cular, which we do not know even to have been the case, or that David was actually buried in the grave of his child at last. It means that he himself should follow his child, in due time, into the appointed locality which must receive the souls of all, when dead: it means a literal going of the father to the child, into that region of departed spirits, in opposition to a literal coming back of the child to the father, into the upper world. David could not bring him again to himself, now he was dead; but he should go himself to him, in due time, when he also should die.

The same truth is still more plainly implied by the words of Samuel to Saul, 1 Sam. xxviii. 19: "And to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with

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me." Be with Samuel, where, and in what manner? we might ask. Be with Samuel simply by being dead, as he was? But that could not be called being with Samuel, though it might have been called being as Samuel was. Besides, as it appeared from this manifestation of Samuel to Saul personally after his death, that he was still living in one sense, though dead in another sense; to be dead as Samuel was, would require to be understood of being alive in the sense in which Samuel still was, even after his apparent death; and consequently, among the other circumstances of peculiarity which distinguish the mode of the existence of the soul after death in the same locality as Samuel, and after the same manner in that locality as Sanuel. But was Saul to be with Samuel, by being with his body in the same grave with the body of Samuel ? To this supposition there would be the same objection as

before-viz. that the body of Saul, without the soul of Saul, would not be the individual Saul, of whom it was here predicted that he should be, on the morrow, with Samuel. That prediction was addressed to the living Saul; to Saul as yet consisting of a soul and a body in conjunction with each other; the disposal of the dead Saul by burial, in any manner soever, would be the disposal of the body of Saul, without the soul of Saul; and the body of Saul, without the soul of Saul, could not be the same individual Saul, after death, as before, while alive. Besides which, the bodies of Saul and his sons never rested in the same grave with Samuel's, neither the next day, nor on any other day. In fact, they rested in no grave at all, until the men of Jabesh Gilead had stolen them by night from the wall of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, and after burning the bodies, deposited the bones under the tree in Jabesh: 1 Sam. xxxi: whence they were afterwards brought, late in the reign of David, and buried in the sepulchre of Kish, the father of Saul, in Zelah of the tribe of Benjamin: 2 Sam. xxi. In no sense, then, is it possible to understand these words of Samuel to Saul, except of Saul and his sons being with Samuel at the time specified, and in the manner specified, by being in the same place of departed souls with him the place which was destined to receive all the souls of all the living, as they successively diedand which place was the local habitation of Samuel's soul, until it was brought up thence for a time to appear to Saul-and which place should be the locality of the soul of Saul, as soon as he had fallen in battle. That the souls of the dead are congregated in some proper locality, one after another,

according to the order in which they die, follows from this fact, as matter of course.

The above testimonies may suffice for the confirmation of the third of our positions. Let us now proceed to the fourth, which is, that this society, company, or congregation of disembodied souls, is not any where existent, or after any manner, but in a determinate locality, the proper name of which, considered as the receptacle of all the souls of the dead indiscriminately, is Hades in general.

Though the name of Hades is borrowed directly from the Greek language, and consequently without some explanation of its meaning, would not be intelligible to an English reader; yet in the peculiar sense of the proper locality of departed spirits, it were desirable that it should be generally adopted into our language, and so far naturalized among us. The Saxon word, Hell, might originally have been remarkably adapted to express the Greek"Aions: but it could not now be used with propriety in the sense of the local habitation of the dead in common, custom having restricted it to the sense of the locality of a part of the dead, or rather having excluded it from denoting the locality of any part of the dead at all, at least in the intermediate state between death and the resurrection, by appropriating it to the sense of the proper locality which is destined to receive such and such a portion of the dead, after the resurrection and the general judgment.

The meaning of the word in Greek, as every one acquainted with the use of the term in that language, must be aware, is the region of departed

spirits, the proper locality which was supposed to comprehend the souls of all mankind who had ceased to live-a region divided into distinct quarters, appropriated to distinct inhabitants, and subject, both in general and in particular, to its proper presiding divinities, the Dii Manes or Inferi, bearing to the lower world the same relation as the Dii Superi or Cælicolæ to the upper. How far the Greek notion

of Hades is consistent or inconsistent with that idea of the same locality which may be obtained from scripture, is another question. At present we are concerned only with the use of terms; and with the reasons of that translation which has caused the Greek name of Hades, even in the language of scripture, to be adopted for the proper denomination of the habitation of departed spirits.

It will naturally occur to the reader, however, that the name of the locality in question, must be one thing in the Old Testament which is written in Hebrew, and another in the New which is extant in Greek. It appears from the comparison of passages, that the word in Hebrew, for which the version of the Septuagint almost invariably substitutes the Greek term Hades, is Nw, or Sheol; and if we consider the closeness of that version to the original, in the selection of its terms, this may justly be regarded as the strongest argument, not only that the translators knew of no word in Greek, so well adapted to express the other in Hebrew, as that, but also that in reality a fitter term could not have been chosen for the purpose in view, than that. But we have still higher authority for the adoption and use of this peculiar term, in this peculiar sense; our Saviour having four times sanctioned it, by using it

himself once in the parable, Luke xvi. 23; and on three other occasions, each of distinct occurrence in point of time, Matt. xi. 23; xvi. 18: and Luke x. 15. And though it may be said that our Lord himself must have spoken, on each of these occasions, in the vernacular language of the time, and therefore in all probability have expressed himself by the Hebrew Sheol; yet it may be answered that the Evangelist, who has rendered his words into Greek on each occasion, has rendered the word which he used to express this Sheol, by Hades in each instance, as exactly an equivalent term: which is sufficient to prove that this was as adequate to express the meaning of our Saviour, with respect to the thing intended by it, as Sheol itself. But if we still desire the authority of inspired writers, expressing themselves directly in Greek, for the use of the same term in the same sense, we have only to refer to 1 Cor. xv. 55-where St. Paul employs it; and to Revelation i. 18; vi. 8; xx. 13, 14, where it is used by the author of that book.

Now, to suppose that the language of inspiration in the writers of the New Testament more particularly, by adopting the Greek word Hades for the locality of departed spirits, adopted also the Greek or Gentile notion of Hades; would be a very precarious supposition. It must be manifest that it adopted the same term to express the same thing, only so far as it could be used whether by inspired or by uninspired writers, in the same sense; and that was obviously no further than as it was competent to express in general, the locality of the souls of the dead, for and during the state of death