ed till his resurrection-day: which is far. ther proved from the ends of his going thi ther which were chiefly these four : first, to sanctify unto his followers the state and place of their souls, during their separation from their bodies; secondly, that he might undergo a necessary and principal part of his humiliation thirdly, that he might personally, and as the head of his church, conquer death and hell, which he did by returning therefrom, and bringing the souls of several of the faithful with him: and, fourthly, that he might subject himself unto the laws of death, and be in every thing like unto us from whence it more evidently ap pears, that the descent of Christ into hell signifies no other, than the passage of his spirit unto the receptacle of separated souls. The occasion of inserting this clause in the creed, taken from the Arians, Eunomians and Apollinarians, who in a more cunning way than the former heretics, assaulted the humanity of our Saviour, by denying that he had a reasonable soul: the difference between the error of the Arians and Apollinarians herein, proved, that the Arians, or at least some of them, with the Eunomians, held, That Christ's body was void of a rational soul: but that which rendered this heresy the, more considerable and dangerous, was the espousing of it by Apollinarius the younger, the most noted person of his age for abil ity and piety; on which account, his fall was a very tender and sensible loss to the church: the time when he vented his heresy, which

was, that Christ had no human soul, but that his divinity supplied the place thereof the consequences of which opinion are instanced in several particulars. In opposition whereunto, this clause was inserted in the creed, he descended into hell which point was pitched upon by the governors of the church, - because of all the arguments used against the Apollinarists, it was the most unanswerable on which account, it is frequently urged by the fathers against them, and its falls -in most naturally with the frame of the creed, without disturbing the order thereof: the time of the introduction of this article the first public Catholic creed, wherein it is found, is that of Aquileia, recorded by Ruffinus, though before that in a private creed of Epiphanius, and even before him in a creed framed by a party of Arians at the council of Ariminum, held Anno 359. Several probable designs of those Arians herein, as to clear themselves from the suspicion of the forementioned heresy, to disgrace their great antagonist Apollinarius, and by that means to create feuds and quarrels amongst the orthodox; who, finding Apollinarius openly to declare for his heresy, entirely abandoned him, condemned him in several synods; and at length, according to the example of the Arians, inserted in the creed this antidote against his heresy, That Christ descended into hell: which in the Aquileian creed is expressed in a greater latitude, by descending into the lower parts, wherein the burial might be comprehended and de

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signed: but as it is expressed in the Roman, or our present creed, it can have no other than the forementioned signification; which, to prevent mistakes, is again repeated.

WE

E are at length arrived to that famous article of our Saviour's" descent into hell:" the truth whereof was never denied or questioned by any; for the holy scriptures do so expressly assert it, especially that text of St. Peter, cited from the psalmist, [Acts ii. 24.]Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption;" that as St. Austin affirms "none but an Infidel will deny it." But, that which hath rendered this article so noted and observable, are the various senses and different significations that have been given of it: the particulars whereof are so multiplied, that I shall not here go about to enumerate them.

In the articles of religion, set forth in the days of king Edward the sixth, this descent of our Saviour into hell, was expounded by the going of his soul unto the spirits who were in prison, or, in hell, where he preached to "them. But in a synod ten years after, in the time of queen Elizabeth, when the articles of the church were framed, which are now subscribed, as Dr. Fuller informs us in

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the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical History, the descent into hell was barely mentioned, without any explication of the manner thereof; the compilers of those articles judging it imprudent and unreasonable, to impose upon others any explanation whatsoever of a point so intricate and obscure, leaving every man in love and charity to embrace that sense thereof which seemed to him most genuine and proper; wherein the moderation of the church of England cannot be sufficiently praised, and is a most worthy pattern unto all others in the like cases, that they impose not their particular and private expositions of a perplexed and obscure doctrine as articles of faith, and terms of communion. Seeing therefore, that such worthy persons as the composers of the forementioned articles, have left every one to his liberty, to pitch upon that interpretation of this article which he esteems to be most natural and easy; it cannot be any way culpable in me, to make an essay towards the explication thereof; which, that I may the more effectually do, I shall proceed by degrees; and first observe, that what is spoken herein concerning our Lord's descent into hell, relates to his soul alone.

As the disposal of his dead body had been before declared in the term buried, so now

there follows something in the creed respecting solitarily and peculiarly his soul or spirit; for the proof whereof, I need not say much in this place, seeing it will be fully confirmed by the whole ensuing part of this chapter.But yet, that I may not affirm any thing without a direct and immediate proof, this will be most evident from the consideration of the use that the orthodox made of this point against that heresy of the Gnostics, by which they "denied the salvation of the body, and that at death their souls ascended above the heaven unto their determinated place, from whence they shall no more return unto their bodies;" for against this notion and opinion they strongly argued, "that it was an overturning the order of the resurrection, a denial of our Lord's descent into hell, and by consequence of all his followers; who, according to the scriptures of truth, must first go thither before they can be admitted to the perfect fruition of the ever blessed God;" unto which convincing argument, these heretics could frame no other reply, than that the body was the hell of soul, and that Christ's being in his body here on earth, was his descent into hell; from the pains whereof he was set free, when by death he was delivered from his body:" From whence it is most apparent, that the descent