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I. THAT THERE ARE HUMAN SPIRITS ACTUALLY IN THE PRISON OF HELL.

1. A prison is a scene of darkness. Impurity, remorse, despair, constitute "the blackness of darkness forever."

2. A prison is a scene of guilt.

3. A prison is a scene of bondage. Chains of iron confined the miserable culprit.

4. A prison is a scene of thoughtfulness. Hell is a dark realm of thinkers. But there are two features connected with hell that distinguish it from all the prisons on earth.

(1)  It is self-erected. Each prisoner constructs his own prison.

(2)  It is spiritual. The spirit is in prison. Earthly prisons cannot confine the soul.

II. THAT THERE ARE HUMAN SPIRITS WHO HAVE BEEN IN THE PRISON OF HELL FOR CENTURIES. Christ preached to them, by Noah, when on earth. Peter speaks of them now as being in hell. What period of time has elapsed between this lengthened suffering, however, impresses me with two considerations —

1. The fearful enormity of evil.

2. Man's capacity for endurance. Diseases soon break up the body; time withers the patriarchal oak, crumbles the marble; and "the waters wear away the stones" of the mightiest rocks; but, through ages of agony, the soul lives on!

III. THAT THERE ARE HUMAN SPIRITS WHO HAVE BEEN IN THE PRISON OF HELL FOR CENTURIES, TO WHOM THE GOSPEL WAS ONCE PREACHED. Christ was "in the world" before His incarnation. The fact that there are spirits in hell to whom the gospel was once preached suggests two very solemn considerations:

1. That there is no necessary connection between hearing the gospel and salvation. "He that heareth My words, and doeth them not," etc.

2. That the final misery of those who have heard the gospel must be contrary both to the disposition and agency of Christ.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

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KJV: For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

WEB: Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;