only as we are Christians, but as we are men. We want not the light of revelation to lead us to the discovery of this truth; we must be acquainted with it, we cannot shut out it's irresistible evidence. Forget it we may for a season, and put off the thoughts of it; but they will force themselves upon the mind at certain times, and many occasions will oblige us to remember that we must go hence, and part with all that we love so immoderately. It is in our power to set our hearts upon earthly things, and make them so necessary to us as not to be able to enjoy any quiet without them. It is in our power to employ all our days and our industry in labouring to acquire and to secure them; it is in our power to inflame our passions, and to weaken our reason, and to endear this world to us, and to make ourselves unwilling to leave it, and unfit to die. Thus far our power reacheth; but it cannot alter the stubborn nature of things, it cannot fix those which are fleeting and delusive, nor stamp innocence upon those which are forbidden. Nature and experience teach us, that we are strangers here below; and that though the things of this life are very unequally distributed amongst men, and the most deserving are commonly the worst accommodated, yet death equals and levels all, and makes the difference between their con dition appear almost insensible. This consideration alone might keep us from envying the great, and from a slavish regard to earthly things: but it might still leave us dissatisfied with our state, and inclined to think that we might as well have never been called into being. Religion joins her testimony to our experience, in telling us, that we are strangers and sojourners here below; but then she tells us better things, and assures us that we have a home and peaceful abodes, where we shall dwell for ever. Since, then, by the Divine appointment and the laws of nature, our continuance here is short, and our present possessions uncertain, the best course that we can take to pass those few days with comfort and satisfaction is, to remember the end for which we were made, to provide for the unchangeable state to which we are approaching, and to entertain moderate affections towards the things which we cannot call our own. He who acts thus, if we suppose him to have fewer pleasures than worldly-minded persons, which however is not true, yet hath undoubtedly fewer troubles and disappointments, and is better able to bear them when they come. CHAPTER X. SECKER. AMONGST the "glorious company glorious company" of English divines, (and surely men so distinguished for intellectual power and virtuous practice deserve to be so designated,) none has been more eminent than Secker, either for deep learning, or for simple, unaffected piety. No one better understood, or has more clearly explained the principles of the Christian religion. In his Catechetical Lectures he thus writes: The last part of this article is, that he descended into hell: an assertion founded on Psal. xvi. 10. where David prophesies of Christ, what St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles explains of him, * that his soul should not be left in hell; which imports, that once he was there. And hence, after some time it was inserted into our Creed, which in the beginning had it not. However being taught in *Acts ii. 24-32. Scripture, the truth of this doctrine is indubitable: the only question is about the meaning of it. The first thought of most, or all persons, to be sure, will be, that the word hell, in this article, signifies what it doth in common speech, the place where devils and wicked men are punished. And it hath been imagined, that Christ went to triumph over the devil there; and some add, to rescue part of the souls which he held under confinement*, by preaching, as the Scripture saith he did, to the spirits that were in prison †. But the place of torment is never determinately expressed in Scripture by the word Hades, which both the Scripture and the Creed use in this article, but by very different ones; though unhappily our translation hath used the same English word for both, instead of calling the former, what it strictly signifies, the invisible state or region. Besides, we do not read of our Saviour's triumphing over the devil any where, but on the Cross ‡. And the spirits in prison, to whom St. Peter saith, Christ by his spirit preached, he saith also were those, which were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah §. And therefore Christ's preaching to them by his spirit, probably Origen against Celsus, 1. 2. § 42. saith, that Christ converted souls to himself there, τὰς βουλομένας, ἢ ἃς ἑώρα ἐπιτηδειοτέρας. § 1 Peter iii. 20. † 1 Peter iii. 19. Col. ii. 14, 15. means, his exciting by his spirit, which strove with them for a time, that patriarch to be a preacher of righteousness among them, as the same St. Peter, in his other Epistle, calls him †. But not hearkening to him then, they are now in prison, reserved for the sentence of the last day. This opinion therefore hath no sufficient foundation. Nor would it be found, on further trial, agreeable either to reason or scripture. Others have thought the word, translated hell, to signify in this article, as it seems to do in some passages of the Old Testament, and as the English word anciently did, merely a place under ground, by which they understand the grave. And they plead for it, that the first Creeds, which mentioned our Saviour's descending into hell, used no other words to express his being buried, and therefore designed to express it by these. But allowing that, still our Creed, expressing the descent into hell, after the burial, must mean a different thing by it. And indeed the most common meaning, not only among heathens, but Jews and the first Christians, of the word Hades, here translated hell, was in general, that invisible world, one part or another of which, the souls of the deceased, whether good or bad, inhabit. And this, how strange soever it may * Gen. vi. 3. 2 Pet. ii. 5. |