ies due to the LOST, thus
placating the just wrath of the Father and purchasing the release
of the elect. A sufficient refutation of that dogma, as to its
philosophical basis, is found in its immorality, its forensic
technicality. As a mode of explaining the Scriptures, it is
refuted by the fact that it is nowhere plainly stated in the New
Testament, but is arbitrarily constructed by forced and indirect
inferences from various obscure texts, which texts can be
perfectly explained without involving it at all. For what purpose,
then, was it thought that Jesus went to the imprisoned souls of
the under world? The most natural supposition the conception most
in harmony with the character and details of the rest of the
scheme and with the prevailing thought of the time would be that
he went there to rescue the captives from their sepulchral
bondage, to conquer death and the devil in their own domain, open
the doors, break the chains, proclaim good tidings of coming
redemption to the spirits in prison, and, rising thence, to ascend
to heaven, preparing the way for them to follow with him at his
expected return. This, indeed, is the doctrine of the Judaizing
apostles, the unbroken catholic doctrine of the Church. Paul
writes to the Colossians, and to the Ephesians, that, when Christ
"had spoiled the principalities and powers" of the world of the
dead, "he ascended up on high, leading a multitude of captives."
Peter himself declares, a little farther on in his epistle, "that
the glad tidings were preached to the dead, that, though they had
been persecuted and condemned in the flesh by the will of men,
they might be blessed in the spirit by the will of God."4 Christ
fulfilled the law of

4 See Rosenmuller's explanation in hoc loco.

death,5 descending to the place of separate spirits, that he might
declare deliverance to the quick and the dead by coming
triumphantly back and going into heaven, an evident token of the
removal of the penalty of sin which hitherto had fatally doomed
all men to the under world.6

Let us see if this will not enable us to explain Peter's language
satisfactorily. Death, with the lower residence succeeding it, let
it be remembered, was, according to the Jewish and apostolic
belief, the fruit of sin, the judgment pronounced on sin. But
Christ, Peter says, was sinless. "He was a lamb without blemish
and without spot." "He did no sin, neither was guile found in his
mouth." Therefore he was not expos