230 REV. CANON MACCULLOCH, D.D.^ ON THE DESCENT 



One of these questions is undoubtedly, what is the fate of the dead, 

 of our loved ones They found in the doctrines of a descent into 

 Hades some answer to that pressing question, and to me the 

 especial value of the paper lay in these last paragraphs. The paper 

 is not a negative paper, it is a positive paper. It deals with the use 

 of Scripture in answer to modern needs. Many people who are 

 aware of these ancient stories realise how difficult it is to use that 

 passage in Peter. Canon MacCulloch has borne that difficulty in 

 mind, and he has suggested a use for a passage almost disused. If 

 we believe in the love of God and recognise its omnipotent 

 supremacy, do we suppose that the supremacy of the divine love ends 

 with death ^ Canon MacCulloch has helped us to read a real and 

 valuable testimony to the love of God into the passage in Peter. 

 He has made it a testimony to the belief of all Christians in that 

 love from the beginning. It secures, not indeed universal restoration, 

 but the universal proclamation of the Gospel of the grace of God. 

 When we come to look at the paper as a whole we shall value it for 

 those last sentences in which this is summed up. 



There is a story of a descent into Hades in Scottish literature 

 which was not mentioned. It appears, by the poet Dunbar, in the 

 poem the " Dunes of the Seven Deadly Sins," and I mention it 

 because it was carried through by a person of my own name. It 

 says that he descended into Hades in order to play a coronach on 

 the bagpipes to those who were in distress, and that he suffered the 

 direst penalties from the lord of those parts in consequence. 



The Rev. Prebendary Fox said : Expecting that I should have 

 the privilege of being here to-day, I refreshed both memory and 

 spirit last night in reading Bishop Pearson's exposition of the 

 subject now under discussion ; and I would suggest that any 

 present, who can, should do the same. His book on the Apostles' 

 €reed is, I fear, less well known, even by the clergy, in these days 

 than it should be. The bishop proves from various passages of 

 Holy Scripture with forceful conclusion the fact of our Lord's 

 descent into Hades, but expresses himself cautiously as to the 

 ■effects of His presence among, or of His preaching to, " the spirits in 

 prison." Our Lord's object, he believes, was that, as He had shared 

 the conditions of human nature on earth and in the act of dying, 

 60 He might be equally partaker with men in the place where the 

 departed await the Resurrection. 



