Page:The Story of Joseph and His Brethren.djvu/98

Rh very things that Joseph suffered. In the 53rd of Isaiah, where the Lord's great trials are described, it is said, "He was taken from prison and from judgment." Yet the Lord was never literally in prison; but He was in states of temptation, which are meant by being in prison, and being bound; for in temptation the soul is in terrible straitness or anguish; the thoughts and feelings seem as if they were imprisoned, and the powers of the mind seem as if they were bound, and deprived of all free and happy exercise. In His great temptation at Gethsemane our Lord declared that His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. After His death, He was imprisoned in the grave, till He burst the bands of death, and rose triumphant over death and the grave. But between His death and resurrection we learn that He descended into the prison-house of the world of spirits, and there went and preached unto the spirits in prison (1 Peter iii. 19). This was not what is properly called hell, for preaching to those in that eternal prison could be of no avail; but it was in that intermediate or middle region where all, both