not here meant the sepulchre, as some have not less impiously than ignorantly, imagined; for, in the preceding Article we learned that Christ was buried: and there was no reason why the Apostles, in delivering an article of faith, should repeat the same thing in other and more obscure terms. Hell, then, here signifies those secret abodes in which are detained the souls that have not been admitted to the regions of bliss; a sense in which the word is frequently used in Scripture. Thus, the Apostle says, that, " at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those that are in heaven, on earth and in hell;" [1] and in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says, that Christ the Lord was again risen, " having loosed the sorrows of hell." [2]
These abodes are not all of the same nature, for amongst them, is that most loathsome and dark prison in which the souls of the damned are buried with the unclean spirits, in eternal and inextinguishable fire. This dread abode is called Gehenna, the bottom less pit, and, strictly speaking, means hell. Amongst them is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment, in order to be admitted into their eternal country, " into which nothing defiled entereth." [3] The truth of this doctrine founded, as holy councils declare, [4] on Scripture, and confirmed by apostolical tradition, demands diligent and frequent exposition, proportioned to the circumstances of the times in which we live, when men endure not sound doctrine. Lastly, the third kind of abode is that into which the souls of the just, who died before Christ, were received, and where, without experiencing any sort of pain, and supported by the blessed hope of redemption, they enjoyed peaceful repose. To liberate these souls, who, in the bosom of Abraham, were expecting the Saviour, Christ the Lord descended into hell.
But we are not to imagine that his power and virtue only, but we are also firmly to believe that his soul also, really and substantially descended into hell, according to this conclusive testimony of David: " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." [5] But, although Christ descended into hell, his supreme power was still the same; nor was the splendour of his sanctity in any degree obscured. His descent served rather to prove, that what ever has been already said of his sanctity was true; and that as he had previously demonstrated by so many miracles, he was truly the Son of God.
This we shall easily understand by comparing the descent of Christ, in its causes and circumstances, with that of the just - They descended as captives: [6] He as free and victorious amongst the dead, to subdue those demons by whom, in consequence of primeval guilt, they were held in captivity they descended, some to endure the mos" acute torments, others, though exempt from actual pain, yet deprived of the vision of God, and of the glory for which they sighed, and consigned to the torture of sus-
