place to which he went by descent was below it; and it is with relation to these parts below the surface that his rising to life on the third day must be understood. This was only a return from the nether regions to the realms of life and day, from which he had descended,—not his ascension into heaven, which was a subsequent event, and makes a distinct article in the Creed." "The sacred writers of the Old Testament speak of such a common mansion in the inner parts of the earth; and we find the same opinion so general among the heathen writers of antiquity, that it is more probable that it had its rise in the earliest patriarchal revelations, than in the imaginations of man, or in poetical fiction. The notion is confirmed by the language of the writers of the New Testament, with this additional circumstance, that they divided this central mansion of the dead into two distinct regions, for the separate lodging of the souls of the righteous and the reprobate. In this, too, they have the concurrence of the earliest heathen poets, who placed the good and the bad in separate divisions of the central region *." In respect to the situation of Heaven and of Hades, Dr. CAMPBELL supposes that the "expressions implying that hades is under the earth, and that the seat of the blessed is above the stars, ough to be regarded merely as attempts to accommodate what is spoken to vulgar apprehensions and language +." Of the same opinion is Bishop LoWTH, who remarks, 66 Observing that after death the body returned to the earth, and that it was deposited in a sepulchre after the manner which has just been described, a sort of popular notion prevailed among the Hebrews, as well as among *Ser. xx. Vol. ii. + Prelim. Diss. vi. Part ii. other nations, that the life which succeeded the present was to be passed beneath the earth: and to this notion even the sacred prophets were obliged to allude occasionally, if they wished to be understood by the people on this subject*." From this popular opinion, that the receptacles of departed souls were under the earth, arose the use of the word descended, in reference to the passage of Christ into the place of departed spirits. But though with regard to the situation of the receptacle of the departed, there may have been an accommodation to popular notions by the inspired writers, we shall pervert entirely their meaning, and indeed render it wholly uncertain, if we suppose that this accommodation extended to all which they declare concerning the state of the dead. The basis of popular fiction in theology is, some truth or fact, which imagination or superstition may embellish or corrupt, but not to such a degree, as to disguise it, from the judicious and discriminating inquirer. And on this principle, the truths of revelation may be confirmed, by ascertaining the prevalence of opinions allied to them, in the mythology of Heathen nations. Thus, in the subject under discussion, the correspondence in many respects between the theology of the Pagans and that of the Jews concerning the state of the departed, corroborates the opinion that both must have had their origin in a patriarchal revelation; and therefore divested of the fictions of imagination, and the corruptions of superstition, must, in essential points, be true. Whatever be the precise situation of the place of departed spirits, there can be no doubt, considering it as the * Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, Vol. i. p. 163. general receptacle of the souls of the righteous and of the wicked, that they exist there in different conditions; and in different regions of that unknown abode; the one in a state of happiness and the other of misery. Although the general name for the receptacle of the departed, without particular reference to their state of happiness or misery, among the Jews was NV, sheol; among the Greeks, ans, hades; and among the Latins, orcus and inferi, all answering to the English word Hell; they all assigned different abodes in this vast region, to the righteous and the wicked. The Hades or Hell of the Heathen contained the souls of the departed, both good and bad. In his descent into Hades, Hell, ULYSSES not only saw the soul of Achilles γηθοσύνη,” joyful, traversing the “ ἀσφοδελόν λειμωνα ;” corresponding with the "amena vireta," the flowery plains of Virgil; but other souls 66 " ἀχνύμεναι, ειροντο δε κηδε, ἑκάστη "All wailing with unutterable woes Æneas and the Sybil his companion, traverse the abodes of the departed. "Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna †.” the dismal gloom they pass, and tread "Grim Pluto's courts, the regions of the dead.” Here they view the different habitations of the wicked and the good the gloomy Tartarus "the seat of night profound, and punished fiends ‡.” * Homer Odyss. xi. 536, &c. + Virg. Æn. vi. 269. Virg. Æn. vi. 542. and the fields of Elysium 66 the flowery plains "The verdant groves where endless pleasure reigns *." The Hell of the Jews seems also to have been distinguished into two regions, an upper and a lower Hell, answering to the Elysium and the Tartarus of the Poets; the lower Hell being the place destined for the souls of the wicked. "Thou hast delivered my soul," saith the Psalmist, "from the lowest Hell:" on which passage, St. Austin in his Commentary observes, "we understand it, as if there were two Hells, an upper and a lower.” Moses describes the justice of God (Deut. xxxii. 22.) a fire is kindled in mine anger, and it shall burn unto the lowest Hell" (sheol). 66 There is an ingenious conjecture of PETER'S, in his "Critical Dissertation on the book of Jobt," that the place for good souls is denoted in the Old Testament, by the phrase which so frequently occurs of "being gathered to their Fathers," or "their people;" "to the assembly of good and pious souls, worshippers of the true God, who were admitted into covenant with him, and lived and died in the observance of that covenant; as the old Patriarchs the ancestors of the Jewish people did +." But the views of the Jews with respect to a future state were comparatively obscure, because of the imperfection of their dispensation, which was only a "shadow of good things to come." Agreeably however, to the representation of the place * Virg. Æn. vi. 638. This work is quoted with respect by Abp. Magee in his Discourses on the Atonement, Note p. 347. Peter's Dissertations on Job, p. 381, 382. of the departed of the Jews, as consisting of two great divisions for the righteous and wicked, is the account of Hades or Hell which is given in the New Testament. Though in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus every circumstance is not to be understood literally, yet the general design of the parable certainly is to shew, what becomes of the souls of the righteous and the wicked after death. Hell is there represented as a vast region, which, as the receptacle of departed spirits in general, contained the soul of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, that is, 'gathered to his Fathers," in a state of blessedness with the Father of the faithful; and the soul of Dives in torment, in Hell, in the lower Sheol. But in this immeasurable region, the two abodes of the righteous and the wicked are "afar off," and between them is "a great" and impassible "gulph fixed." There appears a correspondence between this representation and the Pagan notion of the dns, Hades, or Inferi, the abodes of the departed. Homer describes Tartarus, or the place of punishment of the wicked, as far remote from Elysium, both which he comprehends under the general name of " * αιδης • But notwithstanding the distance between these separate regions, and his application of the general term Hades, to the dwelling of spirits not in punishment, he seems to consider them as parts of the same region of the departed +. So Virgil describes Tartarus, as a separate part of the great region of Orcus, Hell: 66 Respecit Æneas subito ; et subrupe sinistra |