XXXVIII

most remote from earth, as where the stars are, or above the stars, in another higher heaven, called coelum empyreum , whereof there is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason), is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find. By the Kingdom of Heaven is meant the kingdom of the King that dwelleth in heaven; and His kingdom was the people of Israel, whom He ruled by the prophets, His lieutenants; first Moses, and after him Eleazar, and the sovereign priests, till in the days of Samuel they rebelled, and would have a mortal man for their king, after the manner of other nations. And when our Saviour Christ, by the preaching of His ministers, shall have persuaded the Jews to return, and called the Gentiles to His obedience, then shall there be a new kingdom of heaven; because our king shall then be God, whose “throne” is heaven: without any necessity evident in the Scripture, that man shall ascend to his happiness any higher than God’s “footstool” the earth. On the contrary, we find written (John 3:13) that “no man hath ascended into heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, that is in heaven.” Where I observe by the way, that these words are not, as those which go immediately before, the words of our Saviour, but of St. John himself; for Christ was then not in heaven, but upon the earth. The like is said of David (Acts 2:34), where St. Peter, to prove the ascension of Christ, using the words of the Psalmist (Psalm 16:10), “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption,” saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ; and to prove it addeth this reason, “For David is not ascended into heaven.” But to this a man may easily answer and say, that though their bodies were not to ascend till the general day of judgment, yet their souls were in heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies; which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour (Luke 20:37⁠–⁠38), who proving the resurrection out of the words of Moses, saith thus, “That the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for they all live to Him.” But if these