Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	earth_n	glory_n	great_a	2,131	5	2.9800	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28402	A treatise of the sibyls so highly celebrated, as well by the antient heathens, as the holy fathers of the church : giving an accompt of the names, and number of the sibyls, of their qualities, the form and matter of their verses : as also of the books now extant under their names, and the errours crept into Christian religion, from the impostures contained therein, particularly, concerning the state of the just, and unjust after death / written originally by David Blondel ; Englished by J.D.	Blondel, David, 1591-1655.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1661 (1661)	Wing B3220; ESTC R38842	342,398	310

place in the bosoms of thy Patriarchs her for whose sake thou mercifully didst descend upon Earth In the later it is said Be mindfull of him O Lord in the glory of thy brightness let the Heavens be open to him let the Angels rejoyce with him Lord receive thy Servant into thy Kingdom Let St. Michael the Arch-angel of God and General of the Celestial Militia entertain him let the holy Angels of God meet him and carry him into the Heavenly Jerusalem c. Loosed from the Chains of flesh may he be received into the glory of the celestial Kingdom c. If after all these Prayers the Agony continue there are at several times read the one hundred and sixth and one hundred and eighteenth Psalms according to the Greeks and Latines that is the one hundred and seventh and one hundred and nineteenth according to the Hebrews who are therein followed by the Protestants and when the Soul is departed they say Afford your assistance O ye Saints of God meet him O ye Angels of the Lord receiving his Soul and presenting it to the most high May Christ who hath called thee entertain thee and may the Angels conduct thee into the Bosom of Abraham c. O Lord give him eternal rest and let everlasting light shine upon him Lord deliver his Soul from the Gate of Hell let him rest in peace In the Mass for the sick who are in Agony besides two Lessons out of the Scripture whereof the former comprehends from the sixth Verse of the five and fiftieth Chapter of Isaiah to the twelfth with these words fastened in the beginning by I know not whom In diebus illis locutus est Esaias Propheta dicens and at the end Ait Dominus omnipotens and the later consists of the twentieth twenty first and twenty second Verses of the sixteenth Chapter of St. John with these words added at the beginning In illo tempore dixit Jesus Discipulis suis We have several Texts alledged containing Thanksgiving to God for his deliverances as the second sixth and seventh Verses of the eighteenth Psalm according to the Hebrews the fourth of the fifty seventh with Confessions of sins and Implorations of his mercy and assistance as the second Verse of the fifty seventh Psalm the first and second of the one hundred and thirtieth the eighth and ninth of the seventy ninth the first of the fifty first and the two and twentieth of the five and twentieth and in conclusion three Prayers in the first whereof we read these words Grant him O Lord thy grace that his Soul at the hour of its departure out of the body may be represented without the blemish of any sin by the hands of the holy Angels to thee who art the proper bestower thereof through our Lord c. The second is closed with this conclusion not much unlike the former That received by the Angels he may arrive at the Kingdom of thy glory through our Lord. And the third is laid down in these Terms O Lord we give thee thanks for thy manifold kindnesses wherewith thou art wont to satisfie the Souls of those who put their trust in thee we now confident of thy compassion do humbly beseech thee that thou wouldest vouchsafe to shew mercy on thy Servant lest at the hour of his departure out of the body the enemy prevail against him but that he may be thought worthy to pass to life through our Lord. If the Latine Church had from the beginning been imbued with this Sentiment that the Souls of the Faithfull are for the most part at their departure out of the Body confined to a place of Torment where they perfect the expiation of their sins through what misfortune is it come to pass that she so far forgot her self as not to have expressed any such thing in all their Service and that her Encouragements and Remonstrances to those that lie at the point of death who are as it is at this day presupposed in so great a necessity to prepare themselves for it and the Wishes and Prayers which she makes and appoints to be made as well for them as for the Dead whom a Superstitious perswasion imagines already set upon and invaded by Infernal flames in Purgatory do not onely not contain any remark thereof but formally teach the contrary And that they do so we are onely to instance out of what hath been newly alledged what they say of all without exception viz. that after death they have their place in Holy Sion that the Angels come to meet them that they convey them into the Kingdom of Glory into the bosom of a blessed Rest into the bosom of Abraham into the pleasant Verdures of Paradise that they might with the Quires of the Blessed contemplate Truth with their blessed eyes and enjoy the sweetness of divine contemplation eternally that the Lord places them in the Portion of the Elect in the place where they hoped for salvation opens the heavens to them gives them an eternal Rest and makes them pass into life which Expressions are such as that the Protestants could not according to the Hypotheses of their Belief either say or think any thing beyond them Shall we imagine her unfortunately seised by a Vertigo so extraordinary as that she would be guilty of such an Extravagance in favour of the Adversaries of her Sentiment so far as to furnish them with all the Expressions capable to ruine it and that she should be so unnatural and cruel towards those of her children whom death snatched away daily from her as not to vouchsafe to let them know by the last word that she had a Resentment of their Trouble or that it was her desire to procure their Deliverance out of it by her Prayers and to fortifie others whom she saw to fall into the like by communicating to them her Advertisements and Remonstrances and representing to them on the one side the necessity which the Justice of God imposed on them as is pretended to pass through the Fire and on the other the Hope which his Promise gave them to be preserved therein by his care till such time as his Goodness should grant them a glorious deliverance out of it Nay though we should be inclined to excuse in her so shamefull a want of compassion and memory could we free her from Prevarication charging her that instead of stirring up in her children the care of preparing themselves for Death and the temporal Pains which according to the Opinion of Purgatory were to follow upon it she hath treacherously permitted that to be rid of it with more ease they should run into erroneous perswasions and presume to promise themselves upon the very start out of this Life a passage into Abraham's Bosom and the Paradise of God or rather that she was resolved to lay them asleep her self by deceitfull Expressions in the Bosom of a prejudicial Security which smothers the apprehension they should have conceived of the Severity of that

that we are made partakers of their Dignity that they are to be honoured by way of imitation and not adored upon any religious accompt In a word that neither the Blessed Virgin Mother of our Saviour nor any of the Saints of either Sex can pretend to any part of that religious homage Saint Epiphanius one of the most earnest maintainers of Prayer for the Dead hath left to them and the whole Church of these last times these remarkable Precepts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Indeed the Body of Mary was holy but it was not God the Virgin was indeed a Virgin and honoured but she was not given us to be adored on the contrary she adored him who was begotten of her as to the flesh c. If God will not have the Angels to be adored how much rather will he not that she who was born of Ann should be c. God came from Heaven and the Word was clad in flesh taken from the holy Virgin but the Virgin is not adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Father Son and Holy Spirit be adored Let no man adore Mary though Mary be excellent and holy and honoured it is not that she should be adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Lord be adored But not to press any further this notorious defect which we finde at present in the Service of the Greeks we are to observe that among them the Office of the Dead is full of Prayers whereby is desired as in the Latine Service the mercy of God the remission of the sins of the deceased his absolution his blessed resurrection his introduction into rest into Abraham ' s Bosom into the Mansion of the blessed into refreshment into Paradise into the Tabernacle of God into his Kingdom glory light to the right hand of the great Judge into the Society of the Saints and Angels all which Expressions according to the Hypotheses of Antiquity may be applied to the Spirits already received into glory Which is so much the more evident for that the particular Office which concerns the Obsequies of Children is full of these Prayers that God would number the deceased among the Children to whom he hath promised his Kingdom that he would place him among the just who are acceptable in his sight that he would make him partaker of the good things which are above this World that he would let him enter into the joys of the Saints that in his holy Mountain he would gratifie him with celestial goods that he would write his name in the Book of those who shall be saved that he would make his face to shine upon him that he would lodge him in Abraham ' s Bosom that he would grant him the enjoyment of his Kingdom c. Yet were not these Desires made without a presupposition of his Beatitude as First when it is said to him He who hath taken thee from the Earth and gives thee place among his Saints shew● that thou O truly blessed Childe art a Citizen of Paradise The Sword of Death falling on thee hath cut thee off as a tender Branch O blessed art thou who hast made no tryal of worldly pleasures but behold Christ opening the Gates of Heaven to thee numbring thee● out of his great goodness among the Elect● Secondly When he is brought in making this Discourse Why do you bewail me a Childe translated out of the World for I am not a Subject to be bewailed The joy of all the just is required for those Children who have not done works worthy Tears Thirdly When he acknowledges that Death is a freedom to Children that they are thereby exempted from the miseries of life and that they are gone to rest that they rejoyce in Abraham ' s Bosom in the divine Quires of Blessed Children and assuredly dance because their departure hence was a deliverance from the corruption which loves sin If then the Ritual of the Creeks be full of Prayers for the Children whom they unanimously acknowledge to be among the Blessed what inconvenience can there be to attribute to them that they had the same apprehension for persons of age of whose felicity they no way doubted But though reason should not lead us to think so yet does their formal confession obliges us to believe as much for there is not any deceased person for whom they say not to God Mercifully receive the faithfull person departed who hath holily quitted this life and is O Lord passed towards thee and whose Funeral Solemnities they do not conclude saying to him three several times Our Brother worthy to be ever blessed and always remembred thy memory is eternal To every Monk without any exception they address these words Brother thè way thou art in is that of bliss for that a place of rest is prepared for thee adding to that purpose the sixteenth Verse of the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm Return unto thy rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt kindly with thee and a little after He who is taken hence hath passed through the ever-troubled Sea of Life and by Faith is arrived at his Port conduct him O Christ with the Saints into thy tranquillity and ever-living pleasures In like manner to every Priest Thou hast piously signalized thy self in Faith Charity Hope Gentleness Purity of life and in the Sacerdotal dignity and therefore O Brother of eternal memory God who is before all Ages whom thou hast served will himself dispose thy Spirit into a place full of light and pleasure where the just are in rest and will make thee obtain of Christ at the day of Judgment pardon and great mercy And the deceased Person is introduced using these words I am now at rest and have found great favour for that I have been transferred from the corruption of life glory be to thee O Lord c. Thy divine Servant Deified in his Transportation by thy now-enlivening Mystery is come towards thee To every Woman departed Detain not any longer O malicious Hell the Souls of the Elect in the condemnation of the Transgression for all being now made assuredly conformable to Christ instead of Death receive divine life In a word she is made to say the same words as had been attributed to the Priest I am now at rest c. All these Confessions grounded on the Lessons of Scripture which for the most part contain assurances of the Love of God towards those who serve him and promises of their future Beatitude and glorious Resurrection demonstratively prove that the first Compilers of the Greek Office agreeing in what is most substantial with the Protestants believed that whoever dies in the Faith of the Lord does from the moment of his Death enjoy rest and glory in him and with him But for as much as from time to time the purity of belief and worship receiving adulteration among them there rose up a sort of people apt to feign any

either abolished or so altered that they contain not any thing of what was in them before of greatest consideration And thence it is come to pass that in those who go under the name of St. James St. Peter St. Basil and St. Gregory we meet not with as in the first Prayers to God for the Saints but Prayers to the Saints the fear of making them equal with Jesus Christ being by degrees vanished and experience forcing us to acknowledg that all the imaginations of men as well what are good as what bad pass away but that Jesus Christ alone is and shall be the same eternally as St. Paul to our comfort gives us to observe in the 8th Verse of the 13th Chapter to the Hebrews CHAP. XX. The Motive of Dionysius the pretended Areopagite taken into consideration HE who about the year 490. took upon him the name of St. Denys the Areopagite to gain the greater credit to his Books Of the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies grounds upon one onely consideration the Commemoration of the departed which was made in his time in the Publick Service and declares his sentiment with the ordinary ostentation in these Termes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The recitation of the sacred Rolls which is made after the kissing of the Pax declares the names of those who have lived holily and who are irreturnably gone to the perfection of virtuous life exhorting and leading us to the most blessed and Godlike condition by resemblance of them and pronouncing them as it were living and as Theology expresses it not dead but passed from death to a most divine life But withall observe that they are reposited by sacred Memorials in the Remembrance of the Deity and not according to the manner of men transmitted from the fancy to the memory but to speak suitably to God according to the venerable and irrecoverable knowledg of the God-like deceased which is in God For as the Oracles say he knows those who are his and The death of his Saints is precious in his sight the death of the Saints being named instead of their accomplishment in sanctity Think devoutly upon this viz. that the venerable Signs whereby Christ is signified and participated having been placed upon the divine Altar immediately after follows the Description of the Saints declaring thus much that they are inseparably conjoyned by the supercelestial and sacred union which is between them This Discourse which makes no mention of any thing but the recital of the Names of the Departed denoting the perpetuity of the blessed life they enjoy in consequence of their living conformably to the will of God might stand without the use of any Prayer made on their behalf by the living But in the seventh Chapter he not onely speaks very clearly but expresses his meaning of it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The divine Hierarch or President over things sacred advancing makes the holy Prayer for the Person departed and after the Prayer the same Hierarch kisseth him and afterwards all that are present do the like Now the prayer requires of that Goodness which divinely governs all things that whatsoever sin the departed hath through humane frailty committed might be forgiven him and that he might be placed in Light and in the Region of the Living in the Bosoms of Abraham Isaac and Jacob whence trouble and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Thus does this learned but insincere Authour ground what he says on the sixty of St. Epiphanius's Motives as the most rational of all and hath perswaded thereto all the Modern Greeks And as St. Epiphanius's alledging of several other Considerations argues he writ before the pretended Areopagite ever thought of his Supposition so this latter's copying the words of the Constitutions attributed to St. Clement and above transcribed and not allowing of Prayer for the damned shews that his work is later and of as little authority CHAP. XXI The Motives of Tertullian examined TErtullian before any of these Authours alledged two Motives of praying for the Dead that is to say their refreshment and the hastening or advancement of their Resurrection For this Great man I know not how bewitched by the pretended Sibylline Writing supposed that before the last Judgment the Son of God being descended upon Earth to establish a new Kingdom in Jerusalem and to govern it himself should bring together all his Faithfull and should there fill them with all delights even corporeal for the space of a thousand years And whereas St. John had foretold in his Apocalyps that the Old Serpent being bound for a thousand years there should be a first Resurrection in favour of their Souls who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus he with Justin Martyr Papias St. Irenaeus and all those who have since gone under the name of Millenaries took that Praediction literally and wresting it to a contrary sence imagined that during the thousand years of Christ's Reign which he pretended should be in Jerusalem the most eminent for Sanctity among the Faithfull departed should rise again before the rest of mankind but successively and every one at this appointed time so as that if one took possession of his body in the first of the thousand years another should not have that privilege till a hundred two or three hundred years after and so to the end of that period of ten Ages and that those should have least advantage thereof whose Resurrection should be either delayed till near the end of the thousand years or put off till after it and referred to the last day assigned for the general Resurrection as well of the rest of the Just as the Wicked To induce us to embrace that Opinion St. Irenaeus in the thirty fourth Chapter of his fifth Book making a coherence between the words of St. John in the twentieth Chapter of the Apocalyps and those of the Son of God in the twelfth of St. Luke said Hoc est quod à Domino dictum est c. This is it which is said by our Saviour Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching Verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them to sit down to meat and will still come forth and serve them and if he come in the Evening-Watch and finde them so doing they are blessed because he shall make them sit down and shall serve them nay though it be in the second or the third Watch they are blessed The same thing saith also John in the Apocalyps Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection For comparing the Faithfull departed to the Servants that wait for the return of their Lord he would have those that are raised the first those who next to them and those who after them designed by those who are visited at the first second and third watch And Tertullian having embraced the same Opinion presupposes that the Faithfull might either

Beatitude writing in the nine and twentieth Homily upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Without the flesh the soul shall not receive those unspeakable goods in like manner shall she not also be punished c. If the body be not raised again the soul remains uncrowned deprived of that Beatitude which is in the Heavens c. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. You also think what and how great a thing it is that Abraham and the Apostle Paul should sit down till such time as thou shalt be accomplished to the end that then they might receive their reward for if we also are not arrived the Saviour hath foretold that he would not give it c. What shall Abel do who overcame first of all and is sate down without being Crowned Thirdly From what is said by Prudentius who speaking of the Martyrs of Saragossa seems to deny their Souls admission into Heaven saying Sub Altari sita sempiterno turba c. The company seated under the Eternal Altar To which may be added that St. Augustine not content to have said That after this life ended we shall not be there where the Saints shall be as if he could not have designed by its proper Name the place of the Soul's habitation is forced in several places to make use of the most general Term of all viz. that of Receptacles And to that that of Paulinus who in his Epitaph upon Clarus as if he knew not where to assign him Entertainment makes this Discourse to him Sive Patrum sinibus recubas Dominive sub ara Conderis aut sacro pasceris in nemore Qualibet in regione Poli situs aut Paradisi Clare sub aeternâ pace quietus agis c. Whether in th' Patriarch's Bosom thou remain Or under the Lord's Altar art detain d Or an Aboad i' th' sacred Grove hast gain'd What part or place of Paradise thou hast got Clarus eternal Peace and Rest's thy Lot But all this is not enough to induce me to subscribe to the disadvantageous Censure given by Stapleton who not making any distinction of either Times or Persons or Expressions durst attribute to all Antiquity what the Authour of the pretended Sibylline Writing had perswaded those who had first consulted it Nor do I see that from the places above cited it may rigorously be inferred that the Fathers out of whose Writings they are extracted delayed the Beatitude of the Saints till after the Day of Judgment For though the words of Sain● Ambrose seem to bear that they expect their Happiness with uncertainty and doubtfully yet he neither understood nor could have understood it so since that in the second of the places objected to him he writes that the Soul of the Faithfull Person departed Non busto tenetur sed quiete piâ fungitur c. is not detained upon the Funeral Pile where the Body had been consumed but enjoys a pious Rest His design then as it was also St. Chrysostom's who means by the Bosom of the Fathers the Kingdom of Heaven was to have it understood that the supreme Happiness and absolute accomplishment of the glory of the Saints departed was to be a Consequence of the Resurrection and Last Judgment at which time the souls already in Glory shall receive their true Crowns in the remuneration promised to compleat Persons whereof they before made the principal part and that in expectation of the Judgment which shall fully consummate their Glory they remain in suspense not as uncertain of the effect it shall produce but as ignorant of the time when it shall please God that so admirable an Event shall come to pass So that his particular Judgment reaches no further then that the souls freed from their bodies are transmitted to Hell but simply supposes that as to the Heathen it was enough to say so much As for Prudentius and Paulinus their conception of the Eternal Altar is not after a gross but after a refined and mystical manner Prudentius saying of the blessed souls that they shall rest in the Bosom of the blessed Old man where Lazarus is and in Paradise And Paulinus expressly declaring of Clarus Libera corporeo mens carcere gaudet in Astris Pura probatorum sedem sortita piorum c. Spiritus aethere gaudet Discipulúmque pari sociat super astra Magistro c. Among the Just his Habitation is Of Body freed possess'd of Heav'nly Bliss c. His soul to Heav'n is gone The Scholar to the Master 's equal grown So that according to these two Authours to rest under the Eternal Altar in the Bosom of Abraham in Paradise in Heaven above the Stars is one and the same thing as to the effect and design though by divers expressions the Beatitude and Glory of the children of God as well in general as in particular CHAP. XXXIV The Uniformity of the Sentiment of the Fathers and of the Protestants I Add that most of the Fathers who lived after Tertullian what Expressions soever they may make use of were of a Sentiment consonant to what is at the present held by the Protestants and firmly maintained that all the Souls of those of whose Names there was a Commemoration made in the Service of the Church were at the very hour of their death conveyed to the enjoyment of their Rest and Glory Hence was it that St. Cyprian even in the year 252. resolutely pronounces De istis mundi turbinibus extracti c. Having escaped the Tempests of this World we make towards the secure Haven of an eternal Mansion c. We are not to put on Mourning-Garments here when they there have already put on their White Robes c. It is not a departure but a passage and the Temporal journey being at an end a transportation towards the things That are Eternal c. Let us embrace the day which assigns to every one his own Mansion which restores us taken away hence and disingaged from the snares of this World to Paradise and the celestial Kingdom c. Again Lucrum maximum c. exemptum pressuris-urgentibus venenatis Diaboli faucibus liberatum ad laetitiam salutis aeternae Christo vocante prosicisci c. It is an exceeding great advantage c. to go Christ calling us to the Joys of Eternal Salvation after we are freed from those pressures which lie heavy upon us and delivered from the poisonous jaws of the Devil To the same effect Origene about fifteen years before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We hope to be above the Heavens after the Combats and Troubles which we have run through here St. Basil in the following Age about the year 370. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An eternal Rest is proposed to those who shall have lawfully maintained the Combat of the Life which is here St. Gregory Nazianzene in his tenth Oration pronounced about the year 369. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

that to address to her either separately or joyntly with God Almighty the solemn Sacrifice is to serve her with the service of Latria and to transfer to the Creature the Glory of the Creatour Or when Jovianus Pontanus a Great Person otherwise Councellour and Secretary of State to Ferdinand of Arragon King of Naples feigned that St. Michael the Archangel appearing to Laurence Bishop of Sipontum in Apulia had entertained him with this horrid and necessarily-false Discourse concerning the Grot of the Mountain Garganus now called Mont di S. Angelo Michael ego sum qui hoc excavato saxo hac antro hoc habitaculo his assidue manantibus stillis abluturus sum ac deleturus meam ad aram confugientium mortalium errata c. I am Michael who having hollowed this Rock this Cave this Habitation shall by these perpetually falling drops wash away and take off the sins of those who have recourse to my Altar as if ever any one of the blessed Angels of Light of whom St. Augustine sometime said to the Heathens Utinam vos illos colere velletis facilè enim ab ipsis disceretis non illos colere c. I wish you would also attempt to serve them as sometime did St. John for you might learn of them not to serve them as if I say it had been a thing becoming any of the Angels to importune men for Temples and Altars or at least to erect them to themselves or lastly to attribute to themselves the honour of washing away and blotting out the sins of men or as if any other then the Son of God had purged our sins and that by the sacrifice of himself appearing now once for to put away sin sanctifying those who are his through the offering of his Body once for all having offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever and by that offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified Upon which accompt St. John says that he is the Propitiation for our sins and that his blood cleanseth us from all ●n yet this very Church of Rome I say who hath in those of her Communion forborn to take any notice of the wicked and scandalous Expressions we have even now refuted made no difficulty after St. Augustine to declare those guilty of sacrilege who should presume to sacrifice to any of the Saints nor in imitation of him to affirm that it is a less sin to return drunk from the Memorials or Sepulchres of the Martyrs then to sacrifice to them fasting But considering with the whole antient Church in her Liturgies the things distributed in the Eucharist no otherwise then as gifts and presents which God gives us and which he creates and dayly leaves to our disposal though by their consecration we hold with the Holy Fathers that they become Religious Sacraments Figures Images Signs and Similitudes of the Body and Blood of Christ nay that very Body and Blood in a Sacramental way no man ought to think they absolutely cease to be what they were according to the condition of their nature before the Consecration viz. aliments of refection created for our use and left to our discretion to be communicated to those who are with us whether effectually or in outward appearance in the Communion of the Church Upon this accompt St. Ambrose might say that he made a Present of it to Valentinian a Catechumen indeed as to outward appearance but in effect one of the Faithfull in as much as he had made a Vow to receive Baptism much after the same manner as at this day the Church of Rome in the distribution of the Bread which she calls Holy reserves even for the absent that are in Communion with her whom the Persons that offer it are willing to honour their portion as a kinde of Honourary Present Thirdly I intreat the Reader to observe that St. Ambrose who had said of the Great Theodosius that he had attained salvation through his humility in imitation of David that his soul was returned into her rest c. that she had made haste to enter into the City of Jerusalem into true glory in the Kingdom of the blessed in the enjoyment of perpetual light rejoycing in the fruits of the reward for the things he had done in his body does not when he concludes his Discourse with this Wish Grant thy servant perfect rest that rest which thou hast prepared for thy Saints any way insinuate to the prejudice of what he had said before that the Soul of that Prince was then when he spoke in expectation of her rest for he adds immediately after that he remains in light and is glorified in the Assemblies of the Saints in the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus enjoying the society of Gratian his Brother-in-law of Flaccilla his Daughter and of the great Constantine but he desires on his behalf not absolutely rest since he was possessed of it as to his Soul but the perfect rest the possession whereof he could not arrive to in Body and Soul till after the Resurrection and in comparison to which what he was then possessed of could not be accompted other then imperfect and as it were half since he enjoyed it but in one of the parts of his Person the other being to remain under the power of Death till the Last day at which time it was to be rejoyned to the other that they might be joyntly received into Glory Into this Doctrine which in the main presupposes the Hypothesis of the Protestants concerning the Beatitude of the Faithfull as to their souls from the Moment of their Body's dissolution we finde a little rubbish shuffled which the Protestants do not conceive any one should force them to take upon their accompt In the first place according to the then Custom but without any Command or Promise of God and without the Example of the Apostolique Church the onely means able to Authorise his Action St. Ambrose prays for him whom he acknowledged in Bliss in the Kingdom of God a kinde of Office which he himself in his Funeral Oration for Valentinian had declared purely Arbitrary and proceeding from the Will-worship whereof St. Paul had about three hundred and thirty years before expresly advertized the Colossians and by them the whole Church through all Ages to beware And secondly where he prays that the Soul of Theodosius might return into the rest whence it had descended he not onely makes a superfluous Wish and consequently ill-grounded according to his own confession since that Soul was already gotten into the place where he wished it But he shews further that he had a little Tincture of Origene's Venom whose Imagination it was that the souls having sinned in Heaven and being forced to depart thence were descended guilty of Crimes and as such had been disposed into Bodies An Opinion which was condemned in the year 399. by the unanimous consent of the whole Church which constantly maintains even to this day and that