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

In respect of his body our Saviour descended into Hades, or Sheol, when he descended into the grave; and so it is the same in sense with his burial: and this interpretation is not to be slighted, for first I have quoted many places of Scripture before, where the Translators themselves render the words by the term of the grave. So Jacob descended into Hell, when he went down into the grave, Gen. 42. 38. And besides, Athanasius in his Creed, (which is one of the most ancient that have this Article in) leaves out Buried, and puts in, He descended into Hell, as if he signified thereby, that he took that to be the meaning of the Article. And Ruffinus saith in his Exposition of the Creed, that the sense of these words seems to be the same with the other word Buried.

In respect of his body our Sauiour descended into Hades, or Sheol, when he descended into the graue; and so it is the same in sense with his buriall: and this interpretation is not to be slighted, for first I haue quoted many places of Scripture before, where the Translators themselues render the words by the terme of the graue. So Iacob descended into Hell, when he went downe into the graue, Gen. 42. 38. And besides, Athanasius in his Creed, (which is one of the most ancient that haue this Article in) leaues out Buried, and puts in, He descended into Hell, as if he signified thereby, that he tooke that to be the meaning of the Article. And Ruffinus saith in his Exposition of the Creed, that the sense of these words seemes to be the same with the other word Buried.

Thirdly, in respect of his soul, our Saviour may be said to descend into Hell in two senses: First, in that he abased himself so far, as to let his soul to be in that condition which our souls are in between the time of our death and ⟨p. 449⟩our resurrection, which was a great abasement, though the soul suffered no pain: for his very soul herein endures the common condition of all mens souls in death, though the soul die not in respect of the substance, yet in a general sense every change from that being we have for the present, is a kind of death, because it makes a not being of that which was before, or makes something not to be, which had a being before: What is mutability but a kind of death, which while it changeth any thing into another fashion, that ceaseth to be what it was, and beginneth to be what it was not. Thus in the soul of Christ, there was not only a change, but a privation of what he had before: for first the Body was taken from the soul, and a divorce made between that couple that had lived so lovingly together: See