A25294:482
The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easy draught of the Christian…The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian…
The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easy draught of the Christian catechism in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian catechisme in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy laborer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...
London: printed by T. Mabb for Thomas Davies, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I lay down my life, &c. Now he underwent a double death for us; a spiritual, and a corporal death. The spiritual is about Christ's descent into Hell▪ This consisted in the separation of God's favour from the soul of Christ for a time, not really, but as to sense and feeling, and that influence, from which comfort useth to be felt; as also in impressions of divine wrath, which with horror did strike all the faculties of the soul; so that for the time the soul was at so low an ebb and concussion of all its happiness, as any creature could be, that was without sin formally inherent in it self. The death of the body is that which consists in the separation of the soul from the body; the confirmation and continuance was in the burial of Christ. Now such was the separation of the soul from the body in Christs death, that the conjunction and union of both of them with the divine person, remained the same that it was before; as if one drawing a sword, held the scabbard in the one hand, and the sword in the other▪ there would be there a separation between the scabbard and the sword; but of neither of them from the man, that so held them: So also ⟨p. 112⟩in this mystery, there is a separation of the soul from the body; but neither of them was separated from the divine nature, nor person, but the person still sustained both in the unity of it self, as one person with him. The reason is, because if there had been any such separation from the di: vine person, then the second person had ceased to be God-man, and so could not for that time have been our Priest or Mediator. Also a new incarnation or assumption had been made again, in the resurrection of Christ. It is most true therefore, which is in the mouths of many Divines, and used proverbially almost; That what the Son of God assumed he never laid aside again.
I lay down my life, &c. Now he underwent a double death for us; a spiritual, and a corporal death. The spiritual is about Christ's descent into Hell▪ This consisted in the separation of God's favour from the soul of Christ for a time, not really, but as to sense and feeling, and that influence, from which comfort useth to be felt; as also in impressions of divine wrath, which with horror did strike all the faculties of the soul; so that for the time the soul was at so low an ebbe and concussion of all its happiness, as any creature could be, that was without sin formally inherent in it self. The death of the body is that which consists in the separation of the soul from the body; the confirmation and continuance was in the burial of Christ. Now such was the separation of the soul from the body in Christs death, that the conjunction and union of both of them with the divine person, remained the same that it was before; as if one drawing a sword, held the scabberd in the one hand, and the sword in the other there would be there a separation between the scabberd and the sword; but of neither of them from the man, that so held them: So also