been destroyed by death, he had not been our deliverer; for what hope of safety should we have had left by him that had not saved himself? It was therefore meet for the person which the Lord did bear, and a necessary help for us to salvation, that Christ should first deliver himself from death, and afterward that he should break and pull in sunder the bands of death for us, and so that we might set the hope of our salvation in his resurrection. For it cannot be that Christ, our head, rising again, should suffer us, the members of his body, to be consumed, and utterly destroyed, by death.

Mast. Thou hast touched, my child, the principal causes of the resurrection of Christ. Now would I hear what thou thinkest of his ascending into heaven.

Scho. He being covered with a cloud spread about him, in sight of his Apostles ascended into heaven, or rather, above all heavens, where he sitteth on the right-hand of God the Father,

Mast. Tell me how this is to be understood. Scho. Plainly that Christ in his body ascended into heaven, where he had not afore been in his body, and left the earth, where he had afore been in his body. For in his nature of Godhead, which filleth all things, both he ever was in heaven; and also with the same, and with his Spirit, he is alway present in Earth with his Church, and shall be present till the end of the world......

Mast. Now as touching Christ, what dost thou

chiefly consider in his ascending and sitting at the right-hand of his Father.

Scho. It was meet that Christ, which from the highest degree of honour and dignity had descended to the basest estate of a servant, and to the reproach of condemnation and shameful death, should on the other side obtain most noble glory and excellent estate, even the same which he had before, that his glory and majesty might in proportion answer to his baseness and shame; which thing St. Paul also, writing to the Philippians, doth most plainly teach. "He became

(saith he) obedient," &c.

Mast. When thou namest the right-hand of God, and sitting, dost thou suppose and imagine that God hath the shape or form of a man.

Scho. No forsooth, Master. But because we speak of God among men, we do, in some sort after the manner of men, express thereby how Christ hath received the kingdom given him of his Father. For kings use to set them on their right-hands to whom they vouchsafe to do highest honour, and make lieutenants of their dominion. Therefore in these modes is meant that God the Father made Christ his Son the head of the Church, and that by him his pleasure is to preserve them that be his, and to govern all things universally.

Mast. Well said. Now what profit take we of his ascending into heaven, and sitting on the

Scho. First, Christ, as he had descended to the earth, as into banishment for our sake; so when he went up into heaven, his Father's inheritance, he entered in our name, making us a way and entry thither, and opening us the gate of heaven, which was before shut against us for sin for sith Christ, our head, hath carried with him our flesh into heaven, he, so mighty and loving a head, will not leave us for ever in earth, that are members of his body. Moreover he being present in the sight of God, and commending us unto him, and making intercession for us, is the patron of our cause, who being our Advocate, our matter shall not quail.

REFORMATIO LEGUM, &c.

Of the Holy Trinity and the Catholic Faith.

Of the two Natures of Christ after his Resurrection. Chap. 4.

It is to be believed also that our Lord Jesus Christ, even after his resurrection subsisted in a twofold nature: the divine, indeed, is immense, uncircumscribed, and infinite, which is every where and fills all things: but the human is finite and limited by the form and boundaries of the human body, with which, after he had purged our sins, he ascended into heaven, and

there so sitteth at the right-hand of the Father as that he is not every where; for it is necessary that he should remain in heaven until the time of the restitution of all things, when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead that he may render to every one according to his works.