Chap. VIII. The HISTORY of the PURITANS. 3gc The article of our Saviour's local defcent into hell, began tobe queftion- ueen ed at this time. It had been the received doctrine of the church of Elizabeth, England, that the foul of Chrift being feparated from his body, defcended rep locally into hell, that he might there triumph over fatan, as before he Controverfy had over death and fin. But the learned Mr. Hugh Broughton, the rabbi gb:t is of his age, whom king James would have courted into Scotland, con- bell. vinced the world that the word hades, ufed by the greek fathers for the Hey]. Hift. place into which Chrift went after his crucifixion, did not mean hell, or Preib the place of the damned, but only the Bate of the dead, or the invifible ¿, f94Vhit world. It was further debated, whether Chrift underwent in his foul gift, p. 482. the wrath of God, and the pains of hell, and finned all his fufferings upon the crois before he died. This was Calvin's fentiment, and with him agreed the puritan divines, who preached it in their fermons, and inferted it in their catechifms. On the other band, bifhop Bifen in his Hey]. Hilt. fermons at Paul's Croft maintained, that no text offcripture oferted the Prefb. death of Chrifï's foul, or the pains of the damned to be requifite in the per- P' 35a fonof Chrift before he could be our rafomer, and.the Saviour of the world. But fti11 he maintained the local defcent of Chrift into hell, or the ter- ritory of the damned ; and that by the courfe of the creed the article muff refer not to Chrift living upon the crofts, but to Chrift: dead; and that he went thither not to fuffer, but to wreft the keys ofhell anddeath out ofthe hands of the devil. When thefe fermons were printed, they were prefently anfwered by Mr. Henry 7acob, a learned brownifl. Bitfon, by the queen's command, defended his fermons, in a treatife entitled, afur- vey of Chri/i's fuf7érings, which did not appear in the world till 1604.. The controverfy was warmly debated in both univerfrties; but when the learned combatants had fpent their artillery it dropt in filence, without any determination from authority, though it was one of the articles ufually objected to the puritans, for which they were fufpended their miniftry. Among other reproaches call upon" their clergy, one was, that they de- 1597. luded the people by claiming a power to exorcife the devil. " Some of Mr. Dar their minifters, fays Mr. Strype, pretended to cart out devils, that fo rgs f `re- " the amazed multitude having a great veneration for thefe exorcizers of tending to " devils, by the power of their prayers and failings, might the more call out un " readily and awfully fubmit to their opinions and ways; a praftice bor- clean fp:ruts,. " rowed from the then papifts to make their priefts revered, and to con- " firm the laity in their fuperftitions." One would thinkhere was a plot of fome cunning, defigning men, to conjure the people into the beliefof the difcipline; but all vanifhes in the peculiarprinciples of a weak and (as Mr. Strype confeffes} honeft man, whole name was Darrel, a B. A. and.
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