d at
a fixed time, effecting her assumption, as it is called, "to-day." [AEs.
595.] "To-day Mary the Virgin ascended the heavens. Rejoice, because she
is reigning with Christ for ever." "Mary the Virgin is taken up into
heaven, to the ethereal chamber in which the King of kings sits on his
starry throne." "The holy mother of God hath been exalted above the
choirs of angels to the heavenly realms." "Come, let us worship the King
of kings, to whose ethereal heaven the Virgin Mother was taken up
to-day." And that it is her bodily ascension, her corporeal assumption
into heaven, and not merely the transit of her soul[108] from mortal
life to eternal bliss, which the Roman Church maintains and propagates
by this service, is put beyond doubt by the service itself. In the
fourth and sixth reading[109], or lesson, for example, we find these
{303} sentences:--"She returned not into the earth but is seated in the
heavenly tabernacles." "How could death devour, how could those below
receive, how could corruption invade, THAT BODY, in which life was
received? For it a direct, plain, and easy path to heaven was prepared."

[Footnote 108: Lambecius, indeed (book viii. p. 306), distinctly
affirms, that one object which the Church had in view was to
condemn the HERESY of those who maintain that the reception of
the Virgin into heaven, was the reception of her soul only, and
not also of her body. "Ut damnet eorum haeresin qui sanctissimae
Dei genetricis rcceptionem in coelum ad animam ipsius tantum,
non vero simul etiam ad corpus pertinere existimant."]

[Footnote 109: Non reversa est in terram, sed ... in coelestibus
tabernaculis collocatum. Quomodo mois devoraret, quomodo inferi
susciperent, quomodo corruptio invaderit CORPUS ILLUD in quo
vita suscepta est? Huic recta plana et facilis ad coelum parata
est via. AEs. 603, 604.]

Now, on what authority does this doctrine rest? On what foundation stone
is this religious worship built? The holy Scriptures are totally and
profoundly silent, as to the time, the place, the manner of Mary's
death. Once after the ascension of our Lord, and that within eight days,
we find mentioned the name of Mary promiscuously with others; after
that, no allusion is made to her in life or in death; and no account, as
far as I can find, places her death too late for mention to have been
made of it in the Acts of the Apostles. The historian, Nicephorus
Callistus