because I chose to insist rather upon matters more clear in their nature, and practical in consequence ;) I could therefore, I say, willingly wave this obscure and perplexed subject; yet however, to comply somewhat with expectation, I shall touch briefly upon some things seeming conducible to the clearing or ending of the controversies hereabout. Now whereas there may be a threefold inquiry, either concerning the meaning of the words (here set down) intended by those who inserted them; or concerning the most proper signification of the words themselves; or concerning the meaning they are with truth capable of in the case to which they here are applied; 1. The first I resolve (or rather remove) by saying, that it seems needless and endless to dispute, what meaning they (which placed these words here) did intend; since, 1. It is possible, (and might be declared so by many like instances,) and perhaps not unlikely, that they might both themselves upon probable grounds believe, and for plausible ends propound to the belief of others, this proposition, without apprehending any distinct sense thereof; as we believe all the scriptures, and commend them to the faith of others, without understanding the sense of many passages therein and since, 2. Perhaps they might by them intend some notion not certain, or not true, following some conceits then prevalent, but not built upon any sure foundations: and since, 3. To speak roundly, their bare authority, whoever they were, (for that doth not appear,) could not be such as to oblige us to be of their minds, whatever they did mean or intend. We may owe much reverence, but no entire credence to their opinions. Yet, 4. If I were bound to speak my thought, I must confess, supposing they had any distinct meaning, they did mean to say, that our Saviour's soul did, by a true and proper kind of motion, descend into the regions infernal, or beneath the earth; where they conceived the souls of men were detained: for this appears to have been the more general and current opinion of those times, which it is probable they did comply with herein, whencesoever fetched, however grounded. As to the second inquiry, concerning the signification of the words, what may be meant by he descended; whether our Saviour himself, according to his humanity, or his soul, or his body, called he by synecdoche: what by descended; whether, (to omit that sense, which makes the whole sentence an allegory, denoting the sufferance of infernal or hellish pains and sorrows, as too wide from the purpose ;) whether, I say, by descending may be signified a proper local motion toward such a term, or an action so called in respect to some such motion accompanying it; or a virtual motion by power and efficacy in places below: what by hell; whether a state of being, or a place; if a place, whether that where bodies are reposed, or that to which souls do go; and if a place of souls, whether the place of good and happy souls, or that of bad and miserable ones; or indifferently and in common, of both those; for such a manifold ambiguity these words have, (or are made to have ;) and each of these senses are embraced and contended for: I shall not examine any of them, nor further meddle in the matter, than by saying, 1. That the Hebrew word sheol (upon the true notion of which the sense of the word hell in this place is confessed to depend) doth seem originally, most properly, and most frequently (perhaps constantly, except when it is translated, as all words sometimes are, to a figurative use) to design the whole region protended downward from the surface of the earth to a depth (according to the vulgar opinion, as it seems, of all ancient times over the world) indefinite and inconceivable; vastly capacious in extension, very darksome, desolate, and dungeon-like in quality, (whence it is also styled "Aburres frequently the pit, the abyss, the darkness, the Xavos big depths of the earth, &c.) I need not labour much to confirm the truth of this notion, since it is obvious, that this sheol (when most absolutely and Ecclus. xxi. properly taken, the circumstances of the discourse uxès dou, implying so much) is commonly opposed to heaven, Βάθιστον ὑπὸ xovòs θρον. Νερτέριος κευθμών. Βαθρές ᾅδου, II. Ecclus.xvii. ἀπώλεια, 20. διαφθορά, Ps. cvii. 10. 14. not only in situation, but in dimension and distance; Prov. xxvii. as when Job, speaking of the unsearchableness of the divine perfections, saith, It is as high as heaPs. xv. 10. ven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; lxxxviii. 6. what canst thou know? and the prophet Amos; Eccl. vi. 4. Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand Job xvii. 13. take them; though they climb up into heaven, Ps. lxxi. 20. thence will I bring them down. I say further, cxliii. 3. 1 Sam. ii. 9. Prov. ix. 18. Amos ix. 2. cxxxix. 8. 2. Because the bodies (that is, the visible remain ders) of men dying do naturally fall down, or are Deut.xxxii. put into the bosom of this pit, (which is therefore Isa. Ivii. 9. an universal grave and receptacle of them,) therefore 22. to die is frequently termed καταβαίνειν εἰς ᾅδου, οι κατáyeobaι eis adou, to descend, or to be brought down into this hell; which happening unto all men withPs. lxxxix. out exception, (for, as the Psalmist says, there is no man that shall deliver his soul (or life, or him 48. xxxvii. 35. self,) from the hand (or from the clutches) of this all-grasping hell,) therefore it is attributed promiscuously to all men, to good and bad alike; I will Gen. go down, saith good Jacob, unto the grave, (to sheol, xliv. 29, 31. this common grave of mankind, καταβήσομαι εἰς ᾅδου) unto my son mourning; and so frequently of others. Whence this hell is apt figuratively to be put for, and signify equivalently with, death itself, (it is once 6. by the LXX. so translated, and by St. Peter, it 2 Sam.xxii, seems, after them,) or for the law, condition, and Acts ii. 24. state thereof. I say further, 3. That this word seems not in the ancient use to signify the place whither men's souls do go, or where they abide; for that, Isa.xxxviii. 18. 1. It can hardly be made appear that the ancient Hebrews either had any name appropriate to the place of souls, or did conceive distinctly which way they went; otherwise than that, as the Preacher speaks, they returned unto God who gave them; Eccl. xii. 7. that they abode in God's hand, (especially the souls of the just, as we have it in Wisdom; The souls of Wisd. iii. 1. the righteous are in the hand of God, and there xxxiii. 3. shall no torment touch them, &c.) And for that, Deut. 2. It is probable they did rather conceive the souls of men, when they died, did go upward than downward; as the same Preacher intimates, differ- Eccl. iii. 21. encing the spirit of man dying from the soul of beasts; that with its body descending, this ascending, as it were, unto God, to be disposed according to his pleasure and justice. And by Enoch's being Gen. v. 24. taken unto God, (whose special residence is ex-T. pressed to be in heaven above,) and by Elias's trans-Arist. de lation upward into heaven, (as it is in the history,) 2 Kings ii. it seems they might rather suppose the souls of the ἐν τοῖς ἄνω Cœlo. 11. II. 14. righteous to ascend, than to be conveyed downward into subterraneous caverns; those μvxoì, that Bólpos Ecclus.xxi.adou, (those closets, that deep pit of hell, as the son Wisd. xvii. of Sirach and the book of Wisdom do call them ;) to ascend, I say, into consortship and society with the blessed angels, who are described to attend upon God's throne in heaven, to the family of God in heaven, to that heavenly country, which they are said to desire earnestly, the heavenly Jerusalem. I add, 18. 3. That, if those ancients had by sheol meant the receptacle or mansion of souls, it is not likely Isa. xxxviii. they would have used such expressions; The grave (sheol) cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope Psal. vi. 5. for thy truth; so Hezekiah: In death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave (in sheol again) who shall give thee thanks; so David: and the Eccles. ix. Preacher more fully; There is no work, nor device, Vid. Ecclus, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, (in sheol,) whither thou goest: (it were much he should say so, if by sheol he meant the place of souls; except he should mean that souls after death were deprived of all life and sense.) 10. xvii. 27. I must confess, that afterwards (even before our Saviour's time) the word ons was assumed by the Jews to design (as among the Greeks) either the place of souls in common, or more strictly the place of souls condemned to punishment and pain for their evil lives here: (Josephus is observed often to use the word in the first of these senses; and in the New Testament it seems peculiarly applied to the Luke xvi. latter; as in the parable of the rich man, who being Ev T ady, in hell torments, did thence lift up his eyes, and behold afar off Lazarus in Arbaham's 23. |