I have already adverted (p. 48) to the contents of _vv._ 11 and 12, so far as they refer to the Person of the Judge, and to His judging the dead, according to their works, "out of the things written in the _books_." "The great _white_ throne" (_v._ 11) is evidently the seat of righteous judgment. The inspired writer, in order {58} to account for his seeing in vision the dead, "small and great, standing before the throne," reveals, besides, that "the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them" (_v._ 13). Now, the context hardly allows of taking "the sea" here in its literal objective sense, requiring rather the interpretation that the natural sea symbolizes by its invisible depths the incognizable state of the dead before resurrection. In the "new heaven and earth," which is the end of all creation, "sea exists no longer" (Rev. xxi. 1). Hades, as apparently might be inferred from the proper sense of the word, signifies that invisible state of departed spirits which, as just said, is symbolized as being concealed in the depths of "the sea," and also, as I have already pointed out, has to death a necessary relation of sequence ("Hades followed with him" [Rev. vi. 8]). This explains why Death and Hades are represented as a conjoint power having possession of the dead. In Rev. i. 18, as well as in Rev. vi. 8, they are mentioned in close connection, and in the latter passage power is said to be given to them in common. I take occasion to make some remarks here on 1 Peter iii. 19, as the sense of this passage might be thought to be contradictory to the meaning assigned above to Hades. It affirms that "in spirit Christ went and preached to the spirits in custody {59} (_en phylake_)." Now, the literal meaning of the concrete terms, "went and preached" (_poreutheis ekeruxen_), is _excluded_ by "in spirit" going before, and they consequently require an abstract interpretation. It has already been argued (p. 50) that the word "custody" applies to departed spirits in the sense of their being in the _keeping_ of the Creator of spirits; whence it follows that "spirits in custody" and "spirits in Hades" have the same meaning. But neither of these expressions signifies anything as to _locality_, for the simple reason that locality cannot be predicated of spirit apart from body. The abstract interpretation of the passage of St. Peter may, I think, be reached by the following argument. The word _ekeruxen_ above cited is not that ordinarily used with respect to preaching the Gospel, and therefore it is the more to be noticed that where Noah is called "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter ii. 5), the Greek word is _keruka_. May we not hence infer that Noah, by "the spirit of Christ" which was in him (compare 1 Peter i. 11), preached to the unbelieving and "disobedient" of his day, and that their spirits, although the world in which they lived was so long since