A sermon, by George Milligan, on "The Descent into Hades," is published in the Expository Times for September. The preacher assumes that Christ went during his disembodied state and preached to the spirits in prison who were disobedient in the days of Noah; and he [336] attempts to explain why these sinners are specified rather than others, by saying:

      It seems, indeed, as a fair and legitimate inference, that men before the flood are only brought forward by the apostle as a typical case, and that to all similarly situated, to all who through no fault of their own have, during their lifetime, not heard his message, or who have heard it under circumstances which virtually gave them no chance of accepting it, the ministry of Christ has been extended, is still extended, after death.

      This is the common mode of arguing among the advocates of the second probation. Strange that men of sense can not see the fallacy in it. If it were a fact that Jesus did go and offer a second probation to a class of disembodied spirits, who, during their lifetime, had not heard his message, or who heard it under circumstances which gave no chance of accepting it, and all this through no fault of their own, we then might safely infer that he would give a similar chance to others in like circumstances. But this is not what he did, even if he did what these critics say the passage in Peter means. Instead of going to such a class as they describe, he went to a set of men who, among all the wicked dead of ages gone, had enjoyed about the best chance of repentance, and sinned against the strongest light. They were the men whom Noah, a preacher of righteousness, warned for the space of one hundred and twenty years, but who, in spite of all the strivings of God's Spirit with them, filled the earth with violence, and became so corrupt that their thoughts were only evil continually. If they are taken as a typical case, as this preacher asserts, then they stand as the types of the worst men that ever lived; and the inference should be that the very worst spirits now writhing under the sentence of God's righteous, wrath, will have another probation, and be permitted to reject [337] once more the offered mercy of God. This consideration is alone sufficient to prove that the Romish interpretation of the passage about preaching to the disobedient in the days of Noah is false. But the passage is very convenient for the purposes of many false theories, and I suppose that while false teachers in reference to the future state, are found among men, this interpretation will still be propagated.

[SEBC 336-338]