A Golden Chain

And as Christs death was voluntary, so was it also an accursed death, and therefore it is called the death of the cross. ¹And it containeth the first and the second death: the first is the separation of the body from the soul: the second is the separation of body and soul from God: and both were in Christ: for beside the bodily death, he did in soul apprehend the wrath of God due to man for sin: and that made him cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

And as Christs death was voluntarie, so was it also an accursed death, and therefore it is called the death of the crosse. ¹And it containeth the first and the second death: the first is the separation of the bodie from the soule: the second is the separation of bodie and soule from God: and both were in Christ: for beside the bodily death, hee did in soule apprehend the wrath of God due to man for sinne: and that made him crie, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

1. 1To signify this point the Creed saith that he was crucified and also died.To signifie this point the Creede saith that he was crucified and also died.

And here we must not omit a necessary point, namely how far forth Christ suffered death. Answer. Some think that he suffered only a bodily death, and such pains as follow the dissolution of nature: but they, no doubt, come to short, for why should Christ have feared death so greatly if it had been nothing but the dissolution of nature. Some again think that he died, not only the first, but also the second death: but it may be they go to far: for if to die the first death be to suffer a total separation of body and soul, then also to die the second death is wholly and every way to be severed from all favour of God, and at the least for a time to be oppressed of the same death as the damned are. Now this never befell Christ, no not in the middest of his sufferings, considering that even then he was able to call God his God. Therefore the safest is to follow the mean; namely that Christ died the first death in that his body and soul were really and wholly severed, yet without suffering any corruption in his body, which is the effect and fruit of the same: & that withal he further suffered the extreme horrors and pangs of the second death, not dying the same death nor being forsaken of God, more then in his own apprehension or feeling. For in the very middest of his sufferings the father was well pleased with him. And this which I say doth not any whit lesson the sufficiency of the merit of Christ: for whereas he suffered truly the very wrath of God, and the very torments of the damned in his soul, it is as much as if all the men in the world had died the second death, and had bin wholly cut off from God for ever and ever. And no doubt Christ died the first death only suffering the pangs of the second; that the first death might be an entrance not to the second death which is eternal damnation, but a passage to life eternal.