The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…

In respect of the whole Man, it is true that he descended into Hell in four Respects.

In respect of the whole Man, it is true that he descended into Hell in foure Respects.

1. In respect of Incarnation: when our Saviour descended ⟨p. 446⟩from heaven to take our Nature, in a large sense he may be said then to descend into Hades. For the ancient Grecians, whence the word Hades comes, understood by Hades the Earth; and many of the ancient Fathers, call the earth Infernum, or Hell: for they make a distinction of Hell, and say, One is superior, and that is the Earth; and another is inferior, and that is the Hell of the damned. Nor did Christ descend only to be upon earth, but to assume Earth, when he took our nature, and that too considered as the earth was under malediction for the first Adams sin, and expressed in that sentence, Thou art earth, and to earth thou shalt return: and that other, The earth is cursed for thy sake, thorns and briers shall it bring forth. And that he descended both in respect of his body and soul, and of both of them together: In respect of his body, as Adam, made of the earth; so was Christ borne of a Virgin, who had her original from the earth: and the earth is usually said to be the common mother of us all: and his soul descended into this earth, when it was united to his most sacred body: In both soul and body in his Incarnation he descended into the earth, even the earth as it was accursed, both in respect of infirmity, and in respect of mortality. The infirmities of our Nature which he took, both in soul and in body, what were they but so many thorns and briers to afflict, and scratch, and pain his most blessed Nature? I mean by his infirmities, such as were without sin, such as came from sin, but did not tend to sin: such were in his soul, sorrow and fear, and in his body, thirst, hunger, poverty. And besides our Infirmities, he took our Nature as it was Mortal, and so descended into that Infernum, the Fathers call Infernum mortalitatis: for though he died not so soon as he was borne, yet he lived always under the sentence of death. A prisoner in the Goal when he is condemned, all the time he lives is reckoned but as a dead man. So was Christ. Now the Scripture seems clearly to acknowledge the descension of Christ into the earth of mortality and infirmity, as when he descended to take upon him the form