162 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. 2 Sam. viii. 18. but no man therefore would be so fond 

 X11 as to say, that a King s sons were priests : yea, he added, 

 that the best among the Hebrew authors, interpreting this 

 word, gave it to be no more than the expression in the 

 following clause ; Kore Shemo, Moses et Aaron, inter eos 

 qui invocant nomen ejus, i. e. among them that call upon 

 his name. 



His sense of It was a great controversy in Queen Elizabeth s reign, 

 ofVhrist&quot; 1 aR d especially more latewardly, what the meaning of that 

 into hell, article in the Creed was, He descended into hell. Arch 

 bishop Whitgift, and the most of the Clergy, stood for 

 the literal sense, that is, Christ s local descent into hell. 

 Hugh Broughton, the profoundly learned Hebrician in 

 those days, by his excellent and deep knowledge in the 

 original languages, and of the use of the word (which we 

 translate hell) in the sacred writings, confuted that notion 

 of the article ; and demonstrated that it meant not any lo 

 cal descent, but that Christ after his burial went into para 

 dise, that is, the mansion that received his soul, that being 

 the constant sense in Scripture of e A^r,; } and TMD, which we 

 translate hell in English. That learned man had much 

 contested in this argument with the Archbishop, Dr. Ban 

 croft, Dr. Bilson, and others ; and after much strife, at 

 length brought off the Archbishop. This doctrine of the 

 local descent was one of the reasons that kept off Barrow and 

 Greenwood, the Separatists, from being present at our 

 churches ; who after they were condemned were promised 

 pardon, if they would have come to church : but this at last 

 was the chief, if not only, bar that stopped them, as 

 Broughton shewed in his letter to Bancroft, now Archbishop 

 of Canterbury. Bishop Aylmer, who was better versed in 

 the Hebrew learning, was of Broughton s opinion, and 

 knew that the Greek which we translate, He went down 

 to hell, signified more truly his going up to heaven ; and 

 he did therefore endeavour to satisfy those two poor men 

 before spoken of, by a friend sent to them ; and that this 

 was indeed the true sense which our Church, if it under 

 stood itself, did hold, though some of its members did make 



