But the greatest influence which this doctrine has upon us is by making our Saviour a present reality to us. He is a Saviour to us here, and now, in these ends of the earth. He not only loved his disciples in Bethany and Jerusalem, he loves us also. He is personally interested in our daily trials and temptations. This thought causes the Saviour to seem nearer and more real to'us than he otherwise would. He seems present. And this nearness and interest in our behalf helps our infirmities. We love the Saviour as we could not love him under other circumstances. Had we no belief of his present interest in our welfare, did we suppose that all his influence ceased when he ascended to heaven from near Bethany, we should not, we could not, feel that our Saviour is so real, as when we believe that he is now breathing upon the soul the air of heaven, now praying the Father for us, now bathing our hearts in the Holy Spirit. We do not seem cut off from him. Our love does not chill as it would in passing over the waste of ages to one who "eighteen hundred years ago was nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross." Now, and here, he is loving us with as intense a love as when he breathed forth his prayer in Gethsemane. Now, and here, he is devoting his soul to our welfare, to our redemption from sin, as intensely as when he had not where to lay his head, in Judea. The thought that our Saviour is not reposing, but active, makes him a reality, awakens us to a perception of his existence, and thus binds us to him in new and strong bonds of love and gratitude. Why then should we hesitate to believe in his personal agency? He does not want the power, for the Father has given him the Spirit without measure. The Father has given him authority above all principalities and powers; and having such power, through God's appointment, can we hesitate to believe that he will use it? The Saviour's love is not cold. Surely his affections are not less warm in the atmosphere of heaven than they were on earth. Why then doubt that the Redeemer is still engaged in the glorious work of saving souls from the power of sin? For ourselves we cannot help believ ing it. The doctrine is forced upon our assent by the nature of our Saviour's office and attributes. Our heart and our reason both prompt us to receive it. We do

receive it cordially. It revives our dead affections. It makes the Saviour a present reality. It awes our passions into silence and submission.

Well would it be for the Church, well would it be for the world, if all felt this truth in its life-giving power. How many drowsy hearts it would arouse; how many sleeping churches it would awaken; how many clenched hands it would open to cast abroad the seed of the word! How would philanthropy, now crippled and enfeebled, leap like the lame man, at the thought of our Saviour's presence, and go forth in love and power to bless mankind to the ends of the earth! How would the Church, now so universally resting under the vine, indifferent to the wrongs or woes of man, the depth of pagan darkness, and the virulence of civilized wickedness, all over the earth, arise and shine in her Master's name, terrible to evil-doers as an army with banners! The Saviour must be felt to be present still, though now unseen. When this truth makes its due impression upon the hearts of Christians, when all the followers of the Saviour feel that he is with them, then will there be a moving, as among the dry bones in the prophetic valley of vision; the breath of the Lord will inspire a new and deeper life, and the hearts of his people, and those who now sit in the region of darkness and deathly shadow, will rejoice in the light which is beaming upon them from the glorified Redeemer; the choir above and the choir below will mingle their voices in one joyful anthem of thanksgiving to him that was dead and is alive, and liveth and blesseth them for evermore.

R. P. S.

ART. IV. - PETER'S DOCTRINE OF THE LAST THINGS.

THE fundamental and pervading aim of that Epistle of Peter the genuineness of which is unquestioned - and the same is true in a great degree of his speeches recorded in the Acts of the Apostles is to exhort the Christians to whom it is written, to purify themselves by faith, love, and good works; to stand firmly amidst all their tribulations, supported by the expectation, and pre

pared to meet the conditions, of a glorious life in heaven. at the close of this life. Eschatology, the doctrine of the Last Things, with its practical inferences, all inseparably interwoven with the mission of Christ, forms the basis and scope of the whole document.

What conception Peter entertained of the nature and original rank of Christ—whether he was the Logos, whether he was preexistent, or whether he was merely a divinely accredited, though a human messenger - cannot be told with certainty from his brief and vague references to that point. But since there is nothing in his writings indicating the contrary, we ought to conclude that the last was his opinion, as that would be the most natural view to a Jew. He speaks of the Saviour with clear and repeated emphasis as the true prophetic Messiah, and as charged with the functions of that exalted personage: to fulfil the ancient dispensations and promises, declare the word of eternal life, reconcile sinners to God, bring the Gentiles into the fold of faith, and judge the quick and the dead. His opinions concerning Christ can be gathered only by inference from the offices he attributes to him; and these not being metaphysical or theological, but practical and historical, afford no clew to his inherent position in the scale of being. It is therefore impossible to show that to the mind of Peter Christ was in nature any thing more than a brother of our bumanity, miraculously chosen and empowered to be the Messiah. "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by wonders and signs which God did by him."

According to this Apostle, it was decreed by God, and testified by the prophets, that Christ should die and rise from the dead. "He was fore ordained before the foundation of the world." The prophets "testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have wickedly crucified and slain," "of whose resurrection David, being a prophet, spake."

Peter believed that, when Christ had been put to death, his spirit, surviving, descended into the under-world, the separate state of departed souls. Whoever doubts this interpretation must doubt whether there is any meaning in words. Having cited from the sixteenth Psalm the

declaration, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in the underworld," he says it was a prophecy concerning Christ, which was fulfilled in his resurrection. "The soul of this Jesus was not left in the under-world, but God hath raised him up, whereof we all are witnesses." When it is written that his soul was not left in the subterranean abode of disembodied spirits, of course the inference cannot be avoided that it was supposed to have been there for a time.

In the next place, we are warranted by several considerations in asserting that Peter believed that down there, in the gloomy realm of shades, were gathered and detained the souls of all the dead generations. We attribute this view to Peter, from the combined force of the following reasons: because such was, notoriously, the belief of his ancestral and contemporary countrymen: because he speaks of the resurrection of Jesus as if it were a wonderful prophecy, or unparalleled miracle, a signal and most significant exception to the universal law: because he says expressly of David, that "he is not yet ascended into the heavens"; and if David was still retained below, undoubtedly all were: because the same doctrine is plainly inculcated by other of the New Testament writers, especially by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and by Paul: and finally, because Peter himself, in another part of this Epistle, declares in unequivocal terms that the soul of Christ went and preached to the souls confined in the under-world; for such is the perspicuous, unavoidable meaning of the famous text, "being put to death in the body, but kept alive in the soul, in which also he went and preached [went as a herald] to the spirits in prison." The meaning we have attributed to this celebrated passage is the only simple and consistent explanation of the words and the context, and is what must have been conveyed to those familiar with the received opinions of that time. Accordingly, we find that, with the exception of Augustine, it was so understood and interpreted by the whole body of the Fathers. It is likewise so held now by an immense

*

* See Christian Examiner for September, 1852, and for March, 1853. See, for example, Clem. Alex. Stromata, Lib. VI., ed. Heinsii, p. 459; Cyprian, Test. adv. Judæos, Lib. II. cap. 27; Lactantius, Divin. Instit. Lib. VII. cap. 20; etc., etc., etc.

majority of the most authoritative modern commentators. Rosenmüller says, in his commentary on this text, "that by the spirits in prison is meant souls of men separated from their bodies, and detained as in custody in the under-world, which the Greeks call Hades, the Hebrews Sheol, can hardly be doubted" (vix dubitari posse videtur). Such has ever been and still is the common conclusion of nearly all the best critical theologians, as volumes of citations might easily be made to show. The reasons which led Augustine to give a different exposition of the text before us are such as should make, in this case, even his great name have but little or no weight. He firmly held, as revealed and unquestionable truth,* the whole doctrine which we maintain is implied in the present passage, but he was so perplexed by certain difficult queries † as to locality and method and circumstance, addressed to him with reference to this text, that he, waveringly, and at last, gave it an allegorical interpretation. His exegesis is not only unsound, arbitrary, opposed to the catholic doctrine of the Church; it is also so far-fetched and forced as to be destitute of plausibility. He says the spirits in prison may be the souls of men confined in their bodies here in this life, to preach to whom Christ came from heaven. But the careful reader will observe that Peter speaks as if the spirits were collected and kept in one common custody, refers to the spirits of a generation long ago departed to the dead, and represents the preaching as taking place in the interval between Christ's death and his resurrection. A glance from the eighteenth to the twenty-second verse inclusive shows indisputably that the order of events narrated by the Apostle is this: First, Christ was put to death in the flesh, suffering for sins, the just for the unjust; secondly, he was quickened in the spirit; thirdly, he went and preached to the spirits in prison; fourthly, he rose from the dead; fifthly, he ascended into heaven. How is it possible for any one to doubt that the text under consideration teaches his subterranean mission during the period of his bodily burial?

In the exposition of the Apostles' Creed put forth by the Church of England under Edward VI., this text in

* See Epist. XCIX.

t Ibid.