has all along been, and still is,* of their opinion. The Council in Trullo, which is accounted a general one, forbids "the making † of the blood of any animal into a sauce." And so does one of the canons, called Apos tolic, forbid "the eating of blood, or any thing strangled, or torn by beasts."

8. They do many of them (but not all) hold the opinion which Calvin, in a treatise on purpose §, confutes, as held by the German Antipædobaptists, and which, by the foregoing account, is said to be still held by the Minnists of Holland, from whom our Antipædobaptists must have had it;- that the soul sleeps, or is senseless, from the time of a man's death till the resurrection of his body.

This opinion is very wide from that of the primitive Christians; yet many of the most ancient of them held an opinion that is middle between this and that which is now commonly held ;- they held that the soul at death goes not to Heaven (at least none but martyrs' souls) but to Hades; and that after the general resurrection, the soul and body united again, are received to Heaven; that the souls of the patriarchs were in Hades; and that Christ's soul went to Hades. By Hades, they mean the general receptacle, or state, of souls good and bad, till the resurrection, save that some few of them make Hades the place of the bad, and Abraham's Bosom of the good; but, generally, they speak of Abraham's bosom as one part of Hades; so that it was counted a place or state quite different from Heaven and from Hell, as we English do commonly now understand the word Hell.

It is great pity that the English translators of the Creed and of the Bible, did not keep the word Hades in the translation, as they have done some original words which had no English word answering to them. By translating it Hell, and the English having no other word for Gehenna (which is the place prepared for the

* Sir Paul Ricaut's Hist. of Gr. Church, ch. 20.

+ Can. 67.

Can. 63.

§ Psychopannychia,

Devil and the damned) than the same word Hell likewise, it has created a confusion in the understanding of English readers. We say, Christ descended into Hell; we ought to mean Hades, for so it is in the Greek, Kareẞn is "Ads; and so St. Peter, Acts ii. 31, his soul was not left is "Ads in Hades. But when we read of Hell (Matt. v. 20, 22, 29, 30.) and such other places where the original word is Gehenna, we ought to understand the Hell of the damned; and the import of these two words in the original differs so much, that whereas all Christians ever believed that Christ descended into Hades; yet if any had said he descended into Gehenna, he would have been accounted to blaspheme and yet the English expresses both by the same word.

To give an account at once of all the places in the Bible where the word Hell is used, where we read Hell in these texts following, it is in the original, Gehenna, or else Tartarus, and ought to be understood the Hell of the damned (Matt. v. 22, 29, 30; Matt. x. 28; Luke xii. 5; Matt. xviii. 8, 9; Mark ix. 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48; Matt. xxiii. 15, 33; James iii. 6; 2 Peter ii. 4.) But where we read Hell or Grave in these texts following, the word is Hades, and ought to be understood only the state or receptacle of departed souls; or, in some of them, no more than in general a state of dissolution (Matt. xxi. 23; Luke x. 15; Matt. xvi. 18; Luke xvi. 23; Acts ii. 27, 31; 1 Cor. xv. 55.) where it is translated Grave (Rev. i. 18; vi. 8; and xx. 13, 14.) And in the Old Testament, wherever we read Hell, it is to be understood Hades. Jacob and David, &c. whenever they speak of their dying, call it their going to Sheol,-Hades; which words our English translates sometimes Hell, sometimes Grave, &c. And this shews St. Austin's observation to be a mistake; for he says that Infernum, which is the translation of Hades in many places, is never taken in Scripture in a good sense, or as the fate of a good man.

*

* Epist. 99.

It is plain that Tertullian took it otherwise, by the following passages, besides many other. In his book De Anima, cap. 7, he speaks of the different state of departed souls, receiving either "torment in fire, or comfort in Abraham's bosom, in carcere seu diversorio inferum in the prison or receptacle of Hades." And in his book De Idolat. cap. 13, he speaks of Lazarus being apud inferos in sinu Abrahæ; which, translated into English, in our common way of speaking, would be in Hell, in Abraham's bosom.' It must be translated Hades.

Note, That in all the texts of the Revelation, Death and Hades, @ávaros kai aons, are joined together; and that, at the general resurrection, Death and Hades deliver up the dead that are in them, viz. to be tried at that great judgment: and then Death and Hades are cast into the Lake, &c. i. e. there is to be no more death nor hades; but all is to be either Heaven or Hell, i. e. an eternal and unchangeable estate of woe or of bliss.

Beside the places aforesaid, several, if not all, of the most ancient copies [67] of the Acts of the Apostles, had the word [300] adne in ch. ii. 24; for where we read,― having loosed the pains of death; for it was not possible, &c. they for Oavárs read r "Ads, the pains of Hades. So reads Irenæus, lib. 3, cap. 12, [in the apostles' time] St. Austin's Epist. 99, and other places; and Polycarp. Epist. ad Philipp.

Now the antients did not think that the state of the soul in Hades was to sleep, or be senseless; on the contrary, our Saviour in the parable (Luke xvi. 22, 23.) represents Dives and Lazarus both in Hades (or one in Hades, and one in Abraham's bosom, if we take Ab aham's bosom as out of Hades) but a great way off from one another, in very different states; neither of them asleep; but one in torment, the other in repose. And all the antients do instance in this parable as a proof, that before the general judgment there will be a difference made between the state of good men's souls and those of wicked men. Tertullian [100]

6

speaks of some who argued that there will be no judginent before the great one, when the soul and body shall be joined, and answers them, Quid ergo fiet in tempore isto? Dormiemus? &c. What then 'shall we do in the mean time? Shall we be asleep? 'Souls don't sleep, not even when they are in the bo'dies,' &c. And Eusebius [120] † tells of some heterodox people in Arabia, who held "that the soul for the present dies together with the body, and is raised to life again together with it." He says, Origin, being sent thither, presently convinced those people.

But as the foresaid Christians of these ancient times did not think that the soul sleeps, so neither were they, generally speaking, of the opinion that the souls of dying men go presently to Heaven or to Gehenna. I shall, for brevity, only recite what Justin Martyr and Irenæus do say: Justin, in his Dialogue, speaking of some heretics, οι λέγεσι μὴ εἶναι ἀνάστασιν νεκρών, ἀλλὰ ἅμα τῷ ἀποθνήκειν, τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν ἀναλαμβάνεσαι εἰς τὸν ἔρανον μὴ ὑπολάβητε αὐτὲς Χριστιανές. · Who

" say there is no resurrection of the dead; but that when they die, their souls are taken up to Heaven,

adds, Do not take these men for Christians.' And Irenæus, in like manner, had been saying, that most of the heretics denied the resurrection of the body; but held, instead of it, that when they died, their souls should presently fly away up to Heaven; and that some erroneous Catholics held with them in this latter tenet, though not in the former. He urges against them the example of our Saviour; "Who (says he) observed in himself the law of dead persons, and did not presently after his death, go to Heaven, but staid three days in the place of the dead." It is plain, then, by the way, that he took that Paradise where the thief was to be that day with our Saviour, to be not properly Heaven, but a station in Hades. Then a little after, he argues thus: "Whenas, then, our

* De Animâ, cap. ult.

Lib. 5, cap. 31.

+ H. E. lib. 6, cap. 7.

-

Lord went into the midst of the shadow of death, where the souls of deceased persons abode, and then afterward rose again in the body, and was after his resurrection, taken up to Heaven, — it is plain that the souls of his disciples, for whose sake the Lord did these things, shall go likewise to that invisible place appointed to them by God, and there abide till the resurrection, waiting for the time thereof; and afterwards receiving their bodies, and rising again perfectly; i. e. in their bodies, as our Lord did, shall so come to the sight of God. For the disciple is not above his Master; but every one that is perfect shall be as his

Master.

As, therefore, our Master did not presently fly up to Heaven, but waiting till the time of his resurrection that was appointed by the Father, which had been foreshewn by Jonas, and rising the third day, was so taken to Heaven, so we must also wait the time of our resurrection appointed by God, which is foretold by the prophets; and so rising again be taken up, so many of us as the Lord shall account worthy."

This, as might be shewn by many more quotations, was the most general opinion of those times. It is true indeed, that some fathers spoke of the soul as going directly to Heaven; and that this became afterwards the prevailing opinion in the Western Church; which is also affirmed in a homily* of the Church of England, set forth in the time of Queen Elizabeth. So that it seems to have been the general opinion of the Protestants in England at that time; but before the making of that homily, several of our first reformers declared against it, - as Tyndal, in his answer to Sir Thomas More; and Frith in his answer to Bishop Fisher: and ever since the making of it, there have been, and still are, some divines of great note and station in that church, who do plainly enough shew their sentiment to be otherwise.

The reasons given by the former, viz. Tyndal, Frith,

*Third part of the Sermon concerning Prayer.