause which had brought Him among them, the suf- ferings which He had already undergone, and the bitter anguish He was then and there compelled to endure. The announcement made by Christ in those gloomy re- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 105 gions of the wicked dead must have been concerning Him- self and His unmitigated sufferings, inflicted in conse- quence of human transgression ; and could in no way be intended to*ameliorate the condition of those to whom He made the proclamation. The very great improbability of preaching the gospel to the dead in the nether world for the purpose of procuring their salvation will appear in a more striking light, if we only bear in mind that those separate souls, to whom the glad tidings of salvation were conveyed, had been in Hades ever since the No- achian Deluge, — a period of 23tt years! And, if those miserable spirits were worthy objects of Divine mercy, how came it to pass that so great a number of years should elapse before the Almighty condescended to make some manifestation of His clemency and forgiveness toward them ? One hundred years would have been a long time, but what shall we say of a period extending over 23 1 7 years ? In this world God pardons all those that truly re- pent and sincerely believe His holy gospel ; and if forgive- ness or remission of sins is extended to the lost dead, the offer can only be made on the same conditions. Repent- ance and faith must necessarily precede the forgiveness of sins. Now, those lost souls, to whom our Blessed Lord is said to have preached, either repented of their sins, or they did not repent, prior to the visit of the Saviour among them. If repentance, faith, and consequently the forgive- ness of sins were practicable in the other world, why did not those lost spirits in Hades repent and obtain pardon for the iniquities which they committed while on the earth, and so have been admitted into the mansions of the blessed even some centuries prior to their being visited by the Son of God ? That they were found by Christ in the prison of Hades into which they had been banished 237 1 years before is absolutely certain. This solemn fact in- volves a very serious question as to the condition of the wicked dead, and appears to destroy every glimmering of hope of their state ever being ameliorated. For be it carefully noted that those unbelieving antediluvians either did not repent at all during the 2377 years of their Condemnation in the prison of Hades, which would ac- 106 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. count for their protracted and continuous incarceration, or they did repent, but it was too late, and therefore of no avail whatever ; otherwise they would have been removed from the place of confinement before Christ de- scended into Hades. One of the preceding inferences must be true ; and, whether we admit the former or the latter, we necessarily arrive at a conclusion which clearly demonstrates the unchangeable state of the unregenerate dead in the next world, and at the same time proves with equal efl&cacy the futility of any preaching or expos- tulation whatever to the lost souls in Hades, for the pur- pose of bringing: about their reformation and ultimately their salvation. CHAPTER XY. I. Peter iii. 19, critically examined — The word in the original, translated "preached/' fully discussed — If the word "preached/' in the text, has the same signification that it generally has, why not followed by an objective case? — Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison objected to on the ground that, unlike every other step in the redemptive history, it was neither foretold nor foreshadowed — Christ's position and condi- tion while in Hades incompatible with preaching — The opinion that Christ preached to the antediluvians with a view to their reformation contradicted by the context — The true interpretation of the passage implies that Christ suffered after death — Peter shown clearly to con- tradict himself, if the common explanation of the text be correct — The pains of dying and the pains of death contrasted — The things the Bible declares to have been done to Christ and /or Christ considered — David's prediction of our Lord's sufferings in Hades — Peter's intention in using the designations Christ and Jesus Christ throughout the Epistle. I SHALL now endeavor to show that the portion of Scripture under examination ought to be regarded as containing a sense entirely different from any hitherto ascribed to it ; for no one can truthfully deny that the passage, as it now stands, contradicts many other portions in God's word, and therefore none of the meanings com- monly attached to it ought to be considered as the true interpretation. The portion of Scripture under investiga- tion we shall translate after the following manner : '' For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing. Because Christ also once suffered for sins, a just for unjust persons, in order that He might bring us to God, being put to death indeed in the body, but enlivened in the spirit ; in which spirit He also went and cried aloud in prison among those spirits who formerly believed not, when the long-suffering of* God was waiting in the time of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, into which a few, that is, eight per- sons, having entered, were saved through water." (107) 108 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. Instead of rendering that Christ '^preached to the spirits in prison," I prefer giving the sense of crying aloud among those spirits as one of the suffering number, and for so doing I assign the following reasons and texts of Scripture: 1. Because the word hrjpu^s here rendered "preached'^ is from xripbafro), and signifies not only to ijreach, to pro- claim and announce as a herald, but also to invoke, to praij to, to cry aloud for help or assistance, and the con- text and subject of discourse must determine in what sense the word ought to be taken. We find the word has the sense of invoking in Euripides, Hec, 145; and for the information of the reader I here give the passage in the original and subjoin the translation : rj^EL 6* 'OdvGEvg baov ova Tjdrj, 7zC}7j)v a(^Ek^G)V gCjv uno fiaoTuv, €K re yepatag x^pog opfXTjcov. u7JC Idt vaovg, Idt npbg (Sufiovg, l^ 'Ayafie/LLVOi^og UeTig yovurov KTjpvoae 'deovg, rovg r' Ovpavldag Tovg 6' vnb yalag- y yap ae TuTol dtaicuTivaova' upcpavbv elvat naidog fieTxag, y del & eKiSelv rvfijiov irpoTzerf], (poLVLOGOfievav alfiaTi irapdevov en xp'^(^o(p6pofU deLpfjg vaofjub fieTiavavyel. "And Ulysses will come almost immediately, to tear thy child from thy bosom, and to hurry her away from thy aged arms. But go to the temples, haste to the altars, sit as a suppliant at the knees of Agamemnon, invoke the gods, both those of heaven and those beneath the earth ; for either thy prayers will prevent thee from being deprived of thy unfortunate daughter, or thou must see the virgin falling before the tomb, stained with blood gushing forth in a stream of shining black color from her neck adorned with gold." The word in this passage, from the Hecuba of Euripi- des, is xijpu(T(7£, from xrjp()(7(ja), meaning to invoke, or call upon for help, and is the very same as that found in the text in St. Peter's Epistle. It will be seen that Hecuba, being under the apprehension of having her daughter torn SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 109 with violence from her, in order to be put to death, was counseled to go with all speed to the temples and before the altars to invoke the gods, that is, to pray to them for aid in her distressed condition ; and we are of opinion that the word should be regarded as having a similar significa- tion in the text we are now considering. The view here taken, however, may be objected to on the ground that 7.rjpo(7(7ev^ in the New Testament generally signifies to preach, to proclaim the glad tidings of salva- tion, and therefore it ought to have the same import in St. Peter's Epistle. In answering this very natural objection, I submit that the word in the Epistle should have a meaning different from that assigned to it in any other portion of the New Testament, because it is, if I do not mistake, the only place in Avhich we find it used in reference to one that was in a state of suffering. In all the other passages of the New Testament in which the word occurs, it appears to be employed-by, or in connection with, active subjects ; but in the text in St. Peter's Epistle it is used of one in a passive condition, which was evidently the case with our Blessed Lord while in Hades. As a proof that a word is occasionally employed in a somewhat peculiar sense, I might mention dcaOrjzrj, which generally signifies a cove- nant, and yet in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 16, IT) it most undoubtedly denotes a testament. Should a further objection be made against the meaning attached by me to ixTjpu^s, because it is not followed by an accusative case, I answer that the apostle uses the word not in a definite, but in an indefinite sense, being, as he decidedly was, more concerned with the voluntary sufferings of Christ than with the desire of the Saviour to be delivered from those sufferings. The root from which both xripoacra) and •Apd^u) are derived is the Ghaldaic t*)3, which signifies to cry out. It occurs in the Book of Daniel (v. 29), and is rendered by our translators, to make a proclamation; while in the same text in the Septuagint the word -Aripijaauv is employed. 2. In the text of St. Peter's Epistle the word ky.y]pu^s is followed neither by an accusative case, nor yet hj the words He used on the occasion, as it certainly ought to 110 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, have been had the inspked writer wished his readers to understand that our Lord really pr.eached ; and if we turn to the Gospel of St. Mark {xv'i. 15) we shall find the word is followed by an appropriate expression, thus : " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Now, had the apostle been desirous of im- pressing upon our minds the definite notion of publishing the gospel, the word ought by all means to have been succeeded by an objective case, because the announce- ment is an independent and indefinite assertion, nothing going before or coming after the declaration which could justify us in concluding that the Saviour was preaching repentance for the remission of sins. I am aware that in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (Ixi. 1, 2) we have these words: ''The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; be- cause the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent me to bind up the broken- hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the open- ing of the prison to them that are bound: to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And it may therefore be inferred that this passage confirms the preaching of Christ to the " spirits in prison." It so happens, how- ever, that our Blessed Lord, in the Gospel of St. Luke (iv. 18, 19), has quoted the very words of the prophet, and in verse 21 of the same chapter He comments upon them to this effect : '' This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." This declaration clearly shows that the prediction of Isaiah in no way implied that our Lord was to preach to the spirits in the other world. 3. Another objection equally fatal to His preaching to the " spirits in prison" lies in this : Every step in the redemp- tive history of our Lord, even from His Incarnation to His Ascension, is most distinctly and definitely pointed out in the Old Testament, either by types or prophecies, or by both, and yet I believe there does not exist a shadow of a hint in that inspired portion of God^s word that He was to preach to any disembodied spirits, whether good or b^d. 4. Looking at the matter a little deeper, I maintain that our Lord's position and condition at that time were SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. HI absolutely incompatible with preaching, in the proper acceptation of that term ; because, from the very moment that He was delivered into the hands of sinners to be crucified till the morning of His resurrection, He was not an active but a passive subject, suffering, as He did, what was done to Him by others, and living under the dominion of death. Hence our Lord twice delivered Himself up, — first to His enemies for crucifixion; and then, as He expired on the cross, to His heavenly Father, saying, " Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit," not to be comforted, but to endure anguish as a substitute for sinners. Being placed in the stead of sinful man, it be- hoved Him to suffer as sinful man. 5. If our Lord preached to the *' spirits in prison'^ with a view to their reformation, then we must conclude that death does not materially alter a man's condition, inas- much as the departed can repent and be converted to God there as well as here. One might indeed be led to sup- pose that human existence in the next world is a continua- tion of the same state of things experienced in this, if we had not declarations of Scripture to the contrary. A care- ful reading of the chapter in which our Redeemer is thought to have preached will show most distinctly that nothing could be so foreign to the apostle's mind. The inspired writer speaks of the happy results of suffering for well-doing, and mentions the sufferings of Christ, with their glorious effects upon ourselves, as an indication that His followers must not expect to escape altogether simi- lar trials and hardships. We find the apostle states four important facts respecting our Lord, and each in proper chronological order, thus : — 1. His crucifixion. 2. His descent into Hades and short stay among the lost '' spirits in prison." 3. His resurrection from the dead. 4. His ascension and universal dominion. Before we proceed farther, we must give what we be- lieve to be the meaning of St. Peter's words. He tells us that Christ once suffered for sins, and then he goes on to say in what that suffering consisted. There were 112 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, stages or degrees in it. Christ was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit in which He went to the spirits in prison. Now, there is either a contrast in these words, or there is not. If there be no contrast implied in the words ''put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit," it is very difficult to know what St. Peter really means. It is quite true that a man may be put to death in various ways, but it is equally true that he can die only one physical death, and therefore to speak of a man's jjeing put to death in the body, since he could not undergo a physical death out of his body, appears, in my judgment, to be scarcely sense ; but if we understand that the existence of Christ out of His flesh is contrasted with the existence of Christ in the flesh, the difficulty at once vanishes. The import of the apostle's words I take to be, that the Redeemer, after expiring on Calvary, entered upon another state of existence, Avhich to Him was one of suffi3ring ; and He is said to be quickened or enlivened, because His spiritual personality, or soul, ceased to per- form its functions through the medium of a perishing body. This statement will be better understood by bear- ing in mind that all men, except those who shall be found living upon the earth at our Lord's Second Advent, must undergo three stages of existence. The first extends from a man's birth to his death, during which time the soul is confined in its action to a body subject to numerous infirm- ities, diseases, and mortality. The second state of being commences the moment the soul is freed by death from the trammels of the body, and then it may with all pro- priety and truth be said to be enlivened or quickened, be- cause it ceases to be clogged in its movements by the sluggishness of matter. In such a condition every action of the soul is necessarily immediate, whereas before that each operation could only be mediate. In this abstract state of spiritual existence did our Blessed Lord go and sojourn for a short time among the lost dead in the unseen world. The third state of existence awaiting all men is that in which there will be a reunion of the soul with the body after the latter has put on immortality, or become altogether free from disease and death. Christ alone has SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 113 entered upon this last state of existence, because He has risen from the dead never to die any more. The apostle, then, manifestly intends to carry out the notion that the crucifixion of Christ was not the end of those sufferings, which only found their culmination among the wicked dead in the prison of Hades. If the view here taken is not correct, then we shall be compelled to admit that St. Peter contradicts himself. The truth of our assertion will be seen at once by turning to the Acts of the Apostles (ii. 22, 23, 24), where it is thus written : '' Ye men of Israel, hear these words : Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- proved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know : Him being delivered by the de- terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain : whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death : because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." The most careless reader cannot fail to see that the '' pains of death" mentioned in this passage were those which Christ actually suffered in the region of Hades. There may, however, be some that will still object to this doctrine, and therefore we shall consider the words of the apostle somewhat in detail. The text declares that certain things were done to Cha'ist, and that certain things were done /or Christ, both in this world and in that which is to come. Those things which were done to Christ on earth, the culminating point of which was His shameful death on Calvary, were perpetrated by wicked men, but with the permission of God. Beyond this point they could not go. Hence it is that our Blessed Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew (x. 28) says: ''Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." We plainly see, then, and we also know by experience, that the greatest injury that one man can possibly inflict upon another is to put him to death. After this manner was our adorable Redeemer treated by malicious Jews and ignorant Gentiles. They put Him to an ignominious death, but in so acting they placed Him where their hands 114 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. could inflict upon Him no further punishment. In other words, they killed His body, but were unable to kill His soul. Such was the culmiuating point of those sufferings which our Lord had to endure at the hands of wicked men. We must now pass on to examine what was done to Christ by His heavenly Father. In considering what was done to Christ by the Al- mighty Himself, we must be careful to distinguish be- tween the pains of dying, and the pains of death; because they are two things as essentially distinct from each other as the head and the heart. They must of necessity take place at different times and in different places. It is as impossible for the two to exist simultaneously as it would be for tvvo bodies to occupy the same place at the same moment of time. The pains of dying must terminate before the pains of death can begin. The former state belongs exclusively to this world, the latter to the next world. The pains of dying are felt while a man is still living ; the pains of death are only experienced after he is dead. It is as impossible for a living man to experi- ence the pains of death as it must be for a dead man to suffer the pains of dying. We are told that St. Peter himself was crucified, and if this be true, then we are jus- tified in asserting that he suffered the pains of dying, but surely he never experienced the pains of death, unless he entered upon a state of punishment after the death of the body. The pains of dying appertain to a man in the body, the pains of death to a man out of the body. We might illustrate this great fact in various ways, but per- haps one or two examples will be sufficient to make it well understood. This distinction was clearly exemplified in the case of the two thieves who were crucified with Christ. Both those offenders were compelled to endure the agonies of crucifixion, and therefore both suffered the pains of dying. What became of the two malefactors after they were dead ? The penitent thief was immedi- ately taken to a place of happiness, and therefore he did not "suffer the ''pains of death." The impenitent thief went to no such abode of felicity, but to one of misery, and therefore after he had undergone the pains of dying, SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE he would also experience the pains of men suffer the pains of dying, but none < endured, and they never will endure, the^**^inii of death." Was this not the case with Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and other martyrs who were burned at the stake for their rehgious opinions ? They all suffered pai'U while they were dying, but we believe they never experienced pain after they were dead. In fact, the ** pains of death " are only experienced by such as perish in their sins. Christ was an exception to this rule, because He was the substitute for sinful man. When, therefore, the apostle declares that God '' loosed the pains of death," he inti- mates the liberation of Christ from the anguish He was suffering in Hades. To loose the pains of death, means to put an end to them. The loosing of these pains im- plies that Christ was previously suffering them. Hence physical death in this world and spiritual death in the next were the things done to Christ, or the punishment He was compelled to undergo. The things done for Christ were also two. God delivered Him from the pains of Hades, and then raised Him from the region of the de- parted dead. On this account St. Paul tells us (Rom. vi. 9) that "death hath no more dominion over Him," which surely implies that He was once under the dominion of death. As a further confirmation that Christ suffered anguish between His death on the cross and His resur- rection, I may observe that in the Acts (ii. 24) the read- ing of the Syriac and Yulgate is Hades. And in Psalm cxvi. 3, we have a prediction of our Lord's sufferings dur- ing the time of His disembodied state that corresponds with the passage in the Acts which we have been consid- ering, and it is written in these words : ** The sorrows of death encompass me, and the pains of Hades gat hold upon me." I hope the arguments in this chapter alone are sufficiently cogent to satisfy any reasonable inquirer after truth, that our Redeemer did not descend into the prison of Hades with a view to preaching, but for the purpose oi suffering. It may, however, be asked Why it was impossible for Christ to be holden in death? The answer is, Because He had paid the full penalty of man's 116 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, disobedience. Death having no further demands upon Him, could no longer exercise dominion over Him. On the ground of justice alone His further detention became impossible. 6. Independently of the preceding arguments and Scriptural declarations in support of our view respecting the condition of the Saviour among the dead, I may re- mind the reader that St Peter himself seems by the way in which he uses the names Christ and Jesus Christ, to distinguish between our Lord's state of humiliation and suffering, and that of His exaltation and glory. When the apostle refers to our Redeemer as being directly or indirectly connected with suffering, he simply calls Him Christ; and when he speaks of Him as having accom- plished the great work of the atonement, he denominates Him Jesus Christ, or by some equivalent designation. In proof of this distinction, I must refer the reader to the following texts : I. Peter i. 11-19 ; ii. 21 ; iii. 18 ; iv. 1-14 ; V. 1. All the preceding passages view Christ in a state of humiliation and suffering. The subsequent texts allude to our Saviour in a state of exaltation and glory : I. Peter i. 1, 2, 3, T, 13 ; iii. 21 ; iv. 11 ; and it is worthy of remark that our Lord observed this distinction when speaking of Himself after His resurrection, for He says in the Gospel of St. Luke (xxiv. 26) : *' Ought not Christ to have suf- fered these things and to enter into His glory V Now, keeping this distinction in view, and bearing in mind that St. Peter tells us (I. Peter iii. 18) that " Christ once suf- fered,^^ and does not use the term "Jesus Christ" till he speaks of His resurrection at verse 21, which was the first degree of His exaltation, we may fairly conclude that the inspired writer designed, from verse 18 to 21, to set forth the sufferings of Christ. This is another fact strongly corroborative of the view I am endeavoring to establish. CHAPTER XVI. The necessity and importance of attending to certain prophetic pas- sages of Scripture — The true condition of Christ's soul during its separation from the body — Christ's suffering in Hades clearly pre- figured by a remarkable event in the life of Joseph — The cause gener- ally given of our Lord's agony in the garden of Gethsemane unrea- sonable and antiscriptural — His sufferings both in the garden and on the cross reasonably and Scripturally accounted for — If Christ made full atonement on the cross, why manifest such anguish of soul at the moment of victory — Why the two thieves manifested no signs of terror in the face of eternity. In the course of this chapter I shall endeavor to point out texts of Scripture, to show where the soul of Christ remained while His body was in the grave, and also to prove that He was not preaching , but suffering during the whole of that time. Before doing so, however, I particu- larly wish that we should get a clear understanding of one most important truth respecting the language of the Bible, a deep and all-important truth which seems to have been so generally overlooked. I wish the peruser of these pages to note that, in reading what the inspired penmen say of themselves, there are in nearly every instance two meanings couched under the words — one having some application to the persons and times of the writer; the other, which is the real, genuine^ deep mean- ing, referring to Christ and His Church. And most fre- quently in those passages where the Old Testament writers are apparently speaking of themselves, it is in fact our Lord uttering predictions through them concerning Himself. In Psalm xvi. 9, 10, David says : ^' Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades ; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corrup- 118 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. tion." Now these words, penned by David, were the expressions of our Lord, who was predicting His own resurrection through David as an inspired prophet. This is evident from the Acts of the Apostles (ii. 25, 26, 2Y), where St. Peter applies the very words thus: "■ For David speaketh concerning Him (Jesus). 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 Hades, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see eoiTuption." I will just mention another text, so remark- able, that it must enable the most superficial reader to see the full significance of passages of this character. In Psalm xxii. 16, David, in describing his sufferings, thus speaks : '' They pierced My hands and My feet.'^ Here again it is manifest that our Lord was predicting His own sufferings through David. In fact these words can- not in any way be applied to David, for he never had his hands and feet pierced by crucifixion, because he died a natural death. For in the First Book of Kings (ii. 1, 2, 10), we find these words : '' Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged Solomon, his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth, be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David." Is it not true and beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the words found in the sixteenth verse of the twenty-second Psalm were really the utterances of Christ, who foretold, through David as an instrument, the sort of death He was to die ? Let this text then, in particular, be received by us as a sample of numerous other passages in the Divine record which are almost exclusively applicable to our blessed Lord. We may then, in this place, safely conclude that the portion of Scripture quoted from the Acts of the Apostles proves that the soul or spirit of Christ, when severed from the body, was in Hades, because St. Peter declares that God did not leave it there. It must, of necessity, have been in that region, otherwise its removal thence would have been an impossibility. That our Lord SCRIPTURAL DOCTQINE OF HADES. 119 was actually in Hades, no reasonable man will, I think, attempt to deny. The question is, Did His soul, during its disembodied state, sojourn with the righteous dead or with the wicked dead ? We assert that it was with the latter. This appears evident from numerous passages of Scripture, and even from the words of St. Peter, who declares that the imprisoned spirits to whom Christ went were the souls of those men that died in unbelief at the deluge, and he mentions them in order to teach us that the Redeemer was in that part of Hades where the spirits suffer anguish. Let us now proceed to examine a few of those passages in God's word, which may be regarded as conclusive of Christ's descent and suffering among the lost dead in Hades. The first text to which I invite attention is written in the Book of Genesis (xxxvii. 23, 24, 28), and refers to the treatment Joseph received at the hands of his envious brethren. Joseph was a distinguished type of Christ, and therefore any important event in his life may fairly be held to be typical of a similar event in the life of our Lord. The words of Scripture are these : ''And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his breth- ren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him, and they took him and cast him into a pit, and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen ; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt." In this portion of Scripture there are three leading points demanding our attention, and these points are: — 1. The casting of Joseph into the pit manifestly pre- figured the descent of Christ into Hades. 2. His deliverance from that pit shadowed forth the resurrection of Christ from Hades. 3. Joseph's subsequent promotion to be next in dignity to the monarch of Egypt, adumbrated the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God. Both were delivered up through the envy of their brethren, and each through his sufferings was the means of saving life. 120 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. We must note farther, that the inspired penman seems to have been actuated by a strong desire to impress the minds of his readers with the fact that the pit into which Joseph had been thrown was empty. After informing us that the pit was empty, he goes on to say ** there was no water in it." There is, I apprehend, a deep significa- tion in his words which ouglit not to be hurried over in silence. Had there been water in the pit, Joseph might have been drowned, and in that case, he could not have been a type of Christ. It was absolutely necessary that he should be taken out of the pit alive, otherwise his de- liverance from that place could in no way adumbrate the rising of Christ from the dead. Had he perished in the pit, his body, but not himself, would have been rescued ; whereas it was indispensable that both body and soul should be recovered from the place of confinement, or the event would fail to represent the resurrection of Christ's soul from Hades, and that of His body from the grave. We see, then, the reasonableness of there being no water in the pit ; but what shall we say in reference to its emptiness ? Undoubtedly the emptiness of the pit, and its being put upon record, is designed by the Holy Spirit to teach us the desolate condition of our Saviour while in Hades, His temporary ba,nishment from His heavenly Father, and the withholding from Him all Divine assist" ance, succor, and consolation whatever. In fact, the empty pit is intended to show that Christ, during His short abode in Hades, was forsaken of His heavenly Father, and left there to endure the wrath of God. This view will receive confirmation fioni other passages of Scripture which I shall now adduce. In the Gospel of St. Luke (xxii. 3t, 44), it is thus wTitten : '' For I say unto you, that this that is written, must yet be accom- plished in me. And he was reckoned among the trans- gressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground;'' and St. Matthew tells us (xxvi. 38), that while our Lord was in the garden of Geth- semane, He said unto Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 121 " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death : tarry ye here, and watch with me." During the time that our Blessed Lord was in the garden of Gethsemane, His distress and agony of soul were so great that an Angel from heaven was sent ex- pressly to strengthen Him. This event transpired only a very short time before His trial, condemnation, and crucifixion. He declared that His soul was sorrowful even unto death. What could possibly be the cause of such a state of soul in Christ ? Some attribute it to the fact that all the powers of darkness or hell were leagued together at that particular time, and brought all their diabolical influence to bear upon the soul of the Re- deemer. This view is not sanctioned by Scripture, but is, on the other hand, contradicted by common sense, the principles of justfce, and the Bible itself. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians (I. Cor. x. 18) these words; ''There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man : but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the temp- tation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.'^ And in the Epistle to the Hebrews (iv. 15) it is expressly declared, that Christ "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Now if our Blessed Lord^ during His sojourn on the earth, was tempted like ourselves, and God does not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear, we may con- clude that the temptations to which the Redeemer was subjected were not beyond what He could endure. We may, in fact, reasonably infer that He had strength given Him in proportion to the magnitude and intensity of His temptations. Such being the case, it is impossible to account for His anguish of soul by supposing that He sustained a united attack from all the powers of hell. This state of soul proceeded from another and deeper cause. We must not, however, imagine that Christ was alarmed at the prospect of crucifixion, for in that case He would have shown far less courage than either of the two thieves who died with Him. They met their lament- able fate with all the manliness and fortitude conceivable, 122 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, while on the part of the Saviour there was a degree of shrinking and horror absolutely unaccountable, unless we can show that there did exist another ordeal of punish- ment through which He had to pass after expiring on Calvary. It was the gloomy forebodings of the anguish He had to suffer in Hades which terrified and distressed His righteous soul. To this ordeal He refers in these words : '* I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished" (Luke xii. 50). This view is placed beyond the shadow of a doubt by the words uttered while our Lord was on the cross. In St. Matthew's Gospel (xxvii. 46) we thus read: ''And about the ninth hour (three o'clock in the afternoon), Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach- thani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?" Up to the time these words were uttered by Christ, He gave every manifestation of calm- ness, satisfaction, and the most complete resignation. While hanging upon the cross. He prayed for His ene- mies, committed His own mother to the affectionate regard of His beloved disciple, promised the penitent thief that he should be removed to Paradise on the day that he was crucified ; and yet, after all this exhibition of calmness and composure, He manifests the utmost dis- tress, and cries out in the bitterness of his soul, ''My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" This piercing cry emanated from that Divine person who had performed the most stupendous of miracles, who had pre- dicted His own death with all the leading ciTcumstances, and who also knew its exact duration. His being in full possession beforehand of all the facts connected with the crucifixion, He could not have met with anything in the shape of surprise to cause such agitation of soul. The significancy of the words will be more clearly brought out by noting the precise time at which they fell from the lips of Jesus. We are told by the Evangelist thstt they were uttered " about the ninth hour," and therefore at the moment when Christ was passing from life into death. Now if, as is so generally believed, Christ finished the SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 123 great work of Redemption by His death upon the cross, how can we account for such language emanating from Him, at the very moment when His sufferings must have been on the point of termination, and when triumph and victory were all but obtained ? It was at the ninth hour that the Saviour uttered the words, *'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?" And it was at the ninth hour that he gave up the ghost. Are these thjngs at all compatible with the belief that Christ's sufferings termi- nated on the accursed tree ? Most certainly not. His state of soul on that occasion can only be accounted for upon the supposition that He was conscious of having to pass through a state of suffering and anguish far more formidable than that of crucifixion. And what could this punishment be but His banishment into the prison of Hades, among the wicked dead, where He was for a specified time, deprived of the smile of His heavenly Father, and forsaken by God ? If the damned in Hades are forsaken of God, or banished from His benign pres- ence, how was it possible for Christ, as the substitute for sinners, to escape the same punishment ? To assert that Christ was a substitute for sinners, and yet to deny that He suffered the punishment in their stead, is simply pre- posterous. Since Christ manifested such terror and anguish at the prospect He saw before Him, it may be asked why there was no such exhibition on the part of the two malefactors. I answer, that one thief was pardoned before his death, and conseqilently he had no such punishment to undergo. Happiness awaited him. He entered with joy upon his intermediate state. As regards the impenitent thief, we may observe that if he was not an infidel, he must at least have been unconscious of the misery awaiting him, otherwise his demeanor at that awful time would have been altogether different. CHAPTER XYIL Additional passages adduced in proof of Christ's sufferings in Hades — Psalm (cxvi. 3, 4) shown to be exclusively applicable to Christ — If the commonly received explanations of Isaiah (liii. 9) be admitted, a discrepancy between the Prophet and the Evangelist (St. Matthew) must be admitted — The text literally translated and explained — The predictions, ^' He was numbered with the transgressors,'* and " He made His grave with the wicked," were literally fulfilled in Christ's death, the former while undergoing His physical, and the latter while suffer- ing His spiritual death. Although sufficient has already been said to convince even the most skeptical of men, that our' Blessed Lord must have been in a state of suffering during the time that elapsed between His death and resurrection, yet in order that the fact may be confirmed by the most indubi- table testimony, I shall now bring foward additional texts which, in their deeper meaning, must be regarded as ex- clusively applicable to Christ. To make such passages as those about to be adduced refer only to the inspired writers by whom they were penned, is to lose sight of that special significancy designed to be conveyed by the Spirit of God. That our Lord was actually si/^erm^ in Hades is dem- onstrated by the following texts: *'My soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto Hades : I am counted with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon mey and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves. I am shut up and I cannot come forth. Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead, shall the dead rise and praise Thee ?" (Ps. Ixxxviii.) And in Psalm cxvi. 3, 4, we have these remarkable and decisive words: ''The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of Hades (124) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 125 gat hold upon me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord, O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul." Now, in reference to the preceding quotations from the Psalmist, I would just put the following question to any reasonable man : Can such language, in the fullness of its meaning, be applied to any one upon earth ? Is it possible for the ''sorrows of death'' to compass a man, and the *' pains of Hades" to seize him so long as he con- tinues in the land of the living ? Can a man experience death before he dies, and sufler the ''pangs of Hades" prior to his entrance into that invisible region? Surely not. Let it be distinctly borne in mind that the foregoing texts, which must be regarded as^the predictions of our Lord in the person of the Psalmist, had their real fulfill- ment in Christ and in no other ; and any attempt to as- cribe to them a different exposition from the one here given may be regarded as the result of preconceived no- tions, or as an indication that the deep significancy of the passages has been entirely overlooked. Supposing, how- ever, it be granted that the awful words in question had exclusive reference to a man on the earth, we are bound to admit that any rational explanation, on Scriptural grounds, is simply an impossibility. Now when the in- spired penman, or the individual to whom the words refer, declares that he was compassed by the " sorrows of death," and seized by the "pains of Hades," his lan- guage must be taken either in a figurative, historical, or prophetical sense. The " figurative" sense cannot be ad- mitted without involving the writer in a species of gross exaggeration almcDrst bordering upon profanity, which is absolutely inconsistent with the character of a man acting under the guidance and influence of the Spirit of God. Allowing such a man to have endured the most acute of human sufferings, he would under no circumstances have been justified in asserting that he had been compassed by the "sorrows of death," and seized by the "pains of Hades." What could he, as a living man, know either of the one or the other ? Another objection to this figura- tive sense is this, it positively reduces the inspired Book 126 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. of the Psalms to a level with ordinary books. It is, in fact, explaining away the real import of the sacred pen- man's words, or tantamount to saying that they have no meaning of importance. This view of the subject will appear evident when we arrive at that portion of our work in which it will be necessary to show the exact sig- nification of the words ''death and Hades." The '' historical" sense cannot under any consideration be accepted as true, because it involves a palpable con- tradiction by representing the writer as having passed from life into death before he died ; and I should imagine there are very few whose credulity would carry them so far as to believe in such an impossibility and such an ab- surdity. It is also doing the inspired penman a great in- justice in attaching a meaning to his words which he never intended to convey. Should the ''prophetical" sense be insisted upon, then it will follow that the inspired writer was predicting the preliminary stage of his own eternal damnation ! There is no escaping from one of these conclusions. We know it to be the uniform doctrine of Scripture, that the man who experiences the pangs of Hades, is in consequence to suffer the torments of hell. This fact will account for St. John, in the Book of Revelation (xx. 6), saying : " Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath no power." The "second death" spoken of in the text denotes the everlasting tor- ments of hell, and it is called the " second death" in ref- erence to the first death which takes place in Hades. Then, since there is no deliverance for a man who has once been consigned to the gloomy regions of Hades, and since the inspired writer in question was delivered from those "sorrows of death," and "pains of Hades," which he is said to have suffered, we have, therefore, most sat- isfactory proof that he did not, in his own person, un- dergo either. The only one that ever suffered the "pains of Hades," and obtained deliverance therefrom, was Jesus Christ It was He and He alone of whom the declara- tion is to be understood. The " sorrows of death" and the "pains of Hades" are as exclusively applicable to SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, 127 Christ as these words : '' They pierced my hands and my feet." These solemn facts are also proved by our Lord's own words in St. Luke's Grospel (xxiv. 44), where it is written: ''All things must be fulfilled, which are written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me." The next testimony from Scripture is given in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (liii. 9), where it is written : '' And He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death ; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. " According to these words of the Prophet, our Lord ''made His grave with the wicked and He was with the rich in His death ;" and on turning to the Gospel narrative, as recorded by St. Matthew (xxvii. 57, 58, 59, 60), we read that " When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pi- late commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock : and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed." According to the common view of these passages, we are compelled to admit that there exists a discrepancy between the words of the Prophet and those of the Evangelist. It would appear that Christ ought to have died with the rich man, and have been interred with the wicked ; whereas He ex- pired before either of the two thieves, and was buried in the sepulcher of the rich man. Thinking people, though willing to believe that the commonly received view is cor- rect, nevertheless feel a desire to see some solution of what they cannot avoid regarding as a difficulty, and they naturally consult the works of some eminent Biblical ex- positor in which they expect to find a rational explana- tion; Disappointment, however, too often awaits them. This will appear pretty evident by quoting what the best commentators have advanced in defense of their notions as to the import of the words of the Prophet. The fol- lowing explanation of the text under investigation is from 128 SCRTPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. the Commentary of Bishop Lowth, which I quote with- out any remark for the present : — ''Some render the words thus: 'His grave was ap- pointed with the wicked (being crucified with malefac- tors), but He was with the rich in his death,' being buried in the monument of Joseph of Arimathea; or, 'His sepulcher was with the rich :' so Schindler renders the word bemothau, as if it were derived from bamah. Others to this purpose : ' God delivered Him, even to the grave and to death, into the hands of the wicked and the powerful.' The word rich is sometimes taken, in an ill sense, for a tyrant or oppressor (see Job xxvii. 19, com- pared with ver. 13) : and so they understand it here, and translate the latter part of the verse thus : ' Not for any violence that He had done, or that any deceit was found in His mouth.' The very same Hebrew particles, nal lOy being thus translated, Job xvi. lY. Or else, taking these particles in that sense, we may very well join this sen- tence to the following verse, thus: 'Although He had done no wickedness, neither was any deceit in His mouth, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.' " Another mode adopted for reconciling the event and prophecy, is that of Kennicott, who supposes that n^p (his grave), and rnD3 bemothau (in his death), have changed places either by design or accident. This supposition is based upon the fact that he has proved many such transpositions. A third plan for making the prophecy and the event agree, represents that the Jews, not Grod, intended the Redeemer to be buried with the two malefactors, but their wicked designs were in that respect thwarted by a special provi- dence, inasmuch as He was by God's will interred in the grave of the rich man. Whether the views here propounded by these commen- tators for reconciling the prediction with the event will be deemed sufficiently satisfactory by the judicious reader, I cannot say ; but for my own part I must declare that, with every feeling of deference to those learned men, I find it difficult to regard their attempts at reconciliation as anything better than weak apologies in justification of the views they held respecting the time when our Lord's suf- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 129 ferings terminated. It was the opinion of Kennicott, as already intimated, that there had been a transposition of the words. ''His grave" and 'Mn His death," either by accident or by design ; and if such were the fact, the text would then read after this manner : '' He made His grave with the rich and with the wicked in His death." This supposition as to the transposition of the words is so far from removing the difficulty that it increases it to a ten- fold degree, for it involves the transposition of other words also, namely, ''the wicked" and ''the rich," and still leaves the requirements of the former unsatisfied. The full sense of the text would still be, "And He made His grave with the rich, and He made His grave with the wicked in His death." The order of the words in the LXX. is also a strong argument against any transposi- tion. In that version the words are : Ka\ dwijoj rohq Tzovr^pohq a'^ri ZTJg Tacpi^q abroo^ y.ai rohq TrXouffcooq dvT\ too Oavdrou abrov, " I will give the wicked for His sepulcher, and the rich for His death." We may observe that the import of the Hebrew is not exactly reflected either by our Authorized Version or by the Septuagint. The words, "And He made," are rendered in the latter ver- sion, " an^ I will give," which seem to have reference to God the Father. The literal translation of the original is, "And He appointed His grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His deaths." The words requiring our attention are D';;tyi the wicked; TW}; a rich man ; and vnn:} in his deaths. The exact meaning of this prophecy will be efiTectually brought out only by attending to each particular point contained therein. The Prophet tells us that " our Lord made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death." This is a straightforward declaration, and con- tains nothing enigmatical so far as I can judge. The only question to be settled is this : When did the burial take place ? Well, His grave must have been made with the wicked and with the rich man, either before He died, or after He was dead. It would be simply impossible for the events to transpire before He died, otherwise He must have been buried while He wa^ living; but we 9 130 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. know from the Gospel narrative that His burial was sub- sequent to His death. The natural conclusion, therefore, from the Prophet's words is this : Our Lord '' made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich man after He was dead." Let there be no mistake as to the time when these events were fulfilled. They came to pass after our Redeemer had suffered the agonies of crucifixion. This startling fact will, in all probability, present a great diffi- culty to many minds, and we shall be asked, how it was possible to make his grave with the wicked and with the rich, unless both characters were united in the one man, Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph was a rich, but not a wicked man, and, therefore, the words of the prophecy are not exclusively applicable to him. We are driven then to search for a more satisfactory explanation before we can show that the prediction has received a literal fulfillment. Now, the original word for "wicked" is in ihQ plural number ; that for rich is in the singular ; and the word ^ov death is also in the plural; and correctly and literally translated the verse would read after this manner : ''And He made His grave with wicked men, and with a rich man in His deaths,^^ that is, during the time th'at He was in the state of death. This prophecy is stamped with a minuteness and degree of accuracy that are truly aston- ishing; and we may rest fully assured that these singular and plural numbers are not employed without special reasons. The fact of Christ, while under the dominion of death, being with wicked men and with " a rich man" is brought prominently forward by the words, " in His deaths." Some of my readers may be surprised to find that " deaths" are applied to one man, but notwithstand- ing the apparent inconsistency, there is embodied therein a philosophical truth. It is said in the prediction that *' our Lord made His grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His deaths," because He was compelled to pass through a double ordeal, one of which He experienced in this world, and one in the next world. He suffered two deaths, one being His physical death on Calvary, and the other the spiritual death He endured in Hades. The suf- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 131 ferings of Hades may be considered as the first death in the next world, that is, the death that first takes place after the physical death. The word '' wicked'^ can only mean the separate souls of men in Hades and the rich man, Joseph of Arimathea. By His grave, then being made, or appointed, with the wicked, we are to understand that the soul of our Redeemer was entombed among the wicked spirits in Hades, which served as a grave or sepulcher for the temporary confinement of His spirit during its disembodied state. On this account the word wicked is put in the plural number. By His grave being made with the rich man in His death, is meant that our Lord's dead body — the effect of His physical death — was • to be interred in ground belonging to a rich man. This was accurately fulfilled as we learn from the Gospel his- tory. The term deaths is applied to our Saviour with great accuracy and propriety. His death was of a two- fold character. One took place in this world, and one in the world beyond the grave. One relates to His physical death which he suffered on Calvary ; the other to the death in Hades, regarded in the Book of Revelation as the first death. His dead body was deposited in the sepulcher of the rich man, and His soul in its separate state was entombed among the departed dead in the prison of Hades. This, then, I beg to submit to the reader as a truthful exposition of the prophecy in Isaiah, namely, ''He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death." This explanation requires one to assume nothing, nor to take anything for granted, but enables us to demonstrate the most complete agreement between the declarations of the Prophet and those of the Evangelists ; while it indicates an accuracy of statement and a minuteness of detail which ought to bring convic- tion to the minds of the most wavering skeptics. Before leaving this fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, we may remark that the word translated wicked in the ninth verse is not the same as that found in the twelfth verse, which is very properly rendered transgressors. The former is a much stronger term, being so indicated both in the original Hebrew and in the Septuagint, which clearly shows that 132 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. the writers did not use the two expresssions of the same persons. It is evident from the Gospel of St. Mark (xv. 28) that the words (verse 12), '^ He was numbered with the transgressors," refer exclusively to Christ while hang- ing on the cross in company with the thieves ; whereas the word wicked in the ninth verse is applicable only to the wicked dead in Hades. The Septuagint has given us the word Tro^Tjpoh^ for the wicked, an epithet which we find (Matt. xiii. 1 9) applied to the Devil, thus : '' When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and under- standeth it not, then cometh the wicked one (o Tzovrjpdq) and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.'' CHAPTER XYIII. Jonah ii. 1-4 explained — A remarkable event in the life of Jonah typical of our Lord's suffering in Hades — The event referred to by Christ Himself — The leading points of resemblance between the type and the antitype — The important lessons thereby taught — The passage in Jonah shown to refer exclusively to Christ — The notion that the Prophet being in the belly of the fish represented our Lord's dead body in the grave refuted — The deliverance of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt preceded by three days' darkness — The salvation of the world the result of our Lord's sojourn in Hades — Import of the three hours' darkness at the crucifixion — Reasons why so many have been led to believe the work of the atonement was finished on the cross — No allusion to Redemption in the words "It is finished" — Why Christ could not, and did not, refer to the atonement when He said, " It is finished." Another remarkable portion of Scripture which was evidently designed to set forth the punishment endured by the Redeemer in the nether world, will be found in the Book of the Prophet Jonah (ii. 1-4), where the inspired writer speaks after this manner : *' Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me ; out of the belly of Hades cried I, and Thou heardest my voice. For Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas : and the floods compassed me about : all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me. Then I said I am cast out of Thy sight : yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple." The typical character of this singular event in the life of the Prophet Jonah is placed beyond any doubt by the declaration of our Blessed Lord as recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew (xii. 40), where we thus read ; " For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly : so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (133) 134 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. It will now be our duty to point out, in as clear a man- ner as we can, the exact points of resemblance which are most certainly indicated by such an extrordinary event in the life of Jonah. The prophet had been instructed by God to go to Xineveh in order to warn the inhabitants thereof, that they would be destroyed within forty days, unless they repented of their wicked ways ; but instead of his being obedient to the Divine command, he arose and embarked in a ship which was bound for Tarshish. He paid his fare, and, consequently, everything appeared, from a human point of view, to be perfectly satisfactory. As soon, however, as the vessel, in which he had so rashly embarked, had sailed some distance into the sea, the finger of God became visible, and terrible consequences ensued. The Almighty caused a strong tempest to rise on the ocean, and the violence of the waters be- came so great that the ship was on the point of being dashed to pieces. In this state of confusion and terror the mariners, wishful to save Jonah and themselves, rowed hard in order to bring the vessel to land, but all their efforts were in vain. Being anxious to learn the cause of their distress, they proceeded to cast lots for the purpose of discovering the offender, and the lot fell upon Jonah. The prophet did not attempt to deny his disobe- dience toward God, but, on the contrary, in a very straightforward manner told the mariners that he, in con- sequence of not obeying the Divine injunction, had been the cause of the tempest, and assured them that there would be no cessation of the tumultuous state of the ocean until they h*ad taken him and cast him into the sea. Fearing that his blood would be required at their hands, they adopted every measure conceivable to bring the vessel to land. On perceiving that the more they exerted themselves to accomplish that object, the more tempestu- ous the ocean became, they at last complied with Jonah's request and cast him forth into the sea, and immediately the waters ceased from their raging. Let us now enumerate some of the leading points of resemblance between the type and the antitype. (1) The mighty tempest was designed to represent SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 135 God^s wrath against sin, and His determination to have it expiated on the principle of justice ; (2) The hard rowing of the crew in order to save their own lives and that of the prophet proving a failure, indicates the futility of any attempt on the part of man to procure salvation merely by his own works or deservings ; (3) The more the mari- ners exerted themselves to secure their safety, the more violent the storm became, and by this fact we are taught that the anger of the Almighty is increased against those whose presumption leads them to reject salvation on the terms propounded by Himself, and try to get to heaven in their own way; (4) The casting of Jonah into the deep, and his incarceration for a short time within the viscera of the fish, prefigured the descent of Christ into Hades and His temporary imprisonment there; (5) The throwing of the pi:ophet overboard into the sea was the salvation of the crew, so the going down of our Lord into Hades and His suffering there was the salvation of the world ; (6) The assuaging of the waters immediately after the ejection of Jonah from the vessel demonstrated ' that the indignation of Jehovah was appeased by the descent of Christ among the wicked dead ; (7) The prophet's rescue from the jaws of the fish and his com- plete restoration to dry ground, foreshadowed the resur- rection of Christ from the prison of Hades and the com- pleteness of the atonement He then and there made ; (8) The anguish endured by Christ while in the unseen world is sufficiently indicated by Jonah's wretched and misera- ble condition within the belly of a fish. This fact speaks for itself. Hence, just as Jonah was three days and three nights alive in the whale's belly praying to God for deliverance, so in like manner was our Redeemer in the prison of Hades crying aloud in supplication to His Father. For He says, "• I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me. Out of the helly of Hades cried I, and Thou heardest my voice." This crying out of the ''belly of Hades '' is to be under- stood exclusively of Christ. To speak of the belly of a fish as being Hades is nothing short of solemn mockery. To cry out of the "• belly of Hades " necessarily presup- 136 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. poses that the individual thus suffering was in that very region whence such cry proceeded. To assert that a man cried out of the '' belly of Hades," and at the same time to deny that he was ever in Hades, is a palpable contra- diction. Had Jonah ever had the misfortune to find him- self in such a prison, he would have learnt, by bitter ex- perience, that between him and any better place there was a ^' great gulf fixed," which rendered any ameliora- tion of his condition impossible. It is the irrevocable decree of Almighty God that those who are lost in the next world, are lost forever. The prophet was still on this side the Jordan of death and confined within the narrow compass of the internal organs of a sea monster. And here I must not omit to mention another opinion on this subject, namely, that Jonah's confinement in the whale's belly was designed to foreshadow our Lord's body in the grave. This view is altogether erroneous, for in what respect could the tomb of Joseph of Arama- thea be considered the '' heart of the earth ?" What was to be in the " heart of the earth ?" Was it the body of the Son of man, or the Son of man /itwseZ/that was to be in the " heart of the earth ?" Surely the latter. To suppose that our Lord referred to His co7yse when He declared that the Son of man should be in the "heart of the earth, '^ is to suppose that He made the burial of His mortal remains more prominent in signification than His death. Again, Jonah was alive and suffering in the belly of the fish, neither of which could be affirmed of our Lord's dead body ; but when we bear in mind that the disembodied soul of the Redeemer was enduring anguish in Hades the same length of time that the prophet was in agony in the viscera of the fish, we are immediately con- vinced how accurately the one solemn event is adumbrated by the other. It is not improbable that the three days' darkness, which preceded the deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, was intended not only to afford the Israelites an opportunity for making all the necessary preparations for their final departure from that land of slavery, but also to shadow forth the time during SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 137 which our Divine Master was to be in- Hades. For as the darkness of Egypt was followed by the release of the captives, so were mankind delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan by the descent and resurrection of Christ from Hades. The three hours' darkness too at the time of the crucifixion w^ould seem to have been designed to impress upon our minds the same great fact, and to indi- cate to us the sad and darkened condition of the whole world without a Saviour. We must now -inquire into the grounds of it being so generally believed that the sufferings of the Redeemer actually terminated on the cross. This almost universal breed may be traced more particularly to one or two texts of Scripture ; but that upon which the greatest stress has always been laid is a short sentence, which was uttered by the Redeemer a few moments prior to His giving up the ghost, and it is most familiar to the ears of every Christian, namely. It is finished. When we really take into consideration the precise time that these words were spoken, the circumstances under which they were spoken, and also the expiring state of that spotless victim from whom they emanated, we can very readily understand how natural it would be to conclude that the sufferings of the Messiah had reached their climax, and that He through them had paid the full penalty for the sins of mankind. This view too would, at first sight, appear to be amply confirmed by the Jewish animal sacrifices, which could of course only die a physical death. The Jews also being forbidden to eat the blood of the victims slain in sacrifice could only tend to the same conclusion. The error in supposing that Christ completed the atone- ment on Calvary can only be detected by going into the nature of that expiation which the justice of God de- manded ; and this must be effected by digging beneath the surface of the Bible, and penetrating into the typical import of those sacrifices which Jehovah Himself ap- pointed to be observed under the Mosaic Dispensation ; and by unfolding those prophecies concerning the Saviour which were penned by holy men of old as they were moved by the Spirit of the living God. The true import 138 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. of the words " It is finished" will be more easily dis- cerned by quoting the whole passage in which they occur. It is thus written in the Gospel of St. John (xix. 28, 29, 30) : " After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. jSTow there was set a vessel full of vin- egar : and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His. mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar. He said. It is finished : and He bowed His head, and gave up the Ghost." So far from there being any ground for supposing that our Lord intended by the words ''It is finished,", to sig- nify the accomplishment of human redemption, I think* we may fairly question whether He even made allusion to it. Bearing in mind the declarations of St. Paul (Rom. vi. 23), where it is written, " The wages of sin is death ;" and (Heb. ix. 22) that '' Without the shedding of blood there is no remission" (of sins), and not forgetting that our Saviour was still living when He uttered the words under consideration, we can scarcely imagine for an instant that He referred to the atonement. Even granting that expiation for sin was to be made by a physical death, still it could not be truthfully affirmed that that great work was finished so long as no death whatever had actually taken place. Then, since our Blessed Lord said, " It is finished," before He was dead, and since there is no remission of sins without the "shedding of blood," or the taking away of life, it is manifest that He never intended to convey the notion that the great work of expiation was accomplished and full satisfaction made for man's transgression. CHAPTER XIX. The words " It is finished" could not refer to the fulfillment of every prediction and typical representation respecting the atonement — The predictions of Christ divided into two classes — Prophecies fulfilled during His agonies on the cross — Prophecies fulfilled subsequent to His crucifixion and resurrection — The fulfillment of the latter proph- ecies absolutely necessary for man's redemption — The word *' It" in the passage "It is finisfted" shown not to refer to the work of Re- demption, but to the fulfillment of a particular prophecy uttered by the Psalmist — John xvii. 4, explained — The works wrought by Christ before His crucifixion — The importance of distinguishing between things done by Christ and to Christ — Granting the atonement to have been completed on the cross, great difl&culties present themselves — If the cardinal doctrine of substitution be maintained, a belief in a full expiation for original and actual sins by physical death must be abandoned — Physical death either a consequence of man's disobedi- ence, or it is not — If not a consequence, then death must have been engendered in Adam at his creation — If Christ made full satisfaction for all the consequences of man's disobedience, how is it that death has still dominion over us ? — If Christ died to deliver us from spiritual death only, then our redemption is but partial — Certain inferences. In order to show most emphatically that our Lord in no way implied that every prediction and typical repre- sentation respecting Him had been fulfilled when He gave utterance to the words *' It is finished," we may observe that there were several other distinct prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Him which could only be fulfilled after His death upon the cross. The predic- tions in reference to the Messiah and the great work He came upon earth to accomplish, may be conveniently di- vided into those which were to be fulfilled by Him or in Him prior to His death on the cross, and those which referred to Him after that event. By bringing before the mind of the reader in this manner the ancient prophecies, we shall best succeed in convincing him how little ground there is for supposing that the saying of Christ on the (139) 140 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. accursed tree intimated the finished work of the atone- ment. That Christ was to assume human nature and be born of a virgin, we find predicted in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (vii. 14), where it is thus written : '' Be- hold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.^' That He was to be not only man but also God is likewise taught by the same prophet, whose words (ix. 6) are these ; '' For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given : and the govern- ment shall be upon His shoulder ; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." That the Redeemer was to die an ignominious death in company with malefactors is clearly pointed out too by Isaiah (liii. 12), where the word of God speaks to this purpose : '' Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death ; and He was numbered with the transgressors ; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." The kind of death through which the Saviour had to pass was intimated in the Book of Numbers (xxi. 8, 9), for it is there written: ''And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole : and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the ser- pent of brass, he lived." In the Book of Psalms (xxii. 16) we have these words: '' They pierced my hands and my feet." That the preceding texts had reference to the sort of death our Lord was to suSfer is demonstrated by what we read in the Gospel of St. John (iii. 14, 15) thus : '' As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up : that whosoever belie veth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." It is evident that these prophecies and others which might be mentioned, were fulfilled either before Christ expired on the cross, or were accomplished by that solemn event. We must now pass on to notice some of those predictions SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. HI which had still to be fulfilled, not only after His cruci- fixion, but even subsequent to His resurrection. It was, for instance, foretold (Ex. xii. 46, compared with St. John xix. 36) that ''Not a bone of the Saviour was to be broken," and we learn that this prophecy did not receive its fulfillment till after the Redeemer had given up the ghost. His being found dead precluded the necessity of breaking His bones, and hence the fulfillment of the pre- diction did not really take place till after our Lord's death. Again, in the Book of the Prophet Zechariah (xii. 10) we find it thus written : " They shall look upon me whom they have pierced ;" and St. John in his Gospel (xix. 37) gives us to understand that the portion of the prediction relating to the ^' piercing''^ was fulfilled when one of the soldiers '* pierced" the side of Jesus after He was dead. The prophecy too that announced (Isa. liii. 9) our Lord's interment with the rich man still remained unfulfilled. In the Book of Psalms (xvi. 9, 10) we find our Lord's resurrection thus spoken of by Himself, and in this resur- rection both body and soul are included : '' Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : my flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave ray soul in Hades ; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corrup- tion." It is manifest then that, among other prophecies awaiting their accomplishment when our Saviour said, ''It is finished," we may mention those whose fulfillment were absolutely necessary for man's redemption : (1) His resurrection (Acts ii. 29-32) ; (2) His ascension (Ps. Ixviii. 18) ; (3) His sitting at the right hand of God (Ps. ex. 1). Had our Blessed Lord not risen again for our justification, it would have been useless for Him to die for our sins. St. Paul tells us in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (xv. IT, 18) that " If Christ be not raised our faith is vain ; we are yet in our sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished," How then was it possible for our Lord either to say or imply that everything connected with our redemption was finished, when so many important and essential predictions were still unfulfilled ? Then what did our Lord mean by say- ing " It is finished ?" In St. John's Gospel (xix. 28) we 142 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. thus read : ''After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be ful- filled, saith, I thirst.'^ Now " all things" here spoken of can only be understood as denoting those predictions which had special reference to the Redeemer as a living man. They had all been fulfilled up to that particular point of time in His earthly career, with one solitary ex- ception, namely, the prophecy that foretold the giving of vinegar to Him. And in order that that prediction, found in the Book of Psalms (Ixix. 21), and expressed in these w^ords, '' They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink," might be fulfilled, Jesus saith, "I .thirst." Having received the vinegar, and knowing that every prophecy which concerned Him as a living and dying man had now been accomplished, our Divine Master uttered the parting words, *' It is finished," or rather, '' It is fulfilled." What was fulfilled? We answer, that Scripture or verse in the Sixty-ninth Psalm, which declared that *' in His thirst they gave Him vinegar to drink." What can be the subject to the verb ''is finished?" We shall of course be told the pronoun " it;" but to what noun does the " it" refer ? The refer- ence must be to ^ yp^-^^, meaning that particular Scrip- ture which awaited its accomplishment. When ypa^pri is in the singular, it mostly has reference to a special text or passage. In St. John's Gospel (xix 36) the inspired penman makes this declaration : " For these things were done (meaning the soldiers did not break the legs of Christ), that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken." Now let it be carefully noted that -q Ypa(prj (the Scripture), in the verse under consider- ation, which was to be fulfilled, can only refer to this prophecy : " A bone of Him shall not be broken." And in like manner does the word ypo-tprj (Scripture), found in St. John's Gospel (xix. 28), point exclusively to the single prediction contained in Psalm Sixty-nine, which foretold the giving of gall and vinegar to the Redeemer while He was suspended on the cross. On a previous occasion our Lord is said (John xvii. 4) to have uttered these words : " I have glorified Thee on SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OFMAli^^. H^^h ^_ the earth: I have finished the work whi^h^^Ji^^ gavest ^ j me to do.'' The work here spoken of as being finished "^^ hj our Saviour mainly consisted in the teaching of Sfe'" disciples, the propounding of doctrines concerning the kingdom of heaven which He came to establish, the ex- plaining of the Old Testament Scriptures, correcting abuses, doing good, healing the sick, and working the most stupendous miracles. These are the things which He did ; but they do not in any way include those things which were about to be done to Him by His enemies. In other words. His sufferings are not included in the works that He wrought ; for they did not in reality begin until He delivered himself into the hands of wicked men to be crucified. We must always distinguish between the things done by Christ and the things done to Christ. The words '' I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do" belong to the former ; but have no ref- erence whatever to the latter. Now, even supposing we do allow the work of the atonement to have been completed on the cross, we can- not escape from some very formidable difficulties which, on reflection, will appear evident to any unprejudiced mind. No Christian, I imagine, who professes to believe in the atonement, will be prepared to deny that Christ ^ was a substitute for sinful man. Can we insist that a full expiation for all sin, whether original or actual, was made by and through the death of our Saviour upon the cross, and yet maintain the cardinal doctrine of suhstitu- tion? It appears to me that one of the two must be aban- doned, for both, upon any rational principles of justice, and indeed upon Scriptural grounds, are indefensible. Well, we cannot, and we will not, give up our belief in the doctrine of substitution, because this great fact, so consolatory to fallen man, is clearly taught throughout the Bible. Physical death is either one of the effects of sin, or it is not. If the latter of these two assertions be considered true, then there must have been the seeds of mortality in Adam before he fell through disobedience. According to this doctrine, in fact, death came into the world independently of sin, and therefore the progenitor 144 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. of the human race would be stamped with mortality at the time he emanated from the hands of the Creator. This, however, is not the doctrine taught in the word of God. In the sacred records we invariably find death spoken of as the result of sin. Let us note what St. Paul says on this subject. In his Epistle to the Romans (v. 12, 13, 14) the apostle thus speaks: ''Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin : and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: For until the law sin was in the world : but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." Here we are taught by an inspired apostle that sin was the precursor of death, which must surely be understood as including death, of every description, whether physi- cal or spiritual. Then, since physical death is included as one of the consequences of Adam's disobedience, and since Christ came to make full satisfaction for the con- sequences of such disobedience, or, in other words, as- sumed human nature for the express purpose of expia- ting all sin, so far as man was concerned, how shall we account for the fact patent to us all, namely, that death still continues its ravages among us, nor has it ever ceased to visit every class of society ? Such questions as these have been mooted again and again : If Christ died in our stead, why are we com- pelled to undergo the penalty of death ? Does this state of things not imply that Christ has either not made a sat- isfactory expiation for our sin, or that God is unjust in demanding the death of the Redeemer and also the death of the redeemed ? Inquiries of this kind will emanate from reflecting men, and they ought to be answered by those whose sacred duty it is to expound the word of God. It is to be hoped the day is passed and gone for- ever when the supposed mysteries of religion are to be used as a cloak for man's ignorance. Had such questions as these to which I have just referred, been dealt with in a manner becoming the importance of the subject, we feel assured that no small amount of infidelity and skepticism SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 145 would have been prevented. It is most probable, how- ever, I shall here be told that Christ did not die to save us from physical, but from spiritual death, and therefore it is unreasonable to complain of man being subject to mortality. It will then follow, as a necessary conse- quence, that Christ died to save man's soul. The body of the Redeemer saved the souls of the redeemed. Re- garding this doctrine as true, we are obliged to admit that after all man's redemption is only partial, inasmuch as his soul, but not his body, has been redeemed. Is this the doc- trine of the Bible ? Certainly not, otherwise there could be no such thing as a resurrection of the body. Unless our mortal bodies, as well as our immortal souls, have been ransomed by the death of Christ, it is difficult to know what grounds we have for saying, as we do, that '' We believe in the resurrection of the body.'' Let us now close this chapter by pointing out some few of the conclusions to which we must arrive, if the atonement was made on the cross. The death of Christ by crucifixion cannot be regarded as a substitution for the physical death of man, because all men die. There is, therefore, no substitution in that respect. Then, as the death of the Redeemer could not have taken place instead of man's natural dissolution, and yet it was in some re- spect his substitution, we must say that He died that cruel death to save the souls of men from eternal death. Is it not strange that the sacrifice of Christ's animal life should save men's souls, while, at the same time, it does not save them from natural death ? Is there so great an analogy between moral guilt and animal life ? We are nevertheless told that Christ was our substitute. Can we show that He was our substitute, while we deny that He ever suffered after His death on the cross ? Surely not. It is plain that His physical death by crucifixion has in no way proved to be a substitution, since death is the common lot of us all. Since we are assured that our Saviour never experienced pain after giving up the ghost, how, when, and where was He a substitute for sinners ? If men are saved from eternal death by Christ, it has been accomplished without the Redeemer undergoing the 10 146 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. punishment, and if He did not taste of that death Him- self, then all idea or notion of His being our substitute must forever be abandoned. If His dying on the cross has failed to save us from physical death, we can have but slender grounds for concluding that He saved us from another sort of death which He never suffered. To as- sert that Christ saved us from a death which He never died, while He has apparently failed to rescue us from the death that Ho did die, sounds like something very paradoxical. CHAPTER XX. The atonement — The time, place, and manner in which it was effected — The design of the prohibition given to Adam — The consequences of its violation — Four deaths spoken of in Scripture — Two of these are the natural inheritance of every child of Adam, and are experienced in the present world — The other two are experienced in the next world — Did disobedience emanate from the soul or from the body of Adam? — The soul clearly shown to have sinned, while the body was merely the instrument — On the principle of justice the atonement must be made by the Soul — Christ's mental anguish in the garden of Gethsemane not sufficient to make full expiation — The Jewish sacri- fices foreshadow Christ's atonement in the next world — The sprink- ling of the blood alone saved the lives of the Israelites — The dying and the death of the victim only preliminaries to the expiation of sin. From what was said in the last chapter, we must either give up the notion that the great work of the atonement was finished by the sufferings of Christ on the cross, or abandon the doctrine of substitution ; and to adopt the latter alternative would be to leave us in our sins. Having already shown in what the atonement did not consist, I shall now endeavor to demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubts in what I conceive it really did consist. We are of opinion that expiation for sin was not made on the cross, neither was it effected in this world. That the atonement was never made on this earth, I hope to prove from common sense, reason, and Scripture. In the dis- cussion of these propositions I shall not employ all the arguments that might be brought to bear on the subject, but simply select such salient points as will carry convic- tion with them. Let us begin at the root of the matter and trace each point step by step. From the Book of Genesis we learn how God dealt with Adam after He had created him. He was placed in the garden of Eden with permission to enjoy the fruit of all the trees, except the tree of knowledge of (147) 148 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. good and evil. This single prohibition was designed as a test of Adam^s obedience, and as a ren^inder of his duty to, and dependence upon, the Creator. Though com- manded, on pain of death, not to eat, or even to touch the forbidden fruit, yet the first man would do his own will instead of the Divine will. God had declared to him (Gen. ii. 16, lY) these solemn words: " Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam, nevertheless, ran the risk, and therefore incurred the penalty. The very day on which the father of the human race ate of the forbidden fruit he was to die. Let us now inquire into the nature of that death which was to take place as an immediate consequence of his disobe- dience. We must bear in mind that Scripture recognizes four sorts of death. Inasmuch as separation is the very essence of each sort of death, they may all be said to agree in that particular feature. Having once incurred the first kind of death, we became liable to the other three ; for in this state we are said in Scripture to be '' dead in trespasses and sins." The man who is thus dead finds himself severed from God. The invisible but real union between the Creator and the creature in consequence of this death is broken, and such was the condition into which Adam was thrown on the day that he violated the Divine command by eating of the forbidden fruit. This sort of death is alluded to in the case of the prodigal son who, while he continued in sin or in the land of ungodli- ness, was said to be dead. The next sort of death, in the regular order of things, is physical death, which we must all experience either sooner or later. Here, then, we have two deaths, both of which belong to this present world. They are the natural inheritance of every child of fallen Adam. We enter the world in the one, our de- parting from the world is the result of the other. The other two deaths are experienced in the next world. The one comes to pass in Hades, and the other in Gehenna. The death in Hades begins at the decease of a wicked man, and terminates at the morning of the resurrection. SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 149 The death in Gehenna commences immediately after the Day of Judgment, and is endless in its duration. Such, then, are the deaths recognized by, and so frequently spoken of in, the word of God. So long as the father of mankind obeyed the Divine command and remained in a state of holy innocence, there existed that bond of unity between the Creator and the creature which constitutes life and happiness ; but as soon as one link of the chain, which unites God and man, was broken, the ravages of death began their work of destruction. Thus situated, man must either be restored to the favor of the Almighty, or be left to perish ever- lastingly. Now, in disobeying God, we must ask and answer the following question respecting the progenitor of the human race : Did such disobedience emanate from the soul or from the body of Adam ? Was it the mental act of Adam, or the putting of that mental act into practice that consti- tuted the disobedience, and, therefore, the sin of our an- cestor ? Let us bear in mind that there is not only the outward act of which Adam was guilty, to be considered, but there would also exist the determination within his soul to violate the Divine injunction. We have the in- visible operation of Adam^s mind, which ends in a full determination to set his will in array against the will of God, and the eating of the fruit which subsequently fol- lowed, was merely the visible manifestation, or comple- tion in act, of that resolution to which he had previously arrived. The moment Adam set his own will in opposi- tion to the Divine will, and determined at all hazards to partake of the fruit of the tree from which he had been commanded to abstain on penalty of death, that moment he became a sinner. What evil thoughts soever arise in the mind, and so influence the will that any vicious inten- tion in particular would be carried into effect, unless pre- vented by some external cause, such a man is in the sight of God as much a sinner as if his vicious intention had assumed the practical character. We have authority for speaking in this manner from what our Lord Himself has taught us in His Sermon on the Mount. Our Sa- 150 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. viour addressed His hearers in these words ; " Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery : But I say unto you, That whoso- ever looketh on a woman to hist after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (See Matt. v. 2t, 28.) St. John also speaks to the same purpose, say- ing (I. John iii. 15) : " Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." We here learn that the sin mainly lies in the turpitude of the mind. Though a man never perpe- trated the crime of murder, yet he may nevertheless be to all intents and purposes a murderer in his heart and in the sight of God. He may also be an adulterer, though he never committed the foul deed. In reference then to the offense of Adam, we may observe that as soon as he had resolved to be disobedient to the prohibition imposed upon him, his sinful act was mentally completed. Before he moved a finger to take the fruit offered to him the whole process of guilt was incurred. The receiving of the fruit and the eating of the fruit were merely external manifestations of the state and working of Adam's mind. That which existed in his soul did, by virtue of that act, assume a visible form. I have mentioned these points to show that it was the soul of Adam that sinned and be- came guilty before God, and what was done by his body in the subsequent act of eating the fruit was manifestly done in obedience to the dictates of the soul. Under no circumstances whatever could the animal frame or body of Adam be otherwise than an instrument or servant acting a subordinate part in direct obedience to the will of his soul. It is the prerogative of the mind or soul to com- mand, and the province of the body to carry out such command. Then, since it was the soul of man that sinned, and since an atonement for such sin was to be made on the principles of justice, it most assuredly ought to be the soul of man that should make the atonement. If the above view be correct, we are justified in concluding that it would be unfair and unreasonable to punish the body for the guilt of the soul ; while the latter, the real and responsible offender, should be allowed to escape punish- ment altogether. I may, however, be told that the mental SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 151 anguish endured by Christ in the garden of Gethsemane was sufficient to make full expiation for human transgres- sion. Had such been the case, the mental suffering prior to His crucifixion would have precluded the necessity of His physical death ; but since the distress of soul He ex- perienced did not prevent His physical death, we are quite sure that no atonement was thereby effected. Let us now inquire whether we have any grounds for believ- ing that the sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed to the fact that Christ was to make full atonement in the next world for the guilt of man. In discussing this sub- ject, it appears to me absolutely necessary to distinguish between the sacrifice^ and the act q'^ feature in the sacri- fice which actually constituted the atonement. A careful examination of the directions given for the institution of the Jewish Passover, will make it appear that the above distinction is well founded, and of the greatest importance in ascertaining what really made the atonement. In the Book of Exodus (xii. 6, t, 8, 13), we read these significant words : "• And ye shall keep it (the lamb) until the fourteenth day of the same month : and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and un- leavened bread ; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are : and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.'' Here we learn that the Israelites were enjoined to select certain lambs or kids of a specified age, to kill them at a particular time in the evening of an appointed day, to eat them after being roasted, and to sprinkle the blood upon the upper and side posts of the doors of their respective houses. A promise was also made that the blood should be a token to those in the house, and that when the destroying angel saw it he would not inflict any punishment upon them. Now we may justly inquire whether compliance, on the 152 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. part of the Israelites, with all these conditions, was essen- tial for their deliverance from destruction, whether a part would have been deemed sufficient, or whether the carry- ing out of one of the particulars to the virtual exclusion of the rest secured their safety. It is perfectly clear to every unprejudiced mind, that the children of Israel were not in any way rescued from the hand of the destroyer simply by the slaying of the victim, for if the shedding of the blood as such had been attended with that degree of efficacy, there certainly would have been no need either for eating the lamb or for sprink- ling its blood. The salvation of the firstborn of the in- mates within the Israelitish houses could not be ascribed to the mere partaking of the victim after it was roasted, be- cause the feasting on the sacrifice necessarily presupposes expiation, and, therefore, reconciliation between the Cre- ator and the creature. On this account we speak of the Lord's Supper as a Eucharist, that is, a thanksgiving in commemoration of mercies already vouchsafed to us. Again, if the deliverance from the hand of the destroying angel had entirely depended upon the eating of the lamb, then all the unclean persons, infants and invalids, must have been excluded, for they would either be incapable of or disqualified for participating in the sacrificial meal. Then, since it was neither the selecting of the lamb for sacrifice, the offering of the lamb, the act of killing the lamb, the dying of the lamb, the death of the lamb, nor the eating of the lamb, that caused the angel of God to spare the lives of the Israelites, it must have been the sprinkling of the victim's blood. The salient point in the whole narrative, and that which procured the safety of the people, was the sprinkling of the blood upon the door posts. Let us carefully weigh the destroying angePs words, and then no mistake as to their meaning can arise. He did not say, when I see you killing the lamb, or feast- ing upon it, ^' I will pass over you ;" but, '' When I see the blood," '' I will pass over you, and the plague shall not come upon you to destroy you." Though the slaugh- tering of the animal was essential to the obtaining of its blood, yet in that slaughtering there was no atoning SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, I53 efficacy in the sight of God ; for if expiation had thereby been effected, the subsequent act of sprinkling would have been superfluous. The eating of the sacrifice, as ah^eady shown, indicated reconciliation and peace between the destroying angel and the people of Israel. Now the slaying of the lamb offered in sacrifice would, of necessity, precede the sprinkling of the blood. In other words, the sprinkling of the blood could not take place till after the death of the victim. Hence it must follow con- clusively, what has been pointed out before, namely, that it was neither the dying of the victim nor the death of the victim, but something subsequent to both which effected the deliverance of the inmates of the Jewish houses in Egypt, and that subsequent something was the sprinkling of the blood. The slaying of the animal to be sacrificed was required in order to obtain that blood with which the expiation had to be made. In the Book of Leviticus (xvii. 6, 11) we thus read : '' And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." '* For the life of the flesh is in the blood : and I have given it to you upon the altar (that is, to be sprinkled upon the altar) to make an atonement for your souls : for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." We see the same sort of lan- guage here, and .the same great truth inculcated, namely, that something must be done after the death of the animal in order to effect the atonement. The dying and death of the victim were only preliminaries to the expiation of sin, but did not in themselves expiate it. It was the sprink- ling of the blood subsequent to the death of 4ihe victim that effected the work of the atonement. The Israelites might have slain all the lambs and kids too throughout the whole land of Egypt, and even drenched the whole country with the blood of those victims, but all this would have been of no avail, neither would it have saved them from the threatening slaughter. It was the sprinkling of the blood, and that alone, which saved them from being involved in the general destruction. The sprinkled blood was a token to the Israelites and a sign to the destroying angel. CHAPTER XXI. The subject of expiation continued — The atoning efficacy of tlie Jewish sacrifices consisted in the sprinkling of the blood — The view that the atonement was completed on the cross contradicted by the typical im- port of the two goats on the Jewish day of atonement — The different explanations given of that portion of Leviticus, chapter xvi., which refers to the two goats — These explanations shown to be erroneous — Why were goats selected on this particular occasion to be sacrificed ? — Why did the Lord order neither more nor fewer than two goats ? — What reason was there for casting lots? — These questions fully and satisfactorily answered — The slain goat typical of Christ's physical death, and the scapegoat prefigured His descent into Hades. We may continue in this chapter the subject of expia- tion, by quoting a passage from the Epistle to the He- brews (ix. 19-22), where the apostle thus writes : "For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood ; and without the sprinkling of blood there is no remission." The reader will observe that I have translated aliiart-Ayuaia (aimatekchysia) not the "shedding of blood," but the "sprinkling of blood;" because such is manifestly the sense required by the text. Strictly speaking, we may shed blood without sprink- ling it, but we cannot sprinkle the blood without having previously shed it. Now, since the sprinkling of blood alone, and apart from any other portion of the sacrificial rite, is so frequently mentioned as that which made the atonement, while no such expiatory value is ever ascribed (154) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 155 to the rest of the sacrificial rites, independently of the sprinkling of blood, we are bound to conclude that the atoning efficacy of the sacrifice consisted in the sprinkling of the blood. This fact, too, carries reason along with it, for it was at once a direct application of the cleansing element to that which required purging ; while the slay- ing of the victim simply did not include any such appli- cation. Hence we perceive the necessity of accurate dis- tinction ♦ between the sacrifice itself and that which ac- tually effects the atonement. Though both are connected, and the one cannot be procured without the other, yet the latter, through a divine appointment, certainly possesses a virtue which does not belong to the former. In order to strengthen our view that the great work of the atonement was not completed on the cross, we shall now submit to the consideration of the reader the typical import of what was done with the two goats on the day of atonement. The leading points connected with these goats we find recorded in the Book of Leviticus (xvi.), and there can be no question as to the important significancy of them. Concerning the goats the word of God thus speaks : — ''And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord, at the door of the taber- nacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats ; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and ofter him for a sin- offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat : And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness : And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited : and he shall let go 156 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. the goat in the wilderness. And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall put off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there: And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt-offering, and the burnt-offering of the people, and make an atone- ment for himself and for the people. And the fat of the sin-offering shall he burn upon the altar. And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp." The explanation given of this remarkable portion of Scripture by those who maintain that the sufferings of the Redeemer ended with His crucifixion is twofold. One class of expositors regard the goat which was slain as the piacular victim, and the scapegoat as indicating the com- plete and effectual removal of sin, consequent upon the death of the first goat. The other class of Scriptural expounders, among whom we find Bishop Patrick, to whose valuable commentary I have already referred, view the dead goat as setting forth the atonement by Christ's physical death, and the scapegoat as designed to prefigure the resurrection of Christ. It will now be my duty to examine these opinions which have been so generally and eagerly received and adopted by Christians, and the reader need not be surprised to find, on investigation, that they are not only erroneous, but they really contradict the word of God Himself. Now, touching this extraordinary narrative about the goats and the important typical bearing, I have to ask and answer the following questions: 1. Why did God command goats to be sacrificed in order to set forth the great work of the atonement which was to be effected by the death of His own Son ? 2. Why did He order neither more nor fewer than two goats ? ^ 3. What reason, was there for casting lots in order to determine which should be the most suitable for the sin- SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 157 offering, and which for the scapegoat ? Would not one goat have answered either purpose ? It appears to my mind that this mode of proceeding is the best way to arrive at the truth of the matter ; for there certainly must have been some very cogent reasons why goats and not sheep should have been chosen on the great day of atonement. We should not forget that the sacrifices offered on the day of atonement were more striking representations of the expiation made by .Christ than any other ; and the two goats in their complete pre- figuration of this atoning death must be placed at the head of all the sacrifices. The first question to be considered is, why goats were selected in preference to other animals. Goats were chosen because, in prophetical language, and, indeed, in the Scriptures generally, they signify bad and wicked men ; while sheep denote good men. Two texts will suffice to prove the truth of this assertion. In the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (xxxiv. 17), God thus speaks : " And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord God : Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats." This distinction is also recognized in the Gospel of St. Matthew (xxv. 31-33), where our Lord thus speaks : *' When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations : And He shall separate them one from another, ns a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats ; And He shall set the sheep on His right hand (the position of honor), but the goats on the left" (the place of disgrace and condemna- tion). These passages of Scripture show that sheep and goats signify respectively the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, and also those who shall be finally saved, and such as are to be eternally lost. Then since goats, in the language of Scripture, signify wicked men, and sheep good men, we can easily perceive why the- former, instead of the latter, were appointed to be sacrificed on the ''day of atonement." Sheep or lambs would do very well to indicate the innocence and sinless 158 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. nature of the Redeemer and His absolute fitness to be made a propitiation for the transgressions of mankind, and even, to some extent, foreshadow Him as a substitute for men, but beyond these limits they could not go. On the other hand, goats set forth the real substitution, and their being chosen was designed to prefigure the actual identification of Christ with sinners, or to demonstrate the fact that He, ''who knew no sin," was to become a substitute for sinful man, and to bear the punishment due to his iniquities. The goats, in fact, could represent Christ only in His sacrificial character, or while He was making expiation for human transgression. Sheep, there- fore, point out the qualifications of Christ for making satisfaction for sin; the goats go further and represent Him in the very act of making the atonement. Inas- much, then, as the goats foreshadowed Christ only in His connection with and substitution for sinners, it is mani- fest that His resurrection could in no way be typified by the scapegoat being led into the wilderness. Substitution ended with the liberation of the Redeemer from Hades. Let the reader be doubly cautious to distinguish between what was done for us by our Lord in the way of substi- tution, and what He did on our behalf without substitu- tion. Christ died for our sins that we should not die ; and He rose again from the dead, not to prevent, but to insure our resurrection. Had Christ risen from the dead as our substitute, or in the exact sense in which He died for our sins, there would have been no physical resurrection for us. Hence the moment that the pains of death or Hades were loosed, that very moment there was an end of substitution. Christ died to save us from death, and rose again from the dead as the first-fruits of our resurrection. So long as Christ was under the power of death, so long was He dealt with as if He had been a sinner, and in that capacity He was represented by the goats ; but further than that point they could not typify Him, because they signify wicked men only, whereas the Redeemer on His deliver- ance from the prison of the lost, ceased to be numbered among the wicked. Then, since the goats are used only SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 159 as the representatives of the wicked, it is perfectly certain that they could no longer foreshadow Him after He had ceased to be ranked among sinners. Hence we may now see the propriety of goats in particular being appointed for sacrifice on the ''day of atonemenf We have to inquire, in the second place, why neither more nor fewer than two goats were required. The fact of two goats being demanded to typify our Lord in His expiatory character is fatal to the views of those who imagine that His sufferings culminated on the '' accursed tree." We may rest fully satisfied that two were ap- pointed, because one was found absolutely inadequate to make a full adumbration of those realities which were to be acomplished by the sacrifice of the Son of God. Three goats, and consequently any number in excess of that, would have been too many to foreshadow the grand scheme whose future fulfillment had been definitely fixed in the Divine mind. Hence the reason for there being two, and only two, goats. Though there were two goats, yet they made only one sin-offering; for in verse 5 we read these words: "And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Is- rael two kids of the goats for a sin-offering." They were (according to what the Rabbis tell us in Joma, cap. 6) to be of the same color, the same stature, and the same price. As both were intended for the expiation of the sin of the people, what part in the redemptive history of the Saviour did they respectively foreshadow ? The goat, which was slain, represented the death of Christ on the cross, and if His sufferings had been finished on giving up the ghost, the one goat would have been amply suffi- cient to foreshadow that great event. The Saviour having a still more formidable ordeal to undergo, it was necessary that that ordeal should be typically pointed out, and we find this effected by the scapegoat. The putting of all the iniquities of the Israelites upon the head of the live goat by the hands of Aaron, whereby the animal became their substitute, was designed to prefigure the imputation of the sins of the whole world to Christ, and to indicate His substitution for guilty man. After all the sins of the 160 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. Israelites had been laid upon the scapegoat, it was led away into the wilderness, to a land not inhabited, and this forcibly represents the Messiah laden with the sins of all men going into the miserable regions of Hades and there suffering the punishment due to guilty man. Though Christ was absolutely innocent in reality and in the sight of God, yet, being a '' Substitute" for sinners, He was necessarily regarded as guilty in the eye of the law. To which of the goats is the work of the atonement attributed ? Let the Bible itself answer the question. These are the words of Scripture; ''And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin-offering ; But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.'' Now, a mere glance at this passage from the word of God cannot fail to satisfy the reader that no expiation is ascribed to the dead goat ; the atonement is declared to be made by the living goat. Then, just as expiation for sin was made by the living goat, and that too after the other goat had been slain, so in like manner did the Messiah after His crucifixion, and, therefore, in His disembodied state, make atonement for human transgressions. We therefore see that the physical death of the Saviour was only the means or channel for reaching that state in which the great work of the atonement was to be effected. We also learn, too, that expiation for man's guilt did not take place in this world, but in that prison reserved for the lost in the next world. To assert, then, that the slain goat was the piacular victim, or to affirm that the scapegoat represented the resurrection of Christ, is to contradict the express testi- mony of Scripture. Had the scapegoat been intended to prefigure the resurrection of the Messiah, it ought to have been first led into the distant part of the wilderness, to signify the banishment of the disembodied Spirit of Christ into Hades, and then after a specified time it should have been brought back to the place from whence it previously started. The resurrection of Christ implied His return SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 161 to this world; but where in the Bible do we read of the scapegoat coming back from the uninhabited land into which it was taken ? No intimation whatever of the scapegoat's return is to be found in the word of God. We might as well affirm that Christ rose from the dead before He made the expiation for our sins, as to say that His resurrection was foreshadowed by the leading of the scapegoat into the desert. In the third and last place, we have to show why lots were cast, to ascertain how each goat was to be disposed of on the ** day of atonement.'^ The casting of lots upon the two goats implied the fit- ness of both for either phase in the sin-offering, and was designed to set forth in a symbolical manner the innate fitness of Christ, both in body and soul, for expiating the sins of the whole world. 11 CHAPTER XXII. The typical import of " the sprinkling of the blood" — The two goats typified the "deaths" spoken of by Isaiah in reference to Christ — The goat whose blood was shed represented Christ on Calvary, the scape- goat prefigured Christ in Hades — The doctrine of substitution incul- cated by the sin-oflfering of the two goats — The exact meaning and import of " wilderness" to which the scapegoat was banished — Another reason why Christ suffered in Hades, is that the people of the old as well as those of the present world may, on the judgment-day, bear tes- timony to the atonement efi'ected by His sufferings — Texts considered which seem to favor the opinion that Christ's sufferings terminated in this world — The Scriptural meaning of eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood. Having in the course of the preceding chapter con- sidered the typical import of the two goats, and shown from the Scriptures of truth that it was not the dead but the living goat with which the atonement was made, I must now invite the reader's attention once more to the sprinkling of the blood of the other victims offered in sacrifice. As the sprinkling of the blood possessed atoning efficacy, and yet the sprinkling could not take place till the animal had been put to death, it must be understood as pointing in a typical manner to the fact, that our Lord was to make atonement for the sins of mankind after His death on the cross, and therefore dur- ing His disembodied state in the prison of Hades I may also state here, that it was the opinion of the an- cient Hebrews that the essence of a sacrifice consisted in the sprinkling of the blood. It is not improbable that '' the sprinkling of the blood" may, in a secondary sense, figuratively denote the application of the merits of Christ to the soul of the believer. The reasonableness of this doctrine can scarcely be denied, when we reflect that it was Adam's soul or superior nature that sinned, and (162) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 163 therefore, to be just and to act justly, it was the soul of Christ with which the atonement ought to have been made. If it were right and proper that expiation for sin should be effected in that nature which originally incurred the guilt in question, it must be doubly right and proper to demand expiation from the soul whence the diso- bedience and sin emanated. The soul of the first Adam sinned ; the soul of the socond Adam atoned for that sin. Adam set his will in opposition to the will of God, and that fact accounts for our Lord having said (Luke xxii. 42), ''Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not myvjill, but Thine, be done.'''' The first Adam would do his own will in express violation of a negative command, whereas the second Adam came not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him. (John vi. 38.) The view here taken in reference to the goats is con- firmed by the prediction in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, which foretold that our Saviour would make " His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death." It has been shown, in a former part of this work, that the word translated '' death" is plural in the Hebrew, and there seems every reason for concluding that the two goats figuratively represented the two ** deaths" of which the prophet spake. The two goats solemnly consecrated and devoted to be sacrificed con- stituted only one sin-offering, yet both were essential in order to shadow forth the two distinct phases in the sacrifice of Christ. In the goat whose blood was shed we see the death of the Messiah on Calvary: in the scapegoat laden with the sins of the people and removed into the distant wilderness, we behold the Blessed Re- deemer banished from the presence of God, and suffering, in the prison of Hades, the punishment due to our sins. The laying of Aaron's hands upon the head of the goat, and the transferring of the people's sins to it, can only be regarded as the most vivid illustration of the imputa- tion of our sins to Christ, and of his suffering in our stead the punishment due those sins. Not only is the doctrine of substitution inculcated by the two goat^, but 164 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. substitution of the most complete character. This state- ment is proved by verses 21 and 22 of the chapter under consideration. These are the words: ''And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Is- rael, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, arid shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited : And he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." The fullness and completeness of the atone- ment are indicated by the fact that all the ains, all the iniquities, and all the transgressions of the children of Israel were to be laid upon the goat. The threefold de- scription of wickedness above mentioned must be under- stood as including every species of sin that any man is capable of committing against the law of Almighty God. In laying his hands upon the head of the goat the high- priest uttered (according to what we are told in Joma, cap. 6, sect. 2) this prayer: I beseech Thee, O God, this people, the house of Israel, have done wickedly, and been rebellious, and sinned before Thee. I beseech Thee now, O God, expiate the iniquities, the rebellions, and the sins which Thy people, the house of Israel, have done wick- edly, transgressed, and sinned before Thee. According as it is written in the law of Moses Thy servant (Lev. xvi. 30), **on that day he shall make an atonement for you, to cleanse you that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord." As soon as the high-priest pro- nounced the incommunicable name Jehovah (Lord), which is the final word in the prayer, all the priests and the people in the court fell upon their faces and wor- shiped, saying, ''Blessed be the Lord; let the glory of His kingdom be forever." The Hebrews tell us that the wilderness into which the scapegoat had to be led was called Tzuk, and that it was situated ten miles from Jerusalem. The command was to take the goat mup.s-Sx " into a land not inhab- ited." In the LXX. we have elq yT^v ajiazov, " into an in- acceseible country ;" and in the Yulgate the words are SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 1G5 rendered in terram solitariam, ^'into a desolate land.'' The exact meaning of the Hebrew word gezera is not brought out either in the Authorized Version, the Sep- tuagint, or the Vulgate. It is derived from nij, which signifies (1) To cut off, to divide ; (2) To eat up, to de- vour. It is easy then to see that that portion of the desert into which the man was instructed to convey the scapegoat must have been characterized by two remark- able features, namely, it was cut off from habitable coun- tries, and naked or devoid of herbage. It would seem, indeed, from its isolation and barrenness, to denote a desolate and inaccessible region, which was rather under the curse than the blessing of Heaven. This condition of the scapegoat, in the very worst part of the wilderness, is most assuredly a striking picture of our Lord's terrible state in the unseen world! From some texts of Scrip- tare it would appear that a desert was regarded as the abode of evil spirits, and this would still more strongly represent that part of Hades in which the lost dead are confined. (See Isa. xiii. 21; St. Matt. xii. 43; Rev. xviii. 2.) It is also worthy of remark that nu, to cut off, is used concerning our Lord in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (liii. 8), where we thus read: '' He was cut off out of the land of the living." Another probability to be assigned for our Lord's having suffered the '* pangs of Hades" was, that all those who had departed this life in their sins prior to His first Advent, might become histori- cally acquainted with the fact of His atoning death, and thence be led to see the justness of that sentence which shall be pronounced upon them at the day of judgment. In consequence of the twofold death of Our Lord, no man, whether he belonged to the old world or the present world, can plead ignorance of the great and solemn truth, that the blood of Jesus was shed for him. According to the words of St. Peter, our Blessed Lord was, during His separate state, among the disembodied spirits of those men who perished at the deluge, so that the people of the old world, as well as those of the present world, must bear testimony to the atonement effected by the sufferings of Christ. The consciousness of this great fact will, at 166 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. the day of final accounts, render the wicked, like the man without a wedding garment, absolutely speechless. We must now pass on to notice a few texts more which are supposed to point to the termination of the Redeemer's sufferings in this world. In the Book of Deuteronomy (xxi. 22, 23) we find these words : *'And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree : his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is ac- cursed of God) ; that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee." And in the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 13) we thus read: '' Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." The custom of suspending criminals among the ancient Hebrews, is not to be regarded as identical with cruci- fixion among the Romans. The latter used to place the offender upon the cross alii^e, and leave him there till life became extinct ; whereas the former, after putting the criminal to death by stoning or otherwise, suspended his dead body on a tree. The Romans, in fact, suspended the man ; the Jews, on the contrary, merely suspended the body of the man after he was dead. Was it, then, the body or the soul of the culprit, or both, that were accursed of God ? This question must be answered be- fore we can ascertain the precise import and full meaning of these Scriptural declarations. The malediction could not be carried out by the suspension of the corpse on the tree, since that was the effect and not the cause of the curse. It is evident that the crime led to the curse, and the curse brought the suspension. It is equally clear that if there had not been any crime there never would have been any ignominious death, and if there had never been an ignominious death there could not have been a sus- pension of the criminal's dead body. Then, since we are assured upon the authority of the Bible that whosoever hangeth upon a tree is "accursed of God,'* and that the malediction does not refer to the culprit's body, we are SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 167 bound to conclude that it is the isoul of the criminal which was subjected to the curse of God aftei' its sepa- ration from the body. The ancient Jews did not believe that the curse was fulfilled by hanging the culprit upon a tree, neither, indeed, could it be, but by the infliction of punishment upon the culprit's soul after dissolution. These facts are strong testimonies to the view here taken, namely, that Christ suffered in Hades for the accomplish- ment of human redemption. To attempt the chastise- ment of a man's mortal remains on account of a crime previously committed by the man himself would be a re- volting exhibition of malice, pusillanimity, and vindic- tiveness which could under no circumstances whatever be ascribed to Almighty God. Another text of Scripture requiring a short notice in this chapter is written in the First Epistle of St. John (i. 1), where we have these words : " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." The reader will at once perceive that this text must be understood, not in a literal, but in a figurative sense. The blood of Jesus Christ presupposes His death, and therefore indicates His life or soul as being separated from the body. When it is said in the Bible, therefore, that "■ the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," we are to understand that the disembodied soul of Christ while in Hades made the most ample satisfaction for human transgression, and that its atoning efficacy is still going on, and that it will continue to do so till the end of the world. It is not said ''the blood of Jesus Christ" did or will '^ cleanse from all sin ;" on the contrary, we have this significant declaration in the present tense : '' The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth or is cleansing from all sin." We see, then, the continu- ous efficacy of that blood of Christ which figuratively re- presents His soul. One or two passages from the word of God will prove that the blood is used for the soul or the life. In the Book of Leviticus (xvii. 11) we have these words : '' For the life or soul of the flesh is in the blood : and I have given.it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls : for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." Again, in the Gos- 168 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. pel of St. John (vi. 54, 55) the Redeemer speaks after this manner : '* Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life ; for my flesh is meat indeed, and niy blood is drink indeed." For a right understanding of this last text, we must be careful to note that our Lord speaks of Himself in His sacrificial character, and in no other. This is manifestly implied by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Now it is quite clear that if Christ's flesh and blood are separated from each other, and they must be separated before the former can be eaten and the latter drunk, He must Himself be in a state of death. To eat the flesh of Christ, then, and to drink his blood, is to believe in the atoning efficacy of His death and to put one's whole trust and confidence in it alone for pardon and salvation. Hence our Lord says (John vi. 47), " He that believeth in me hath everlasting life ;" which words distinctly teach that to believe in the Son of God, and to eat His flesh and drink His blood, are identical in signification. CHAPTER XXIIL The doctrine of *' Substitution" defended — Christ a consenting party in the work of redemption — Gcd the Father not vindictive in offering up His Son — Love and mercy actuated the Son in offering Himself up — Love and mercy alone m ust be ascribed as the cause which moved the Father to permit the Son to be sacrificed — " Substitution" can- not be denied on the ground that the substitute has not suffered all the consequences entailed through the offender's disobedience — Adam and Christ the representatives of human nature — The disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ contrasted — The question as to the length of time Christ suffered — The reasons generally given why Christ descended into Hades considered — The absurdity and futility of transubstantiation. Before leaving the subject of the atonement, we feel bound to say a few words in answer to other objections which have recently been advanced against the doctrine of '' Substitution." The doctrine of '' Substitution" is ob- jected to on the ground that it represents God the Father as cruel and vindictive in delivering up His innocent Son to suffer the punishment due to guilty man. This objec- tion is one-sided and superficial, inasmuch as it entirely overlooks the prominent fact, that Christ was a willing and consenting party to the undertaking of human re- demption. This is manifestly implied in many passages of Scripture, three of which I shall adduce. In the Gospel of St. John (x. 18) we have these remarkable words : '* No man (literally, no one) taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Again, in the Epis- tle to the Hebrews (ix. 14) it is written, that Christ ''through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." And in the same Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 12), we read to this purpose : " But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God." These three texts cited from the (169) 170 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. Bible pro^e, to a demonstration, that the death of Christ was a voluntary death. We cannot perceive a shadow of compulsion in any one step of the Saviour's redemptive history. Now, considering that our Blessed Lord, so far as His Divine nature was concerned, had nothing to gain by redeeming man from eternal perdition, what could have induced Him to undergo such unprecedented degra- dation and such unparalleled sufferings in order to ac- complish so stupendous a work ? Infinite love and bound- less mercy must have moved the Divine Being to procure man's everlasting salvation. No other cause can be as- signed* Then, since love and mercy alone moved the Son of God to offer Himself to the Eternal Father as a sacrifice for human transgression, how can it be said that he was treated either with cruelty or vindictiveness ? His having voluntarily presented Himself as an immola- tion on the altar of God, excludes every idea of compul- sion, or coercion ; and if there were neither compulsion nor coercion connected with the act, we are constrained to infer that the entire responsibility rests with Him who first manifested His willingness to become a substitute for sinful man. In the suffering inflicted upon the Son there was, therefore, neither unfairness nor injustice. Can cruelty be laid to the charge of the Father ? We answer with an emphatic no. Bearing in mind that the Messiah was God's Son, His only Son, and His Beloved Son, we can be at no loss in ascertaining the moving cause by which the Father was induced to deliver up His Beloved One as a ransom for the sins of a lost and ruined world. Nothing but love and mercy can be ascribed as the cause which moved the Father to permit His only be- gotten Son to be made a propitiation for the sins of the human race. The truth of this assertion we learn from Scripture, for it is therein written (John iii. 16), '' God so loved the world (meaning mankind) that He gave His only begoUen Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." To assert, then, that the Son of God was ill used in becoming a '' Substitute" for man, or to affirm that the Father was cruel and vin- dictive in the acceptance of such '' Substitution," is a gross SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. HI misrepresentation of the whole facts and nature of the case. Every phase in human redemption is stamped with the love and mercy of God the Father, God the 8on, and God the Holy Ghost. These facts, I trust, sufficiently answer the first objection. The doctrine of " Substitution'^ has also been ridiculed and even scouted, because Christ did not suffer in His owq person each phase and every degree of punishment that man has been compelled to undergo. These objectors imagine that there can be no such thing as '' Substitu- tion," unless the substitute bear the entire consequences entailed through the offender's disobedience. I .give a most unqualified denial to the soundness of this objection, add* consider it unreasonable, unphilosophical, and un- scriptural. I venture to assert that there is scarcely an instance on record in which the entire punishment due to the guilty was, or ever could be, inflicted upon the '' Sub- stitute." Let us illustrate this by example. Supposing a certain debtor owed his creditor a large sum of money, and in consequence of not having the wherewithal to pay the amount, was cast into prison, and compelled to remain there until the debt was liquidated. It is manifest that his incarceration will be prolonged till there shall have been a settlement of the account. Granting that the man thus treated has a wife aod family dependent upon him for support, and assuming that he had the feelings and affection that a husband and a father ought to have, who can measure the anguish, distress, and misery both of the prisoner and his wife and family so long as he is detained in custody? Now, supposing further that some friend, out of love to the debtor, and moved by pity for the wife and children, should undertake to pay the whole amount in money, or, indeed, submit to imprisonment for a time until he had procured the means essential to satisfy the demands of the creditor, would any one imagine for a mo- ment that the "■ Substitute" could feel one jot of the pain and punishment which the debtor, and his wife and help- less children, must, of necessity, experience? His im- prisonment, on the contrary, would be rendered more tol- erable from a consciousness of the fact that in thus suffer- 112 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. ing he was doing a noble, unselfish, and generous deed, in causing a whole family to be delivered from ignominy, wretchedness, misery, and starvation. Would it, there- fore, be logically true to deny that there had been any ** Substitution" made, merely because the innocent party did not suffer all the consequences necessarily arising from the inability of the debtor to settle his creditor's account in due time ? It is impossible in the very nature of things that the innocent, in becoming a " Substitute" for the guilty, should undergo, in its various ramifications, all the punishment that would be inflicted upon the offender himself. Men repent, feel remorse, experience shame, and are occasionally driven almost to desperation, in consequence of the sins they have at certain times committed ; but our Divine Master could not have had any such feelings. His righteous soul could not have been distressed by any one of them. Never having been guilty of sin, He could not, properly speaking, repent ; and never having failed to fulfill any part of God^s law, it was impos- sible for Him ever to promise amendment of life. We see, then, the unreasonableness of expecting the innocent '' Sub- stitute" to suffer, in every particular, the punishment which the guilty, if left alone, must of necessity undergo. In determining the real merits of a case of this nature be- tween the lawgiver and the lawbreaker, it is of prime im- portance to ascertain the essential point that constitutes the offense, and accurately to distinguish between it and any consequences that may flow directly or indirectly therefrom. Though there exists a connection between them, they are, nevertheless, as radically distinct from each other as cause and effect. In dealing with the doc- trine of " Substitution" our attention should be mainly fixed upon the former, while we should not be altogether regardless of the latter. The sii^ committed by Adam, which involved himself and his posterity in guilt, consisted of one offense, namely, the violation of a negative command. Through that single disobedient act all men became subject to physical death in this world, and liable to eternal death in the next world ; and if nothing had been done by way of reparation, the SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 1^3 whole human race must ultimately have been consigned to the everlasting punishment of hell. Now, in order to make atonement for the sin thus committed by our fore- father, and at the same time to satisfy the violated law and the justice of God, the question is this : What degree of punishment and what length of time ought the " Sub- stitute" to have suffered ? In answering this question we must maintain the distinction before intimated, between the original disobedient act and the ultimate consequences to which that disobedience would, if not atoned for in due course, necessarily lead. In making reparation for the law as violated by Adam, it was indispensable that the '' Substitute" should pay the penalty incurred by that one unlawful act. Now, there are degrees in guilt and condemnation, and while we believe that sin unrepented of will in the end lead to the everlasting torments of hell, we are bound, however, to regard such extreme punishment not as an immediate, but rather as a final consequence of man's original transgression. In showing how Christ bore the punishment due to man's sin, or became his ''Substitute," we must remember that both the first Adam and the second Adam were respectively the representatives of human nature. What Adam did in his own person was virtually, therefore, the act of human nature, and in like manner that which was done by our Blessed Lord in His redemptive character as the representative of our com- mon nature, is regarded in the sight of God as having been effected by the totality of mankind. Christ being the em- bodiment of human nature. His merits extend to all men, and, consequently. His death is our death, and His resur- rection the cause of our resurrection. One or two exam- ples will serve to illustrate these facts. When God told Adam that he should, in consequence of his disobedience, die, and return to that dust from which he had been taken. He did not pronounce the sentence upon Adam's loerson simply, but upon human nature at large. Hence all men, even the best men, are subject to mortality, and in due course revert to the dust, after the example of their pro- genitor. Had the sentence been leveled against the per- 174 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. sonality of Adam instead of human nature, which he represented, Adam alone would have died ; while all his posterity must have been free from death. This great truth will be more fully developed by noticing a text in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vii. 4-10), which evidently bears on this subject. The apostle thus speaks in the portion of Scripture under examination: '^Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the Patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And, verily, they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham : But he whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better. And here men that die receive tithes ; but there he re- ceived them of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him." The event to which the apostle alludes is narrated in the Book of Genesis (xiv. 18, 19, 20), where we learn that on Abraham's re- turn from the slaughter, he was met by Melchisedec, from whom he received bread and wine: and then gave Mel- chisedec the tenth part of all that he had. Then, inas- much as Abraham gave to Melchisedec the tithes of all that he had, the apostle informs us that Levi, through Abraham, paid tithes, because he was in the loins of his father Abraham at the time that the latter paid them to Melchisedec. Levi was the fourth generation from Abra- ham, and yet he is regarded as having virtually done that which actually took place many years before he was born. In a similar sense, then, that which was done by Adam as a representative character, was done by human nature; and that which was effected by Christ as a, representative character of man, was also effected by human nature. We should not forget that all the personalities are in- cluded in the nature, and, therefore, whatever was done by the latter must of necessity have been efifected by the SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 175 former: and on this account it is that the merits of the Redeemer are commensurate with the effects produced by the disobedience of Adam. The foregoing remarks will sufficiently explain such passages as the following, in which we plainly see the twofold aspect in which man- kind were represented by the first and second Adam : — ''Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come.'' (Rom. v. 14.) "For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of the one (meaning the man Christ) the many shall be made righteous." (Rom. V. 19.) *'For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I. Cor. xv. 21, 22.) ''The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." (I. Cor. xv. 45.) Since the wisdom of God saw fit to treat all men as sinners in consequence of the disobedience of the one man Adam ; it was only just in the nature of things that all men should be conditionally credited with the benefits arising from the obedience of Christ. Hence in the Epistle to the Romans (xi. 32), we have this declaration: "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." The final question respecting the atonement made by the Redeemer in Hades still remains to be answered. This question is in reference to the length of time during which He suffered anguish in the dungeon of the lost. I am constrained to say a few words on this part of our subject, because it has been denied that three years could be justly regarded as an equivalent to the everlasting sufferings of all men in the region of hell. Then, if three years' suffering of the Messiah cannot be considered equal to the human race enduring the endless torments of hell, much less will three days and three nights' an- guish in the nether world be viewed as a satisfactory compensation; and if the preceding penal periods be re- 176 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. jected as insuflBcient to meet the demands of stern justice, we cannot for one moment imagine that full expiation for sin was made by our Lord's suffering six hours on the cross. The objection can in no way be answered upon the ground that Christ was both Divine and human, since it was not His Godhead, but His manhood that suffered ; neither will the objection be met by taking into account the innocence of His nature and the spotlessness of His character, because both were essential qualifica- tions for His becoming a sacrifice. It was indispensable that He, as a propitiation for the sins of men, should be without blemish and without spot. Those who believe the atonement received its completion on the accursed tree tell us that Christ descended into hell or Hades to fulfill one of the conditions of human nature, which is, to go after death into Hades and remain there till the gen- eral resurrection ; that He remained in that region till the third day to prove the truth of His death ; that He stayed no longer than the third day lest '' His flesh should see corruption." These reasons for our Lord's descent into Hades and His stay for a limited time among the departed are, in my judgment, neither conclusive nor satisfactory, and therefore I must be permitted to express my dissent from them. Granting that the going of souls after death into Hades is one of the conditions of human nature, yet it is by no means an absolute condition, since the whole world of human beings at the second Advent will not descend into Hades at all. Hades being the waiting-place both for the good and the bad between the time of death and that of the General Judgment, and it being one of the conditions of human nature that the disembodied souls of men should go and remain there till that solemn event, why did not our Lord's soul stay in that region if His sole object in descending thither was to prove to the world the fact of His death ? The fact of the Redeemer descending into Hades and returning thence within a specified time clearly shows that He did not go there as a condition of human nature. Had. he gone down to the nether world under the same condition and circumstances SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 177 that other men are compelled to go, He must, like them, have remained there till the resurrection morning. We must then deny that his object iu visiting the unseen world was to fulfill one of the conditions of human nature. What shall we say then in reference to His remaining in Hades till the third day, in order to prove that He was dead ? If our Redeemer's temporary sojourn in the next world was merely designed to prove the truth of His death, it seems somewhat remarkable that so important a truth has not been made more prominent in the living ora- cles of God. After dying a shameful death on the cross, in the presence of some thousands of spectators, who had flocked to Jerusalem from various countries ; after His lifeless body was permitted to hang upon the tree for a considerable time subsequent to His death, and after the multitudes of eye-witnesses could testify to the fact of such death, does it not seem strange and almost unaccountable that our Saviour in His disembodied state should go into the next world, and remain there till the third day in order to prove that he was dead? Did not the enemies of the Redeemer draw near for the purpose of breaking His legs, but refrained from that cruel operation, because they found that He was already dead ? Was that fact not patent to all the dwellers at Jerusalem that were disposed to satisfy themselves therewith ? Then, if our Lord had already departed this life, and such multitudes were eye- witnesses of His death, what possible need could there be for His going and remaining in Hades merely to prove that which was already proved, namely, the fact of His death ? Again, why should not a longer or shorter time than three days and three nights be required to prove that our Saviour was really dead ? Would not one night have answered the same purpose? How was it possible for the death of our Lord to be proved by the detention of His body in the grave three days and three nights any more than if that corpse had been kept in the tomb three hours ? If it is necessary to bury a dead man who is known to be lifeless in order to prove that he is dead, we may rest fully assured that the length of time during which he remains in the earth will be a matter of 12 178 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. secondary consideration. One hour would be as convinc- ing as one year, and one year as convincing as a century. If one night, or indeed two or tliree hours, would not suffice to demonstrate that a man was really dead whose lifeless body could be seen and gazed upon by an almost countless number of witnesses prior to his burial, we feel certain that the fact could not be proved by his lying in the grave, how long soever it might be under interment. Why did our Lord not stay in the unseen world beyond the third day ? Lest His flesh, so we are given to under- stand, '' should see corruption " Supposing our Lord did remain in Hades until the third day, for the express pur- pose of proving the fact of His death, that length of time, and no greater period, must have been essential for the ac- complishment of that special object, and therefore it cannot be true to say that He did not sojourn beyond the third day in the other world, lest "• His flesh should see corrup- tion. '^ Again, if it were necessary that the disembodied soul of our Lord should return from Hades on the third day, and take His dead body, in order to prevent the latter from putrefying in the monument of Joseph of Ari- mathea, it can no longer be said that He remained that length of time in the next world to prove the truth of His death : for, according to this view of the case, the dura- tion of His stay among the departed dead was entirely determined by the length of time His corpse could be kept free from corruption. It is therefore evident that no definite period was fixed for His stay in the other world, since it depended upon His body seeing corruption. The necessary inference from the preceding remarks is, that our Lord did not go into Hades to fulfill one of nature's conditions, neither did He remain till the third day to prove the fact of His death, and therefore He must have gone thither for other reasons than those we are com- bating. Now, I maintain that there was not the slightest need for our Redeemer's* soul to go into Hades, neither indeed could He have descended there, had He finished the great work of the atonement by His death on Calvary. Hades could have exercised no power over Him, but we know that death had dominion over Him till He rose SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 1^9 from the dead. Our Lord descended into Hades to sufifer in man's stead and to take away the sting of death. The fact, too, of our Redeemer's rejoicing (Ps. xvi.) at the prospect of His soul not being left in Hades clearly proves that He must have been suffering there. Had He been in the enjoyment of happiness while in that region, why should He have expressed such gladness ? Considering that human nature was represented in Adam and also by Christ, and that the former was a figure of the latter, I am of opinion that the duration of our Lord's sojourn in the prison of Hades should be deter- mined by the length of time that Adam was in the garden of Eden. I merely give this as an opinion and nothing more, and therefore the reader may accept or reject it as he pleases. The settlement of this point is not essential to salvation ; but, nevertheless, we ought, if possible, to discover the reason of His remaining in Hades so long and no longer. By this view our Blessed Saviour would be banished from the presence of God, which will be the portion of all the condemned (Ps. ix. It), the same length of time that Adam was permitted to be in His presence ; and this is the fact which constitutes the main point of Substitution, properly so called, in the redemptive history of Christ. This was real *' Substitution," and consequently no believer in going to Hades can experi- ence the sting of death, for Christ has experienced that sting in hi!^ stead. This suffering atoned for human na- ture, destroyed the power of death, and effected man's redemption both in body and soul. Since God created nothing after the sixth day, Adam must have named all the animals on the day that he was created, because it was after he had given proper designations to the inferior animals that he discovered the want of a suitable com- panion for himself Eve, therefore, was made after the naming of the animals. Now, assuming it to be true that the Jewish Sabbath, or Saturday, is, and ever has been, since the time of the creation of the world, the seventh day of the week, the formation of Adam and Eve and the naming of the animals must have taken place on the Friday or the day immediately preceding the Sabbath. 180 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. I take it, then, that our iBrst parents remained in Para- dise a portion of Friday, the whole of Friday night, and all Saturday till late in the evening or very early on the Sunday morning, when their expulsion would be effected. According to this view, our Lord did not only suffer in Hades the exact length of time that Adam was in the garden of Eden, but also on the very same days of the week. In Genesis (iii. 8) we read thus: "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day : and Adam and his wife hid them- selves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.^' By the '' cool of the day " is meant the evening, which most probably refers to the evening of the Sabbath. Some time would necessarily elapse be- tween the fall and the expulsion, because sentence of con- demnation had to be pronounced upon the offenders, and God's gracious purpose of redeeming the world (Gen. iii. 15) had to be explained to Adam, otherwise he might have been driven to despair. Bearing in mind, too, the activity of Satan, it is not very likely that he would allow the ancestors of the human race to be long in Paradise before he commenced his attack, which is another strong argument in favor of the short- ness of Adam's stay in the garden of Eden. Then, since the atonement for sin was made by our Lord's disembodied soul in the other world, and not by His death on Calvary, the judicious reader will at once see the absurdity and futility of any such doctrine as that of transubstantiation. CHAPTER XXIV. The nonconformists' view with respect to the locality of the soul prior to the general judgment considered — If their opinion be correct, the judgment-day shown to be a solemn mockery — The devils not yet finally judged — Numerous passages of Scripture brought to bear on the subject — The five opinions as to the locality and condition of the soul between death and the general judgment summed up — Con- clusion. We have now to bring before the reader the Fifth Opinion respecting death and its consequences, which answers the views of the great body of nonconformists, the greater portion of whom believe and teach that as soon as the soul leaves the body, it goes at once into heaven or hell, and that this difference of course is made in accordance with their conduct in the present world. I may say that this opinion is perhaps the most general of any ; and yet a critical examination will abundantly prove that it is not, strictly speaking, sanctioned by Scripture, but tends to involve the grand scheme of redemption in the utmost confusion. For, be it observed, that if souls at death go imme- diately into heaven or hell, their final abode, how comes it to pass that God hath appointed a day (Acts xvii. 31) in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised him from the dead ? Are we not told in Scripture that the Son of man, at the last day, will sit as a mighty King upon the throne of His glory ; and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He Himself shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats ; and that He will say to the sheep. Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for (181) 182 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. you from the foundation of the world ? And to the goats, or those on the left hand, He will say, "■ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?" See St. Matthew's Gospel, xxv. 31-46. Now, if the souls of men go directly after death into heaven or to hell, their eternal habitation, how can our Lord say to the righteous, *' Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom ;" or to the wicked, " Depart from Me^ ye cursed, into everlasting fire" ? Supposing heaven or hell to be the receptacle of the departed on leaving this world, by the time the day of judgment arrives nearly all the human race would be either in the one place or in the other ; and consequently the only few to be tried at the bar of God must be such as shall be found alive on the earth at the second advent of Christ. And, moreover, we are taught by the Divine records that Christ shall come at the end of the world to judge both the quick and the dead ; but if the opinion of dissenters be true, He can come to judge only the quick, for the final doom of the dead will have been fixed ; and, in some cases, even centuries before the incarnation of the Judge Himself And for the future we must say, in repeating the Nicene Creed, that Christ shall come to judge the quick, and not *' the quick and the dead," because the fate of the latter will have been already settled. We must be careful to note the peculiar significance of the words " all nations," for they do not mean a part of mankind out of all nations, such as might be considered as representative samples, but they denote all the immor- tal beings that have ever existed in every nation under the whole heavens. Is it, I would ask, conceivable, then, at the glorious and fearful day of accounts that all those in heaven will be brought out of their resting-place in order to stand in the presence of their God to be judged ? And shall all the lost spirits in hell be released from their gloomy dungeons to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to have their doom pronounced upon them ? Assuming it to be true that souls go to heaven or hell at death, one of these two conclusions must be admitted : either all those who have gone to heaven or hell must be SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, 183 brought back from those places in order to be judged, or the judgment-day, spoken of in the Bible, is mere empty pomp and show, being utterly void of signification. And to speak of it in the solemn way we find it spoken of in Scripture, is nothing less than the most hyperbolical lan- guage and absolutely unworthy of the inspired writers. The reasonableness and propriety of our remarks will be palpable to the reader on being reminded that even the devils themselves have not yet had their final day of retribution. And if they have not been subjected to such a terrible ordeal, they cannot possibly be in that lake of fire and brimstone which is to burn for ever and ever. Let us prove from Scripture that the devils are not in hell, and that they will not be there till after the last great day. In the Epistle of St. Jude (verse 6) we read that the ''Angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darknesss unto the judgment of the great day.'' It is almost needless for me to say, that if these angels are reserved in darkness till the judgment-day, they cannot be in hell before that time, because hell is the receptacle for all the damned after the final day of judgment. Again, in the Book of Job (i. 6, 7) we have the following remarkable passage : " Now there was a day w^hen the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lt)rd said unto Satan, Whence comest thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." On the day when the sons of God presented themselves before the face of Jehovah, the devil (if Satan is to be considered as the devil in this place) had the impudence to appear among them, and undoubtedly on such an oc- casion he was dressed in his best attire, having trans- formed himself, as the apostle says he can, into an angel of light. He does not presume to open his mouth until addressed by the Creator, and on being asked from what quarter he came, the devil returned one of the most ex- traordinary answers that could be imagined, and yet an answer which stamped him with that peculiarity of char- 184 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. acter for which he has ever been so remarkable. " Whence comest thou?" This was the question, and Satan an- swered and said, '' From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it." Here we see that the devil informed Jehovah that the earth was his residence from which he came. And perhaps it is quite unneces- sary for me to remark, that the original Hebrew word (]nN) here rendered "earth," always, in the Bible, has reference to this world. Hence the residence of the devils is the present world. If the lost spirits were in hell, they could not be in the earth, unless we ascribe omnipresence as one of their attributes, which would be a monstrous absurdity. In this part of our work we ought not to for- get that Satan was in the wilderness tempting our Lord (Matt. iv. 1-11), but how could he be in the desert, if he and his angels were already in the dungeon of the damned, or more properly in hell itself? A finite and created spirit cannot be in two places at one and the same time. The enemy of God and man appeared in the garden of Eden, and seduced our first parents, which he could not have accomplished had he been chained in hell. (See Gen. iii. 1-8.) In the Gospel of St. Mark (v. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), we are informed that Jesus spake unto the devil and said, '' What is thy name? And he answered, saying. My name is Le- gion (which means 6000, but here is used for an indefinite number), for we are many. And he besought Him much that He would not send them away out of the country. Now, there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought Him, saying. Send us into the swine that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand) and were choked in the sea." Here, again, we see these fallen angels dwelling in this world, and desiring that they might not be sent out of it he- fore their time. How, then, can these things be true, if the unclean spirits are already in the region of the damned ? SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 185 And docs not St. Peter tell us (I. Pet. v. 8) to ''be sober, and vigilant," because our adversary, the devil, goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom be may devour ? And does not St. Paul say (11. Cor. iv. 5) that he is the god of this world ? But how can he be the god of this world by reigning over it, if he is confined in hell ? And again, the same apostle informs us (Eph. vi. 12) that "■ we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 'princi- palities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Surely all these passages are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to demonstrate that the devils themselves are not yet in hell, and much less, indeed, ought we to sup- pose that men are. To iSave no doubt upon our minds, we need only pro- duce a few more testimonies to show that the final doom of men has not as yet been fixed. When our Lord sent His apostles to preach the gospel to the various cities, he im- pressed upon their minds these important words: " Who- soever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Yerily I say unto you, it shall be more toler- able for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." (Matt. x. 14, 15.) At the time our Saviour uttered these words, the peo- ple of Sodom and Gomorrah had been dead 1898 years, and yet their judgment is spoken of as being in the future, for we should note the words: our Lord says, '* it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." If, therefore, men go to heaven or to hell as soon as they quit this world, why does the Redeemer say that the inhabitants of those mis- erable cities were still awaiting the judgment, although they had been dead nearly tivo thousand years when He spoke of their future doom ? Again, in the Acts of the Apostles (ii.) we learn that St. Peter, in addressing his audience, besought them that he might be permitted to speak to them freely of the patri- arch David, who, he said, \vas both dead and buried, and that his sepulcher was still with them even to that day, 18G SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. and yet, in the thirty-fourth verse, the apostle assured them that David had not at that time ascended into the heavens, although the patriarch's death occurred a thousand years before these words were uttered by St. Peter. Moreover, in the Gospel of St John (iii. 13) our Lord Himself set- tles this point by expressly stating that '^ no one hath ascended into heaven, except the Son of man who is in heaven;'' and surely such language as this ought to be deemed conclusive enough. We may also remark that, if any one had gone into heaven before the ascension of our Lord, He could hardly be said to have the pre-eminence in all things, as it is written (Col. i. 18), "And He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead ; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence." And in the Epistle to the Hebrew^s (iv.l4; vi. 20), Christ is spoken of as our Great High Priest, ''that is passed into the heavens," and as ''our forerun- ner" into the same happy abode ; but these declarations could scarcely be true if the souls of men were continu- ally pouring into heaven prior to the ascension of our Blessed Lord. And in addition to all that we have said on this point, it may be asked what those spirits were doing in the prison of Hades, to whom Christ is represented as having preached, if men go to heaven or hell at once ? Some would try to overthrow these statements by sup- posing the judgment of every individual to be when he dies, but this supposition is directly opposed to the whole Bible ; for, instead of one judgment-day, there would be, according to this opinion, coantless millions of judgment- days, yes, as many judgments and verdicts as there are beings in the human race. And in such a case, how can it be said that God has appointed a day for the judgment of the world ? Another fatal objection to men having the final judgment pronounced upon them and going to hell at death, is, that it destroys our Lord's intercession^ for He cannot be t\iQ judge and the advocate at the same time. St. Paul says, our Redeemer (Heb. ix. 24) " hath entered into heaven to appear in the presence of God /br us," and St. John tells us (I. John ii. 1, 2) that " if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is our sins." Now these statements of cannot be true, if our Lord is all the time judge. Our Divine Master is nowhere represented^ judge till the last great day, which has been appointed and fixed in the eternal counsels of God for the final des- tiny of the whole world. If the judgment is now going on, we have no intercessor in heaven ; and if there be no intercessor in heaven, the writers of the New Testament must have committed some sad errors in saying what they have. And, in concluding this part of our subject, we cannot do better than quote the words of St. Paul, who says (II. Cor. v. 10), " We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ to give an account of the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad." The apostle says ''in the body" to denote when we lived on the earth, because this world is the only place of pro- bation ; and if a man is to give an account of the things done while he lived in the body, his body in all fairness must be present when he is judged. There is one passage more which I have known to be brought forward against the '' Intermediate State," and therefore we are in justice bound to take some notice of it. The portion of Scripture to which I refer is written in St. PauPs Second Epistle to the Corinthians (v. 6, T, 8), where the apostle thus speaks concerning his earthly and future life : '' Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord : (For we walk by faith, not by sight :) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." This passage is not against the doctrine of Hades, but a strong testimony for it. The words present and absent are not to be taken here in their common acceptation, other- wise the words of the apostle would be a virtual denial of the omnipresence of the Lord. Do we for a moment imagine that we are really absent, or out of the reach of the Lord, merely because we dwell in this world ? And do we also fancy that heaven itself is the only locality in which we can be present with Him or He with us ? 188 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. Perish the thought. Did not our Lord declare to His apostles (Matt, xxviii. 20) these words : *' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world"? Is it not also recorded in the Hundred and Thirty-ninth Psalm that Jehovah is omnipresent, thus: " Whither shall I go from Tiiy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If 1 ascend up into heaven, Thou art there ; if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou are' there." Hell in this latter verse should be rendered Hades, and then it will read : "If I make my bed in Hades, Thou art there." Christ, then, in His omnipresent spirit is in Hades. It will hence follow that those who die in the Lord are permitted to participate in that blessed state in Hades which can only be fully enjoyed by those whose souls have been liberated from their bodies. While in the flesh they live by faith in expectation of that blessedness which they actually enjoy after death, because they are then in the more immediate presence of God. In the Book of Pro- verbs (xv. 11) we find it stated that ''Hades and destruc- tion are in the presence of Jehovah ;" and if Hades is in the presence of the Lord, it must follow conclusively that those disembodied spirits in Hades are also in the pres- ence of the Lord. When, therefore, it is said that a good man is absent from his body and present with the Lord, the meaning is, that his soul is in the presence of Christ in Hades, enjoying that blessed state which it only anti- cipated while in the flesh. In the preceding portion of this work concerning the sublime and important doctrine of Hades, I have en- deavored to show, and I trust satisfactorily: — 1. That death is not, and cannot be, the end of man. This was pointed out by considering the composition of a human being, and by the declarations of Scripture rela- tive thereto. Hence we conclude that there is no founda- tion for the First Opinion by which death is regarded as the extinction of man. 2. We have also proved from reason and Scripture, that the good and bad are not mingled together till the day of judgment; and therefore we conclude that the Second Opinion^ which advocates that doctrine, cannot be true. SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 189 3. We have demonstrated from the primary essential attribute of the soul itself, and by an examination of the Bible, that the soul, at death, does not fall into a profound sleep, losing all consciousness till the great day of ac- counts ; though such a view seems to have been sup- ported by a late dignitary of our Church and others who have followed the same authority. The Third Opinion, then, as to the soul's sleeping between death and judg- ment, cannot be correct, and therefore it must be re- jected. 4. AVe have also discussed the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church concerning purgatory, and shown that even the passages of Scripture upon which they rely for the proof of that dogma, are against the supposition of such a place, and that the whole tenor of Scripture and God's merciful dealings with man are against it. The doctrine of purgatory, then, cannot be true, which consti- tutes the Fourth Opinion respecting the departed. 5. Although the Fifth Opinion held by the great body of nonconformists, as we have clearly seen, comes nearer to the truth than those already examined, it is yet opposed to the teaching of the Bible, and therefore we have been compelled to treat it in the same manner as the preceding views. Since, then, the death of the body is not the destruction of the soul ; since the righteous and wicked are not mingled together in one locality; since the soul does not enter into a place of purgatory for its further purification prior to entering heaven ; since it does not, at death, go to heaven or hell, its eternal home ; and since it does not fall into a state of sleep as soon as it leaves the body; it must be in some locality, and in this locality it is living, reflecting, and conscious of its own existence ; and in this condition it is bound to remain till the reunion of body and soul at the resur- rection morning. The state, then, of disembodied spirits during this long interval will form the subject of the con- cluding part of this work ; and I ought to say that, in speaking upon this condition of the departed, all the other views, of which so much has been said, will again be virtually answered. CHAPTER XXY. The doctrine of the Church of England with respect to the locality and condition of the soul between death and the general judgment — Literal meaning of the words *^Sheol," ^^ Hades," and '•Heil" — The uniform signification of these words in the Hebrew and Greek Scrip- tures — The inconsistency of the translators of our Authorized Ver- sion in using for ^^Sheol" and "Hades" expressions totally different in meaning — The error accounted for — A knowledge of Hebrew and Greek as well as Latin esssntial to a right understanding of the Sacred Scriptures — The words in the Greek Testament for "Hades," "Grave/* and " Hell," explained — A list of the leading names by which Hades is designated throughout the Bible — Isaiah xxxviii. 17, explained. Having carefully examined all the other views respect- ing the State of the dead, I shall now bring before the reader's notice the doctrine of our Church, and it will be seen, as we advance, how thoroughly Scriptural she is even in this particular. The teaching of the Church of England on this subject may be seen by the following prayer taken from the Service for the Burial of the Dead : '' Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that 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, We give Thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world ; beseech- ing Thee, that it may please Thee, of Thy gracious good- ness, shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect, and to hasten Thy kingdom, that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of Thy holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.'* In the preceding prayer the reader will observe that those who have departed this life in faith are declared to (190) SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 191 be " in joy and felicity," and further on the minister be- seeches God to hasten His heavenly kingdom, that we, who are still living, together with those who died in the true faith of His holy Name, and who are in consequence said to be "in joy and felicity," may have owv perfect consummation and bliss, not only in soul, but in both body and soul, and that, too, in the '' eternal and everlast- ing glory." This '^ perfect consummation both in body and soul" cannot be realized so long as our bodies remain in the graves, and therefore must come to pass after the general resurrection and day of judgment. The doc- trine of our Church, then, is this — that the souls of men at death enter upon a state of happiness or misery, ac- cording to the manner in which they lived and the condi- tion in which they died ; and that this happiness or misery is neither so complete nor intensified as it will be when body and soul shall be reunited and pass, after the general judgment, into heaven or hell. The locality into which the disembodied spirits enter at death, and in which they remain till the resurrection morning, is desig- nated in the Hebrew of the Old Testament Scriptures Sii^iy (Sheol) ; and in the Greek of the New Testament Scriptures "Adrj^ (Hades). The Hebrew '' Sheol" is com- monly supposed to be derived from h^^ which signifies to ask, to demand, because it asks for or demands all with- out any distinction, and yet is never satisfied. Though this derivation of the word '' Sheol" is the one usually accepted, yet I am disposed to agree with the suggestion of Gesenius, who thinks it is the same with hp^ to be hollow. If this derivation of the word " Sheol" be cor- rect, and it comports more accurately with the Biblical descriptions of the locality of the departed dead than the notion of asking or demanding which is implied in the view generally taken, we can understand why all those who go into Hades are said to descend. We may, then, regard the Hebrew ''Sheol" as a derivative of S;;ty to be hollow ; or as coming from 4xty which denotes, in its secondary meaning, to dig, to excavate, and therefore '' Sheol" will literally signify '' a hollow and subterranean place," or a pit characterized by its extreme profundity. 192 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. Hades is a Greek word, and literally means the '' invisible place," though I ought to remind the reader that some critics have questioned the derivation of this word from a not, and idelv to see. The word Hell, in its primary meaning, signifies the hidden place, and in this sense it is almost identical in significance with '* Sheol" and '' Hades." It is now, however, most generally employed in a second- ary sense, denoting the habitation of the damned after the day of judgment. By a careful perusal of the Old Testament in the original and the Septuagint Version, we find that '* Sheol" and '' Hades" are words of the same import, the former being frequently translated by the latter ; and in the word of God they signify or indicate that invisible world within the confines of which the separate souls of men enter, and are therein detained during the time intervening between death and the gen- eral resurrection, at which critical period these disembodied spirits will be removed thence, and received into heaven or cast into hell, together with their respective bodies. To enter, then, upon any lengthened disquisition as to the derivation of '' Sheol" or '' Hades" beyond what we have already mentioned would be a mere waste of time, and altogether unprofitable. All we need ascertain is the Scriptural meaning of the two expressions, and, having succeeded in gaining that point, we can very well afford to dispense with this or that opinion as to the roots from which they are derived. When we meet with these two words in the Bible, what are we to understand by them, or what meaning shall we attach to them ? Are they used in different senses in different parts of the Sacred Volume ? Do they in one passage signify the grave, in which the human remains are deposited, or the locality of our disembodied souls ? To answer and settle these questions will be of the greatest importance, and tend in no small degree to convince the reader of the wonderful harmony in every portion of God's holy word. Notwith- standing, then, all that has been written to the contrary, I venture to assert that ** Sheol" and " Hades" have throughout the whole Bible one uniform signification, and invariably denote the unseen world into which the SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 193 separate souls of men enter at death, and in which they remain till the morning of the resurrection. I know of no passage in the Bible in which they have any other meaning. Then, since these two most important words " Sheol" and ''Hades'^ always signify the invisible world, and are employed from the beginning to the end of the holy Scriptures for the mansion of disembodied spirits during the interval of time elapsing between death and the final judgment, we cannot avoid regretting the incon- sistency manifested by the translators of our Authorized Version (though taken in all respects it is probably un- equaled in excellence by any other translation) in having rendered the two words under consideration by other ex- pressions which in no way convey to the reader their true meaning, but, on the contrary, are calculated to mislead him. Though we feel the utmost gratitude toward those forty-seven learned divines, and, at the same time, are wishful to give them that tribute of praise to which they will ever be so justly entitled, yet candor and truth de- mand that, while we in all charity excuse their mistakes, we are in duty bound to correct them when we can. We owe this duty to the present and succeeding generations. Had they been more accurately acquainted with the original languages of the sacred Scriptures, they could scarcely have fallen into the errors to which we have referred. We will now give a few out of the many in- stances that might be adduced of the arbitrary manner in which *' Sheol" is rendered in the Authorized Version, which, notvirithstanding its many excellences, is not with- out some inaccurate translations. In the Book of Job (xxvi. 6) "• Sheol" is rendered hell, thus: ** Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering." In the Book of Genesis (xlii. 38) the very same word is trans- lated grave: "■ Then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.^^ Again, in the Book of Psalms (Ixxxviii. 4) we find '' Sheol" rendered^z^ : *' I am counted with them that go down into thepzX" These three texts will serve as specimens of the arbitrary way in which the word " Sheol" is presented to the mere English reader. 13 194 SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES, Why not give the same meaning to the word in each of the preceding texts ? Nobody, I should imagine, would go so far as to assert that the quotation from the Book of Job requires '* Sheol" to be rendered by the word "■ hell ;'' while the texts in Genesis and Psalms could only be properly reflected by grave andpzY. We believe that there does not exist a text in the sacred narrative where Sheol can signify tomb, or the place in which the human remains are deposited, that locality being always expressed by appropriate words both in the Greek and in the Hebrew languages. Neither is Hades ever used for hell, the region of the damned after the judgment-day, for that place is always designated by Gehenna, and called in Scripture the fire which never shall be quenched. To avoid confusion, then, the reader will please to remember that whenever I make use of the word "■ Hades" in the present work, I always mean the locality of separate souls between death and the day of final accounts. And moreover, in employing the expression ** hell,.'^ I wish him to understand by it, the abode of the damned after the final day of retribution. And further, I would have him take notice that, in quoting any passage from the Old and New Testament Scriptures, I shall invariably mention what I find in the originals and not what is met with in the translation. After this neces- sary precaution, therefore, he will not be surprised to find me using the word ''Hades" wherein the English version of the Bible we have grave, pit, or hell. In the Greek Testament we find three distinct words for Hades, Grave, and Hell. The grave is called Muvj/ia, Mv7)fi£U)v (Mnema or Mnemeion), hell is designated yeiwa (Gehenna), while the ''Intermediate State" is indicated by the term adrj^ (Hades), which literally means, as already intimated, the hidden or invisible place. Accord- ing to the work of a recent writer on the subject of Hades, whose name I do not know, and therefore I cannot give it, this locality has other designations in Scripture. Hav- ing carefully examined his statements, to which I am indebted for several hints, and having found that they harmonize with Scripture, I mention them. . SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 195 This region or common receptacle of disembodied spirits is characterized by the following designations : 1. Hades, which occurs in the Gospel according to St. Luke (xvi. 23), where we thus read of the rich man : *' And in hell (properly Hades), he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." Again, in the Book of Psalms (Ixxxvi. 13) we read: " For great is Thy mercy towards me, and Thou hast de- livered my soul from the lowest Hades." Also in the Forty-ninth Psalm and fifteenth verse, it is thus written: ''But God shall deliver my soul from the place of Hades, for He shall receive me." 2. The heart of the eai^th, which we find in St. Mat- thew's Gospel (xii. 40), in which place our Lord Him- self said : *' For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.^^ 3. The lower parts of the earth, and it is so named by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 9, 10), where he thus speaks concerning our Blessed Lord : ** Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also de- scended first into the lower ^ parts of the earth f He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." 4. Hades and Destruction, which we find in the Book of Job (xxvi. 6), and it is expressed after this manner : " Hades is naked before Him, and destruction hath no covering;" and again in the Book of Proverbs (xv. 11), we have it recorded thus : " Hades and destruction are before the Lord : how much more then the hearts of the children of men ?" 5. Death and Hades, which will be found in the Book of Revelation (xx. 13, 14), where the declaration of the inspired writer is to this effect: ''And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and Death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them : and they were judged, every man according to their works. And Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." 196 SORIPTDRAL DOCTRINE OF HADES. 6. Death, which is mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah (liii. 12), "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong ; because He hath poured out His soul unto death : and He was numbered with the transgressors ; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgres- sors." In the Gospel of St. Matthew (xxvi. 38), we have ' these words: ''Then saith He (Jesus) unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.^^ Ezekiel (xxxi. 14) thus speaks : "■ They are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth." 7. The Deep, which is spoken of by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (x. 6, 7), where he uses these words : '* But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven" (that is, to bring Christ down from above): or, ** Who shall descend into the deep V (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead). Let us pause to examine this text, which is decisive as to where Christ was between His death and death and resurrection. The word here rendered the *' Deep,'''' is in the original "J/56>