He descended into hell
, is in no Reformed Church determined as an article of faith.
Ib.p.182. D.
Audacter dicam, says St. Hierome, cum omnia posset Deus, suscitare virginem post ruinam non potest.
One instance among hundreds of the wantonness of phrase and fancy in the Fathers. What did Jerome mean?
quod Deus membranam hymenis luniformem reproducere nequit?
No; that were too absurd. What then? — that God cannot make what has been not to have been? Well then, why not say that, since that is all you can mean?
Serm. XIX. Rev. xx.6.p.183.
The exposition of the text in this sermon is a lively instance how much excellent good sense a wise man, like Donne, can bring forth on a passage which he does not understand. For to say that it may mean either X, or Y, or Z, is to confess he knows not what it means; but that if it be X. then, &c.; if Y. then, &c.; and lastly if it be Z. then, &c.; that is to say, that he understands X, Y, and Z; but does not understand the text itself.
Ib.