PREACHING TO SPIRITS IN PRISON.
“In which having gone, he preached to the Spirits in prison.” —PETER.
“To this also was the gospel preached to dead ones.”—PETER.
The editor of the Christian Magazine says that the apostle Peter teaches that after his decease Christ Jesus ‘preached, having the imprisoned dead as his congregation.’
Speaking of the dead who ‘never heard of Jesus while in the flesh,’ he says, because he was appointed their judge, ‘therefore they must hear of him in the Spirit in order to their acquittal or condemnation.’
Again, ‘in the Spirit Jesus preached to the dead.’
Referring to those that suffer for the truth, even unto death, he says, ‘by death they cease from sin, and like Christ, may enter upon an extended ministry among the dead.’
These notions he considers as sustained by the doctrine of scripture, which teaches that ‘Christ died to reconcile’ ‘things in heaven’ even ‘the invisible.’ He refers to Colossians 1: 20, and Ephesus 3: 10-13, and concludes from the premises, that ‘God is the God of the DEAD, as well as of the living.’ If so, Jesus has made a slight mistake; for he says, ‘God is NOT a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him’—Luke 20: 38; that is, by resurrection unto life, which he was arguing to prove.
Speaking of ‘ministering angels,’ whom he styles ‘bright and joyous stars,’ he says, ‘Ranks and hosts of these spread themselves throughout the spiritual world, like beings of different grades in this, and under Christ carry on the scheme of his redemption for the benefit of millions, who either by age, or tyranny, or imbecility, could never hear of him while in the flesh.’ By this agency his theory provides for the salvation of ‘infants, idiots, and pagans.’
He says furthermore, “We never commit the body of a single human being to the grave, for whom it is not a pleasure for us to know that his soul has already entered where the knowledge of Christ may yet be his; and that if at last condemned, it will not be for any thing that was unavoidable in his outward circumstances on earth.” And on the hypothesis of his own salvation, he continues, ‘our happiness, we apprehend, will consist in giving knowledge to all to whose capacity and advancement we may be, there as here, adapted.’
The foregoing novelty is taken from an article on “Spirits in Prison.” In defending it against an attack made upon it by the President of Bethany College, he says, ‘I have uttered an opinion, that men who have not heard the gospel will hear it before they are condemned by it. This is the substance of the whole matter’—and a very gospel-nullifying ‘substance’ truly!
This novelty appears to be based upon a rendering of Peter’s words, which the editor says, was authorised by Mr. Campbell in his controversy with me some years ago; but which the same learned gentleman now finds it convenient to repudiate. The words are, en ho kai tois en phylakee pneumasi poreutheis ekeeruxen, rendered in the ‘New Version’ (Third Edition)—‘by which also he made proclamation to the spirits in prison.’ In this, Mr. Campbell has thrown out the word ‘poreutheis’ as I find the same omission in Jones’ ‘revised and corrected edition’ published in London in 1842. Why have these critics omitted this word? The common English version retains it, and renders the text ‘he went and preached.’ Mr. Jones is dead; but Mr. C. still lives to answer for himself. —The other words of Peter in the premises of the new theory are, eis touto gar kai nekrois enegeenlisthee, rendered by the above critics, ‘For to this end the gospel was preached to the dead;’ in James’, ‘to them that are dead.’ ‘The dead’ is not the literal rendering of the adjective nekrois; it should be ‘to dead’ with ones, or persons, understood. Dead ones are a particular class of the dead in general.
While the editor of the ‘Magazine’ accepts the rendering of the King’s Version, ‘to them that are dead,’ he adopts the sentence, ‘in which Spirit, also, he went and preached to the spirits now in prison,’ as the true representative of the original. This, he says, clearly to his mind ‘conveys the idea that Christ, by his spiritual nature, or by the Spirit, did preach to the spirits of the invisible world.’ To this he adds, ‘and if as to include all, the apostle refers to those who died in disobedience in the days of Noah, which would make his language equivalent to all the dead.’—These words show that he considers the phrase ‘the gospel was preached to the dead,’ as importing that it was preached to all the dead—‘to those now dead, not ‘in the flesh’ (but) now in prison.’
The English of this seems to be, that the editor considers that there is in man an ‘immortal soul’—‘his spiritual nature’—capable of disembodied existence, an existence which begins at the last pulsation of the heart. Next, he believes in ‘a Spirit-World,’ into which ghosts, or separated human spirits, or souls, are received at death. He believes also that there are good and bad human spirits, and some that are neither good nor bad, such as baby-souls. Now, in all this he is approved by all pious Musselmen, all devout Papists, and all sincere pagans, and others. But he does not appear to believe in the ‘Hell,’ which, we hesitate not to say, is falsely ascribed to ‘Jesus Christ and his apostles,’ and is thus indicated in the words of Mr. Campbell; ‘everlasting torment, in utter seclusion from the presence of the Lord, and of everlasting agony, without one ray of hope forever and ever.’ M. H. p. 440. The editor of the ‘Magazine’ is horror-struck, as he may well be, at such a not worthy, I suppose, of being translated destiny in reserve for non-believers of the gospel, which God in his providence had never ceased to be proclaimed to them. —He rejects such a fiendish dogma; and, therefore, instead of dividing his Spirit-World after the Bethanian fashion, he constitutes it more after the model of the present visible ‘evil world,’ save that here is all matter, while there it is all naked spirit. Heaven and hell in the spirit world are very much like heaven and hell here, said to be in our midst every day—a state of mentality be it good or evil. The Spirit-world of evil consciences, is the newly discovered hell, or “prison,” in which are provisionally confined the dead-alive spirits of infants, idiots, and pagans, with all other sincere unfortunates, who are yet uncondemned by the gospel, because they have had no opportunity of hearing it!
The issue between the editor of the Magazine and the editor of the Harbinger seems to be purely hellish; that is, whether all unbelievers, without distinction, shall everlastingly agonise in torment, mental and physical, without one ray of hope; or, some of them, and that a vast majority, be afforded an opportunity of repentance and deliverance? The Harbinger’s prison has no back door; the Magazine’s has, and this seems to be the tweedledum and tweedledee of the matter. They may dispute about the merits of their respective theories for ever, and each denounce the other for heresy till doomsday; but they will neither of them be any nearer the truth than when they began. It lies beyond their grasp, and must ever do so while they despise Moses and the Prophets, and make immortal-soulism the fulcrum upon which their levers rest.
The passage they are disputing about is an interesting one, and difficult of interpretation only to those whose minds are spoiled by ‘philosophy’ and ‘science falsely so called.’ Leaving the editors for the present to play at single stick undisturbed, we will turn from their logomachies to the words of truth and soberness indited by the apostle.
The ‘elect through sanctification of the Spirit’ to whom he wrote, were ‘in heaviness through manifold temptations,’ or persecutions. The Gentiles spoke against them falsely as evil doers, and therefore buffeted them. He terms this ‘suffering in the flesh’ ‘for righteousness sake,’ which was an evidence that they had ‘ceased from sin,’ not by returning to dust, but by unwavering obedience to the truth; and intended no longer ‘to live the rest of time in flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God’ The living in flesh to the will of God is living to God in spirit; and to be persecuted for so doing is to be ‘condemned by men’—a condemnation which in apostolic times often resulted in death. It did so in the case of Christ. He was put to death in flesh, ‘but made alive by the Spirit.’ Now unto suffering the elect are called; because ‘it is through much tribulation they must enter the Kingdom of God:’ and the reason is, because “Christ also suffered for them, leaving them an example, that they should follow his steps.” No suffering, no kingdom, seems to be the rule; as it is written, ‘if ye suffer with him, ye shall also reign with him.’
To be ‘called of God unto his kingdom and glory,’ is to be called to suffer for it; according to the saying, ‘that ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which ye suffer.’ Therefore says Peter,
‘Think it not strange, beloved, concerning the fiery trial which is to prove you, as though some strange thing happened to you: but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.’
They were, therefore in the Spirit.
This persecution for the Kingdom’s sake, he styles ‘judgment beginning at the house of God.’ It was judgment inflicted on the elect by ho antidikos diabolos, the legal adversary causing to transgress—the public prosecutor of the day, who sought to devour them judicially. The ordeal to which they were subjected through him was so fiery, that it was too much for the faith of some, and almost overpowering to all.
‘The time is come,’ says the apostle, ‘that judgment must begin at us, what shall the end of them be that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?’
In the Spirit-world to be saved by preaching, if they have not heard the gospel before! But this is manifestly foolish. We will therefore proceed.
The reason, then, why the gospel of the kingdom was preached to Jews and Gentiles was that they might constitute the house of God in this present evil world, and by suffering in flesh for a time prove themselves worthy of the Kingdom. —When Peter wrote his epistles, many of these Christian heroes were mouldering in the dust. They were the nekrois, or dead ones to whom the gospel had been preached, and who in flesh had been ‘condemned by men;’ but all the time of their warfare had ‘lived to God in Spirit;’ for ‘though they walked in flesh, they did not war according to flesh.’ They were a strange spectacle to their former boon companions, who refused to subject themselves to the obedience of faith; spoke evil of them, and maltreated them. But this conduct God will not wink at, as he winked at their evildoings in their ignorance. For the apostle says,
‘They shall give account to him who is in readiness to judge living and dead ones. For to this end also was the gospel preached to dead ones, that in flesh indeed they might be condemned (to suffering) by men, but in spirit live to God.’
Peter does not mean by this, that the gospel was preached to their ghosts while their bodies were rotting in their graves; but preached to them while working the will of the Gentiles, but since deceased, and dead while he was writing about them. Jesus is in readiness to judge living and dead ones. Not the dead universally; for those to whom the gospel has not been preached the scriptures teach are not to rise—
‘They are dead, they shall not live, they are deceased, they shall not rise; thou hast visited, and destroyed them, and caused all the memory of them to perish’—Isaiah 26: 14.
The living and dead ones to be condemned at their resurrection, are the ‘all’ who have sinned wilfully against the truth; the rest are ‘condemned already,’ to sleep eternal in the dust.
Now to elect living ones before they become dead ones, he says,
‘Holily reverence (hagiasate) the Lord God in your hearts: and be always ready with an answer to every one asking you a reason for the hope that is in you with forbearance and respect; having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as evildoers they may be put to shame who accuse falsely your good deportment in Christ. For it is better, if God’s purpose require it, to suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. Because Christ also suffered once for all on account of sins, a just one in behalf of unjust ones, that he might lead to God, having been put to death indeed in flesh, but made alive by the Spirit: in which also having gone he preached to the Spirits in prison, having formerly refused belief at the time the long-suffering of God waited once for all in the days of Noah, while an ark was being built, in which few, that is, eight souls were preserved in safety through water, an antitype to which baptism also now saves us * * * through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who, having gone (poreutheis) into heaven, is at the right hand of God, angels and dominions and powers being placed at his disposal.’
Such, I believe, is a rendering of Peter’s words that cannot be improved. The exhortation with which they begin is excellent, and worthy of all reception by our contemporaries. I wish the two editors in question would attend to it, and in presenting their answers, ‘speak as the oracles of God;’ and let them remember that, when Peter wrote these words, the only oracles so recognised were the writings of Moses and the Prophets. As they therefore profess to contend for apostolicity of practice, will they be so good, for the sake of truth and the salvation of themselves, and of those who hear them, as to speak according to Moses and the Prophets? If they will only do this, and abandon their vain logomachies, or strifes about words to no profit, they will speak in harmony with the apostles also; for the apostles said ‘none other things than what Moses and the prophets testified,’ save that to some extent as yet, they found a partial accomplishment in Jesus. If they will kindly consent to this course, all ‘profane vain babbling’ about endless agony in torment, preaching to ghosts, sky-kingdom heavens, spirit-world hells with postern gates, immortal souls, and all that sort of foolishness, will fall into desuetude. Let them cease then to ‘despise the word’ as ‘an old Jewish almanac,’ or a system of ‘thundering Jewish phrases.’ The ‘christian scriptures’ are contained in the Book of the Abrahamic Covenant, with the New Testament as a codicil attached for the illustration of the mystery. While they neglect Moses and the Prophets, they are doomed to blindness and the blackness of darkness for ever.
Jesus, the holy and the just one, suffered hyper, not ‘over,’ as the editor of the Magazine renders it after others, but ‘for or in behalf of’ persons, who were in an unjustified state at the time of his sufferings, which were sacrificially consummated in his death and resurrection. It was peri ‘for or on account of,’ their sins that he suffered hyper, in their behalf; that being justified from their past sins ‘through his name,’ they might be, the rest of their time in this evil world, in a state of reconciliation with God. Christ did not suffer in their stead, that is, that they should not suffer, as their being made ‘partakers of his sufferings’ by a ‘fiery trial,’ proves. Had he not died and risen again, they would have perished as the beasts; but by his stripes applied, or inflicted, so to speak, upon the old man of sin within them, by faith in the gospel of the kingdom in his name presented, they are healed in conscience; and will hereafter be healed also of that ‘loathsome disease’ that imprisons them in the dust. ‘For the transgression of my people was he stricken,’ saith the Lord. ‘By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.’ Of this ‘many’ Isaiah was one. Hence he says, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions (or sins;) he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.’ Paul also was one of this ‘many,’ of which all mankind are not—a many which is constituted of persons whose justification proceeds ek pisteoos, out of faith in the kingdom and name, and is consummated in the sprinkling of the heart from an evil conscience with the blood of Jesus, when faith in his blood is counted to a believer of the gospel of the kingdom for righteousness, in the act of putting on his name in baptism. The apostles were of this ‘many;’ the living ones to whom they wrote were also of the number; as well as those of their company who had been devoured by the executors of Caesar’s will. These ‘dead ones’ of this ‘many’ had been ‘washed, sanctified, and justified by the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God;’ and had resisted the enemy ‘steadfast in the faith.’ Bruised in the heel, they lie sleeping in the dust, waiting for the trumpet sound to wake them into life. In behalf of this ‘many,’ Paul says, ‘God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died hyper, for us;’ ‘when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son;’ ‘being reconciled, we shall be saved in his life,’ by being planted in the form of his resurrection.
‘That he might purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God, He is the Mediator of the New Will, that being subjected to death for redemption of the transgressions against the First Will, THE CALLED might receive the promise of the age-inheritance.’
No man ever kept the law of Moses but Jesus, and he came under its curse by what was done to him. That law being weak through the flesh could give no one a right to eternal life as a consequence of justification thereto. Devout and undevout Israelites, therefore, were all upon the same footing in relation to it—all of them cursed; as it is written,
“Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them.’
‘From faith’ in the gospel of the kingdom, the justification of the devout transgressors of the first covenant proceeds; as ‘through the faith,’ beginning in the Christ and ending in Jesus, comes the justification of the Gentile constituent of the ‘many.’
I have made the above remarks for the especial benefit of the editor of the ‘Magazine,’ who, by his handling of the Greek particles, forcibly betrays his want of understanding in ‘the righteousness of God.’ In other words, he does not understand the doctrine of justification; that is, how a man may be accounted righteous before God; nor the purpose for which righteousness is proclaimed. The other editor is not much ahead of him in this particular; or he would not advocate the traditions he does. The common idea of religion haunts their imaginations, and makes them see strange sights ‘beyond the skies,’ and in their spirit-worlds beneath. The popular notion is, that religion is for the keeping of the ‘immortal souls’ of all who get it, out of the bottomless pit of burning brimstone; and for the translating of them to an ethereal heaven beyond the skies. The alternative it offers to the world is get this religion, or be damned to this hell for ever and ever, men, women, and children, infants and sucklings, idiots and pagans. Ferocious minds revel in this alternative, always flattering themselves that they are safe. They call it one of the sanctions of the gospel; and are ready to hang, draw, and quarter with satanic fierceness, the unlucky wight that shall breathe a doubt of the scripturality of their speculation. Calling upon such to do justice, is like seeking mercy at the jaws of a dragon. There is neither justice nor mercy for their opponents in the hearts of men who would attribute to God the decretal of such an alternative. Benevolent and justice-loving minds revolt at it; and hence arise universalism, restorationism, baby-salvationism, salvation without faith in the gospel, and preaching deliverance to the damned. But ‘they err not knowing the scriptures;’ that is, Moses and the Prophets, the only scriptures extant when Jesus uttered the words. There is no such alternative in them. God does not propose to reap where he has not sown; nor to punish them for not working whom he has not hired; nor to reward those to whom he has made no promise. He intends to found a kingdom and empire on earth; and he intends that they shall be governed by men chosen upon certain well-defined principles—that is, by the ‘many.’ He does not invite all mankind, nor every creature of all mankind, to the possession of this kingdom; but ‘every creature’ of the ‘all nations’ of the Roman dominion, contemporary with the apostles; and those of after ages and generations, who can discover the truth by the study of the word—the remnant of the Woman’s Seed. There are, and have been, systems of nations to which he has never spoken. These need no gospel to condemn them because of its rejection. They are ‘condemned already;’ but not to the same condemnation which the gospel threatens. They are condemned to return to the dust, and to abide there for ever; but the gospel condemns its rejectors to a resurrection to punishment in the judgment of the Beast, and the False Prophet. The alternatives of the Bible are:
1. Possession of the kingdom with all its appurtenances, by a resurrection to eternal life; or,
2. Resurrection to punishment, consequent on rejection of the gospel and unworthiness, of the kingdom; or,
3. A return to original dust, and sojourn therein for ever, consequent on necessitated, and therefore unavoidable, ignorance of the whole matter.
With the third class, or that characterised by the ignorance of necessity, the gospel has nothing to do; therefore we need not trouble ourselves about them. But with the first and second it has. They both stand related to it as acceptors or rejectors, by believing, refusing to believe, or believing and walking unworthy of it. The gospel can only be accepted or rejected in this present world; because, when the kingdom, which is the subject of the gospel, is established in the resurrection-period, ‘the world to come’ will be an existing fact, and there will be no more good news about inheriting the kingdom, to preach. The good things that are now promised, will then have been performed in the bestowal of them upon the saints. The acceptors and rejectors of the gospel are either living or dead. If they be living, they are above ground among the living; if dead, they are in the ground, or ‘spirits in prison,’ ‘sleeping in the dust of the earth.’
They are well termed ‘spirits’ as contrasted with organised flesh and blood; for they are without form, image, likeness, or substance. They have evaporated into divers spirits or gases; and nothing of them remains, but ‘dust and ashes;’ and their characters written in the book of God’s remembrance. Like the spectral impression of the coin upon the mirror, though invisible, it is there, and can be brought out by breathing upon the surface; so the men and women are, as it were, spectrally in the dust, but knowing nothing, and as unsubstantial, save their ashes, as nonentity itself, till the afflation of God’s formative Spirit refashion them; and, as in the case of the few loaves and fishes which increased in quantity sufficient to feed thousands, from a little dust give them the bulk and stature of adults with their former identity restored. They will then be no longer ‘spirits in prison,’ but ‘the dead cast out of the earth.’
That the ‘prison’ is the tomb, or place where dead bodies are laid, must be apparent to every one. They are fettered there by the necessity that binds them, and they can not come forth. The grave is their prison-house, and they the captives or prisoners of death, which has taken them captive.
‘My flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave (nephesh le-sheol;) neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.’
Here ‘flesh,’ ‘soul,’ and ‘Holy One,’ are all regarded by the prophet as confined in the grave (sheol;) the lowest dungeon of which is ‘the pit,’ called also ‘the lowest hell,’ indicative of the state of invisibility as the result of corruption being complete. Hence the Holy One’s resurrection, or release from prison, is again referred to by David in these words,
‘Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave (min-sheol nepheshi;) thou hast kept me alive (preserved me from decomposition) that I should not go down to the pit.’
And again,
‘Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest grave (sheol.)’
In another place the Holy One in prophecy supplicates Jehovah in these words,
‘Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, THAT I MAY PRAISE thy name.’
There needs no more testimony to prove that Christ’s ‘flesh’ was his ‘soul,’ and that when it was dead, and walled up in the sepulchre, it was in prison; and that as ‘in death there is no remembrance of God,’ and ‘in the grave no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,’ it is clear that Christ neither in body nor soul ‘preached to a congregation of imprisoned dead;’ for while in prison he could say nothing in praise of his Father’s name.
Let it be remarked, that Peter does not say that Jesus preached to the spirits in prison, but that Christ did so; that is, that which ‘made Jesus both Lord and Christ,’ namely, the anointing or Holy Spirit. The apostle distinctly indicates the time when the Spirit that made Jesus alive preached to them, to wit, about 2400 years before Jesus was born, that is, in the days of Noah. And why does the apostle cite the case of Noah at all? Because as Jesus had predicted it had even come to pass. Peter wrote his epistle when ‘the end of all things was at hand’—the end of all things constituted by the Law of Moses: and James, referring to the same crisis, says, ‘the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’ Now, Jesus on Olivet also speaking of the fall of Jerusalem and ruin of the State, says,
‘Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.’
From James’ and Peter’s two epistles it is evident, that the Jews, with a few exceptions only, were as demoralised as the antediluvians. The Spirit had been preaching to them through the apostles of ‘judgment to come’ for nearly forty years; but they heeded his proclamation no more than the antediluvians did when he preached to them through Noah. Christian Jews said, ‘My Lord delayeth his coming,’ and became iniquitous; while others scoffingly inquired, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ But they were willingly ignorant, or unmindful of the events of Noah’s age. They resisted the Spirit in refusing to believe the apostles; therefore the fate of the antediluvians overtook them, and a few of the baptised only escaped, who, like Noah, believed the word.
When Peter brought up the case of the antediluvians they were as now, ‘spirits in prison;’ but when the Spirit went and preached to them through Noah, they were like the contemporaries of the apostles, living men and women at large upon the earth, enjoying ‘the pleasures of sin for a season.’ ‘The dead know not any thing;’ what then is the use of preaching to them? They must be made alive by the Spirit as Jesus was—and then something might be done. When they come forth they will indeed hear the words of the Lord; but there will be no mercy in his speech; for he will pronounce them ‘cursed,’ and command them to depart from his presence. There are other prisoners, however, who will rejoice in the year of liberty and release. They are styled ‘the Lord’s prisoners,’ in the pit where no water is. Thus, Jehovah addressing the king who rides the ass into Jerusalem, says, ‘As for thee, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein there is no water.’ He also styles the Jews scattered among the nations which keep them back from the occupation of their country, ‘prisoners of hope;’ as it reads,
‘Turn you to the stronghold (to Zion,) ye prisoner’s of hope * * * when I have bent Judah for me, and filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. And the Lord shall be seen over them,’ &c.
Here, then, are two classes of prisoners—the one class, in the prison-house of the captive dead; and the other, in the Gentile prison-house of the living captives of Israel. Jesus being the Christ is therefore to perform the Christ’s mission, which is, ‘to be a covenant for the people (Israel) a light to the nations; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness, Show yourselves.’ This will be the proclamation of a two-fold liberty to the Lord’s captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound—to Death’s prisoners in Sheol, of the dust; and Death’s captives in the Sheol of Israel’s political bondage among the Gentiles. The Spirit, through Jesus, will make this proclamation to spirits in prison at his appearing in power and great glory; for ‘the dead shall hear his voice and come forth’—the dead in their graves, literal and political; and this is all the preaching to the spirits in prison Jesus will deign to do.
EDITOR.
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Imprint the beauties of the prophets upon your imagination, and their morals upon your heart.
