The punishments of sin may be distinguished into two classes : 1. Katui-al pmiishments, or such as neces- sarily fi)Uow a life of servitude to sin. 2. 'Positive pmi- ishments, or such as God shall see fit, by his sovereign ■will, to inflict.
1. Among the natural punishments we may rank the privation of eternal happiness (Jlatt. \M, 21, 23 ; xxii.
13 ; xxv, 41 ; compare 2 Thess. 1,9); the paiiifid sensa- tions which are the natural consequence of cotninitting sin, and of an impenitent heart; the propensities to sin, the evil passions and desires which in this world till the human heart, and -which are doubtless carried into the world to come. The company of fellow-sinners and of evil spirits, as inevitably resulting from the other con- ditions, may be accoimted among the natural punish- ments, and must prove not the least grievous of them.
2. The positive punishments have already been indi- cated. It is to these chiefly that the Scripture directs our attention. " There are but few men in such a state that the merely natiu-al pmiishments of sin will appear to them terrible enough to deter them from the com- mission of it. Experience also shows that to threaten positive pmiishment has far more effect, as well upon the cultivated as the imcultivated, in deterring them from crime, than to announce, and lead men to expect, the merely natural consequences of sin, be they ever so terrible. Hence we may see why it is that the New Testament says so little of natiu-al punishments (al- though these, beyond question, await the wicked), and makes mention of them in particidar far less frequently than of positive punishments ; and why, in those pas- sages which treat of the punishments of hell, such ideas and images are constantly employed as suggest and con- firm the idea of positive pmiishments" (Knapp's Chris- tian Theology, § 156).
As the sins which shut out from heaven vary so greatly in quality and degree, we should expect from the justice of God a corresponding variety both in the natural and the positive punishments. This is accord- ingly the miiform doctrine of Christ and his apostles. The more knowledge of the divine law a man possesses, the more his opportunities and inducements to avoid sin, the stronger the incentives to faith and hoUness set before him, the greater will be his pmiishment if he fails to make a faithful use of these advantages. " The ser\-ant who knows his lord's will and does it not, de- serves to be beaten with many stripes:" "To whom much is given, of him much will be required" (3Iatt. x, 15; xi, 22, 24; xxiii, 15; Luke xii, 48), Hence Paul says that the heathen who acted against the law of na- tiu-e would indeed be punished ; but that the Je^vs would be punished more than they, because they had more knowledge (Rom. ii, 9-29). In this conviction that God will, even in hell, justly proportion punishment to sin, we must rest satisfied. We cannot now know more; the precise degrees, as well as the precise nature of such punishments, are things belonguig to another state of being, which in the present wc are unable to understand. — Kitto, s. V. For a natiu-alistic view of the subject, with a copious review of the literature, see Alger, I)oc- tritie of a Euture Life (Bost. 18C0). For the tlicological treatment of this topic, see Hell Pumsiijients.
HELL, Christ's descent into (dcsccnms ad infe- ros; KarajiaaLQ eiQ ciSov'), a phrase used to denote the doctrine taught, or supposed to be taught, in the fifth article of the Apostles' Creed.
1. History of the Clanse. — The clause is not found in the Nicseno-Constantinopolitan Creed (A.D. ."81), nor in any creed before that date. Pearson states that it was not "so anciently used ui the Church" as the rest of the Apostles' Creed ; and that it first appears in the Creed of Aquileia, 4th century, in the words dcscendit in in- ferna. King, in his Histor. Symbol. Apost. c. iv, asserts that it was inserted as a testimony against Apolluia- rism; but this view is controverted by AA'aage in his Commentatio on this article of the Creed (1830). It is certain, however, that the clause was aftenvards used by the orthodox as an argument against the Apollina- rian heresy which denied to Christ a rational human soul (see Neander, Church History, Torrey's ed., ii, 433). Ruflnus (t 410), while stating that it is found in the Creed of Aquileia, denies that it existed before that time in the Creed as used in the Roman or Eastern churches. Ruflnus adds that " though the Roman and
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