Another interesting quote by St. Ambrose. The final end statement.

St. Ambrose De Abraham:

nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu sancto, non potest introire in regnum dei.  utique nullum excepit, non infantem, non aliqua praeventum necessitate: habeant tamen illam opertam poenarum inmunitatem, nescio an habeant regni honorem.

I still intend to study this quotation a bit more.  There's a lot of interplay here between the various verb moods, with a strange use of the "subjunctive" outside of a subordinate clause, which may be implied.

My general sense of it is, "While I think they might have some undisclosed immunity from punishments, I really don't think they could have the honor of the Kindom."  Is he distinguishing between "entering the Kingom" and having the "honor of the Kingdom"?  I'm not sure.  But the original quotation from Our Lord he admits allows for no exceptions, and so he doesn't see how they might have the "honor of the Kingdom."

Even in the weakest possible sense, this completely undermines the norion of the "authority" of Ambrose somehow allegedly teaching Baptism of Desire.  AT BEST, you could say he didn't completely rule it out, but leaned strongly against it.

As you know, the "authority" of Augustine and Ambrose are what all BoD theory is based on, and between this from St. Ambrose and St. Augustine's admitted speculation (that he later retracted), that is the sum total of all evidence among the Church Fathers in favor of BoD.  Ridiculous that some try to elevate BoD speculation to some kind of dogma.  If it were revealed dogma, you'd surely have more Patristic support than this.  You'd have multiple Fathers repeating it as a teaching that was handed down to them by those who taught them the faith, and not admitting that they're speculating.