believe the Apostle uses this language by accommodation,— that he panders to the mistaken notions of those whom he addresses; for the moment we do this, we transfer the standard of truth and error from the pages of revelation to our own minds; we bend the Bible to our own opinions and judgments, when we should conform our opinions to the Bible. Indeed, we become, to all intents and purposes, infidels, and open the door to an entirely unrestrained liberty with the Divine Word. Sad havoc are the abettors of this theory of accommodation making of the most important truths of scripture. "The doctrines of the Trinity, of the divine Sonship of the Messiah, of the Atonement, of the personality of the Holy Spirit, of a corporeal resurrection, and of a final judgment, have all been swept away by them, and even the idea of Christianity being, in any peculiar sense, a revelation from heaven, has been sometimes represented merely as a mode of speech suited to the time of its appearance." (Fair. Her. Man.) We are to remember Peter was an inspired teacher. It was not his mission to please men, and fall in with and confirm their false opinions and beliefs, but rather to instruct them, and guide them into the truth. Can we believe, then, Peter would have contributed to uphold and confirm in the minds of men so great an error as the dogma of a common underground repository of the dead? The words of Dean Trench, although originally applied to another point, are of exact appropriateness here: "For this error, if it was an error, was so little an innocuous one, that might have been safely left to drop naturally away, was, on the contrary, one which reached so far in its consequences, entwined its roots so deeply among the very ground truths of religion, that it could never have been suffered to remain at the hazard of all the misgrowths which it must needs have occasioned." We cannot, therefore, think this text favors the idea of the local descent of Christ's spirit to a subterranean realm, the temporary abode of the departed. In addition to the scriptural objections to this theory, we might, did our limits allow, refer to the metaphysical one, arising from a consid

eration of the relation of spirit to space. The fundamental idea of the theory looks like a relic of heathenism, which, through ignorance or sectarian bias, as is the case with many other heathenish notions, has been foisted into the scriptures.

The great prevalence of this dogma, and the fact that, at the present time, it seems to be gaining new adherents, especially from the advocates of a probationary state after death, have compelled us to go into such an extended discussion of it as leaves us little space for other interpretations. The gist only of one or two more prominent interpretations will we give.

(2.) One of these is that which regards "the spirits in prison" as sinful men righteously condemned, the slaves and captives of satan, shackled with the fetters of sin, and cites in justification Isa. xlii. 6, 7: "I the Lord have called thee..... to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house." Christ's being "quickened in spirit" is taken to mean, that in consequence of his penal, vicarious, and expiatory sufferings denoted by "put to death in flesh," he became spiritually alive and powerful, in a sense and to a degree in which he was not previously, and in which but for these sufferings he never could have become, full of life to communicate to dead souls, "mighty to save." Or as others express the same idea, Christ was quickened in reference to his great work, the salvation of mankind; quickened as to that efficacious agency by which this work was to be carried forward; an agency by which Christ made himself to be felt among men in his power to save; an agency which diffused new and mighty life through his body, the church, and, by means of his church thus vitalized, throughout the world. In the spirit, thus understood, he was straitened before his death, according to his own complaint (Luke xii. 50). After his death he was quickened; life flowed from him, filling his church with vitality, agreeably to his own forcible illustration (Jno. xii. 24): "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth

forth much fruit"; agreeably also to his prediction (Jno. xii. 32): "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." The going and preaching of Christ, according to this scheme, describe not what our Lord did bodily (σαρκικῶς or σωματικώς), but what he did spiritually (πvevμatikŵs), not what he did personally, but what he did by the instrumentality of others. The preaching of Paul and the Apostles and of all their successors, all preaching addressed to sinners is the preaching of Christ to spirits in prison. Whatever Christ's disciples do in the discharge of their great commission, it is not they, but Christ by them. This interpretation is, for substance, adopted by Bishop Leighton, and many other expositors, and is advocated by Professor Brown of Edinburgh, in an Article of the Bib. Sac. for Nov. 1847. Of this scheme we remark: It is in many respects plausible, and it displays much ingenuity. Indeed, it is ingenious to a fault. So far as it relates to the phrase, "quickened in spirit," we adopt it as the true explanation, fully sustained by other passages of Scripture. But to make τοῖς πνεύμασι ἐν φυλακῇ (the spirits in prison), mean sinful men, seems to us unnatural, and by no means justified by the texts cited in its support, or by any texts which can be cited. That "prison" and "prisoners" in the passage of Isaiah referred to have a metaphorical sense, meaning spiritual captivity, and spiritually captive men, we have no doubt. But this is rather the usus loquendi of the Old than the New Testament. Sinners in the New Testament are called with great force servants, slaves, bondmen, but not prisoners. Their condition is described as servitude rather than imprisonment. Besides, we are not aware that the word veúμaσ (spirits) can be employed to designate men in the body. The result of our investigations is that this term invariably denotes disembodied spirits, or the spirit in distinction from the body. Nor, again, will the context. allow us to understand by "spirits in prison," sinners of a time subsequent to the Christian Era. In the Greek a simple comma separates the 19th and 20th verses, and we should read: "In which spirit, he going, preached unto the

spirits in prison, which spirits in prison were disobedient then, when (TOTE, ÖTE) the long suffering of God was waiting in the days of Noah." The correlative particles (TOTE, ŐTE) mark definitely the time when these disobedient spirits disobeyed. That time was in the days of Noah. The scheme under consideration attempts to escape from this difficulty by alleging that "spirits in prison" is a phrase characteristic of men in all ages, and then reading "Jesus Christ came and preached to spiritually captive men who in former times, and especially in the days of Noah, had been hard to convince." In justification of this reading the only expression given is "God sent the Gospel to the Britons, who in the days of Caesar were painted savages." But these expressions are very remotely analogous, if there is any analogy between them. And, again, this idiom is not found in the scriptures, to say the least of it. And, still again, "spirits in prison," instead of being a phrase characteristic of men in all ages, is, as we have already shown, characteristic of men in the body in no age.

(3.) Still another prevalent interpretation of this text is that which, like the one last stated, makes "quickened in spirit" signify that our Saviour was filled with the spirit above measure as a consequence of his penal sufferings, which spirit he poured out from on high, baptizing his church with it and diffusing, through his church, a heavenly life among the nations. This theory, also, like the one last named, makes the preaching of Christ here spoken of instrumental. But instead of considering the Apostles and men of the present dispensation the instruments by whom our Lord preached, it regards Noah as the sole instrument. By "spirits in prison it understands lost spirits now in hell, the spirits of those antediluvians to whom Noah preached righteousness without effect. The sense of the passage, according to this theory is expressed by the following paraphrase. "Christ exerted himself by the spirit, through the ministrations of Noah, when the deluge was at hand. He then preached, by his faithful prophet, to the disobedient persons of that generation, whose disobedient spirits are now in the prison of

hell, bearing the just punishment of their incorrigible impenitence." This exposition is advocated in the Biblical Repository for April 1843, in an Article by Rev. T. H. Skinner, D.D., of New York. This theory, too, all must admit has whatever merit there is in ingenuity; and, while it is not open to some of the objections which the last-named theory encounters, it is encumbered by others from which that is free. But not to notice minor points, we find at least two insuperable objections to it. 1.The first is, it unwarrantably changes the collocation of the words of the passage. From the Greek as it stands in any approved edition, and in fact from any natural translation, no unsophisticated, indeed no quite studious, reader, would gather the meaning indicated. The theory requires the transposition of two entire clauses, for which there is no apparent reason. The structure of the various sentences of this passage, in the original, is neither abrupt nor incoherent, but remarkably regular. 2. Moreover, this interpretation is liable to the objection of being farfetched and forced. It is non congruens sermo, not at all suggested by or in harmony with the context, in which there is not the remotest allusion to the pre-existence of Christ. The introduction of that important doctrine just in this place is exceedingly abrupt and unnatural.

Having noticed some of the prominent interpretations of this difficult passage with a brief statement of the reasons that compel us to reject them, we would be glad now, were we able, in a few words, to give the true sense of it. In this endeavor we are by no means confident of success. The best that we can do is to state that interpretation. which at the present stage of our investigations most commends itself to us, holding the mind open to conviction by any additional light to be received in the future. In the discussion of this subject it is much easier to deny than to affirm, to demolish than to build. In our affirmations we propose to advance cautiously and step by step.

(1.) One thing is clear. The passage implies that the spirit of Christ at the moment of the death of his body passed into the spirit world. The construction of the Greek inevitably VOL. XIX. No. 73.

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