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

Thus of the first sense.

Secondly, Christ in soul descended into Hell, when as our surety he submitted himself to bear those ^*hellish so• rows, which we were bound by our sins to luffer for ever: His descension is his projection of himself into the sea of Gods wrath conceived for our sins, and his ingression into most unspeakable straits and torments in his soul, which ⟨p. 450⟩we should else have suffered for ever in Hell. This way of Christ descending into Hell is expressly uttered in the person of David, as the type of Christ, Psal. 86. 13. and 116. 3. and 69. 3. Thus the Prophet Isaiah saith, His soul was made an offering, Isaiah 53. 10. And this I take it David means, when he said of Christ, Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, Psalm. 16. Acts 2. And thus Christ descended into hell when he was alive, not when he was dead. Thus his soul was in Hell, when in the Garden he did sweat blood, and on the Cross, when he cried out so lamentably, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, Matth. 26, 38. And according to this sense is the Article fitly placed in the Creed: for having reckoned before what he suffered in body, in this Article is expressed what he suffered in soul: and in the sixteenth Psalm it seems he first reckons what he suffered in soul, and his delivery from it, when he said, Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, and then speaks of the privilege of his body in the grave, as a thing which followed the suffering and deliverance of his soul out of Hell.