Part 3.1 - 2

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

SECTION I.-THE VIRGIN MARY. The worship of the blessed Virgin Mary is so highly exalted in the Church of Rome, as to require the formation of a new name to express its high character. Neither could the Latin language provide a word which would give an adequate idea of its excellence, nor could any word previously employed by the writers in Greek, meet the case satisfactorily. The newly invented term Hyperdulia, meaning "a service above others," seems to place the service of the Virgin on a footing peculiarly its own, as raised above the worship of the saints departed, and of the angels of God, cherubim and seraphim, with all the hosts of principalities and powers in heavenly places. The service of the Virgin Mary thus appears not only to justify, but even to require a separate and distinct examination in this volume. The general principles, however, which we have already endeavoured to establish and illustrate with regard as well to the study of the Holy Scriptures as to the evidence of primitive antiquity, are equally applicable here; and with those principles present to our minds, {270} we will endeavour now to ascertain the truth with regard to the worship of the Virgin as now witnessed in the Roman Catholic Church. Of the Virgin Mary, think not, brethren of the Church of Rome, that a true member of the Anglican branch of the Catholic Church will speak disparagingly or irreverently. Were such an one found among us, we should say of him, he knows not what spirit he is of. Our church, in her Liturgy, her homilies, her articles, in the works too of the best and most approved among her divines and teachers, ever speaks of Saint Mary, the blessed Virgin, in the language of reverence, affection, and gratitude.

She was a holy virgin and a holy mother. She was highly favoured, blessed among women. The Lord was with her, and she was the mother of our only Saviour. She was herself blessed, and blessed was the fruit of her womb. We delight in the language of our ancestors, in which they were used to call her "Mary, the Blissful Maid." Should any one of those who profess and call themselves Christians and Catholics, entertain a wish to interrupt the testimony of every succeeding age, and to interpose a check to the fulfilment of her own recorded prophecy, "All generations shall call me blessed," certainly the Anglican Catholic Church will never acknowledge that wish to be the genuine desire of one of her own sons. The Lord hath blessed her; yea, and she shall be blessed. But when we are required either to address our supplications to her, or else to sever ourselves from the communion of a large portion of our fellow-Christians, we have no room for hesitation; the case offers us no alternative. Our love of unity must yield to our love {271} of truth; we cannot join in that worship which in our conscience we believe to be a sin against God. Whether we are right or wrong in this matter, God will himself judge: and, compared with his acquittal and approval, the severity of man’s judgment cannot turn us aside from our purpose. But before any one pronounces a sentence of condemnation against us, or of approval on himself, it well becomes him patiently and dispassionately to weigh the evidence; lest his decision may not be consistent with justice and truth. In addition to what has been already said on the general subject of addressing our invocation to any created being-to any one among the principalities and thrones, dominions, powers, angels, archangels, and all the hosts of heaven, to any one among the saints, martyrs, confessors, and holy men departed hence in the Lord-I would submit to my brethren of the Roman Catholic Church some considerations specifically applicable to the case of the blessed Virgin, and to the practice of the Church of Rome in the religious worship paid to her.

First, it will be well for us to possess ourselves afresh of whatever light is thrown on this subject by the Scriptures themselves.

SECTION II.-EVIDENCE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. The first intimation given to us that a woman was in the providence of God appointed to be the instrument, or channel by which the Saviour of mankind should be brought into the world, was made immediately after the Fall, and at the very first dawn of the day of salvation. {272} I am fully aware how the various criticisms on the words in which that first promise of a Saviour is couched, have been the well-spring of angry controversy. I will not enter upon that field. The authorized English version thus renders the passage: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." [Gen. iii. 15.] The Roman Vulgate, instead of the word "it," reads "she." Surely such a point as this should be made a subject of calm and enlightened criticism, without warmth or heart-burnings on either side. But for our present purpose, it matters little what turn that controversy may take. I believe our own to be the true rendering: but whether the word dictated here by the Holy Spirit to Moses should be so translated as to refer to the seed of the woman generally, as in our authorized version, or to the male child, the descendant of the woman, as the Septuagint renders it, or to the word "woman" itself; and if the latter, whether it refer to Eve, the mother of every child of a mortal parent, or to Mary, the immediate mother of our Saviour: whatever view of that Hebrew word be taken, no Christian can doubt, that before the foundations of the world were laid, it was foreordained in the counsels of the Eternal Godhead, that the future Messiah, the Redeemer of Mankind, should be of the seed of Eve, and in the fulness of time be born of a Virgin of the name of Mary, and that in the mystery of that incarnation should the serpent’s head be bruised. I wish not to dwell on this, because it bears but remotely and incidentally on the question at issue. I will, therefore, pass on, quoting {273} only the words of one of the most laborious among Roman Catholic commentators, De Sacy. "The sense is the same in the one and in the other, though the expression varies. The sense of the Hebrew is, The Son of the Woman, Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Son of a Virgin, shall bruise thy head, and by establishing the kingdom of God on earth, destroy thine. The sense of the Vulgate is, The woman, by whom thou hast conquered man, shall bruise thy head, not by herself, but by Jesus Christ." [Vol. i. p. 132.] The only other passage in which reference appears to be made in the Old Testament to the Mother of our Lord, contains that celebrated prophecy in the seventh chapter of Isaiah, about which I am not aware that any difference exists between the Anglican and the Roman Churches. "A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel." [Isaiah vii. 4.]

I find no passage in the Old Testament which can by any inferential application be brought to bear on the question of Mary’s being a proper object of invocation. In the New Testament, mention by name is made of the Virgin Mary by St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, and by St. John in his Gospel, as the Mother of our Lord, but not by name; and by no other writer. Neither St. Paul in any one of his many Epistles, though he mentions the names of many of our Lord’s disciples, nor St. James, nor St. Peter, who must often have seen her during our Lord’s ministry, nor St. Jude, nor St. John in any of his three Epistles, or in the {274} Revelation (though, as we learn from his own Gospel, she had of especial trust been committed to his care)-no one of these either mentions her as living, or alludes to her memory as dead. The first occasion on which any reference is made in the New Testament to the Virgin Mary is the salutation of the Angel, as recorded by St. Luke in the opening chapter of his Gospel. The last occasion is when she is mentioned by the same Evangelist, as "Mary the Mother of Jesus," in conjunction with his brethren and with the Apostles and the women all continuing in prayer and supplication, immediately after the ascension of our blessed Lord. Between these two occasions the name of Mary occurs under a variety of circumstances, on every one of which we shall do well to reflect. The first occasion, we have already said, is the salutation of Mary by the angel, announcing to her that she should be the Mother of the Son of God. Surely no daughter of Eve was ever so distinguished among women; and well does it become us to cherish her memory with affectionate reverence. The words addressed to her when on earth by the angel in that announcement, with a little variation of expression, are daily addressed to her by the Roman Catholic Church, now that she is no longer seen, but is removed to the invisible world. "Hail, thou that art highly favoured!" (or as the Vulgate reads it, "full of grace") "the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women." [Luke i. 28.] On the substitution of the expression, "full of grace," for "highly favoured," or, as our margin suggests, "graciously accepted, or much graced," I am not desirous {275} of troubling you with any lengthened remark. I could have wished that since the Greek is different in this passage, and in the first chapter of St. John, where the words "full of grace" are applied to our Saviour, a similar distinction had been observed in the Roman translation. But the variation is unessential. The other expression, "Blessed art thou among women," is precisely and identically the same with the ascription of blessedness made by an inspired tongue, under the elder covenant, to another daughter of Eve. "Blessed above women," or (as both the Septuagint and the Vulgate render the word) "Blessed among women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be." [Judges v. 24.] We can see no ground in such ascription of blessedness for any posthumous adoration of the Virgin Mary. The same observation applies with at least equal strictness to that affecting interview between Mary and Elizabeth, when, enlightened doubtless by an especial revelation, Elizabeth returned the salutation of her cousin by addressing her as the Mother of her Lord, and hailing her visit as an instance of most welcome and condescending kindness, "Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me?" [Luke i. 43.] Members of the Anglican Church are taught to refer to this event in Mary’s life with feelings of delight and gratitude. On this occasion she uttered that beautiful hymn, "The Song of the blessed Virgin Mary," which our Church has selected for daily use at Evening Prayer. These incidents bring before our minds the image of a spotless Virgin, humble, pious, obedient, holy: a chosen servant of God-an exalted pattern for her fellow-creatures; but still a fellow-creature, and a fellow-servant: {276} a virgin pronounced by an angel blessed on earth. But further than this we cannot go. We read of no power, no authority, neither the power and influence of intercession, nor the authority or right of command being ever, even by implication, committed to her; and we dare not of our own minds venture to take for granted a statement of so vast magnitude, involving associations so awful. We reverence her memory as a blessed woman, the virgin mother of our Lord. We cannot supplicate any blessing at her hand; we cannot pray to her for her intercession. The angel’s announcement to Joseph, whether before or after the birth of Christ, the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the return thence, in the record of all of which events by St. Matthew the name of Mary occurs, however interesting and important in themselves, seem to require no especial attention with reference to the immediate subject of our inquiry. To Joseph the angel speaks of the blessed Virgin as "Mary thy wife." [Matt. i. 20.] In every other instance she is called "The young child’s mother," or "His mother." In relating the circumstances of Christ’s birth the Evangelist employs no words which seem to invite any particular examination. Joseph went up into the city of David to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife; and there she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger. And the shepherds found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. [Luke ii. 19.]

Between the birth of Christ, and the flight into Egypt, St. Luke records an event to have happened by no means unimportant-the presentation of Christ in {277} the temple. "And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. And he (Simeon) came by the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, &c. And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign that shall be spoken against, (yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." [Luke ii. 28.] In this incident it is worthy of remark, that Joseph and Mary are both mentioned by name, that they are both called the parents of the young child; that both are equally blessed by Simeon; and that the good old Israelite, illumined by the spirit of prophecy, when he addresses himself immediately to Mary, speaks only of her future sorrow, and does not even most remotely or faintly allude to any exaltation of her above the other daughters of Abraham. "A sword shall pass through thine own soul also," a prophecy, as St. Augustine interprets it, accomplished when she witnessed the sufferings and death of her Son. (See De Sacy, vol. xxxii. p. 138.) The next occasion on which the name of the Virgin Mary is found in Scripture, is the memorable visit of herself, her husband, and her Son, to Jerusalem, when he was twelve years old. And the manner in which this incident is related by the inspired Evangelist, so far from intimating that Mary was destined to be an object of worship to the believers in her Son, affords {278} evidence which exhibits strongly a bearing the direct contrary. Here again Joseph and Mary are both called his parents: Joseph is once mentioned by name, and so is Mary. If the language had been so framed as on purpose to take away all distinction of preference or superiority, it could not more successfully have effected its purpose. But not only so, of the three addresses recorded as having been made by our blessed Lord to his beloved mother (and only three are recorded in the New Testament), the first occurs during this visit to Jerusalem. It was in answer to the remonstrance made by Mary, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." [Luke ii. 48.] "How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?"-[or in my Father’s house, as some render it.] He lifts up their minds from earth to heaven, from his human to his eternal origin. He makes no distinction here,-"Wist YE not." Again, I would appeal to any dispassionate person to pronounce, whether this reproof, couched in these words, countenances the idea that our blessed Lord intended his human mother to receive such divine honour from his followers to the end of time as the Church of Rome now pays? and whether St. Luke, whose pen wrote this account, could have been made cognizant of any such right invested in the Virgin? The next passage calling for our consideration is that which records the first miracle: "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage. And when they wanted wine (when the wine failed), the mother of {279} Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." [John ii. 1.]

I have carefully read the comments on this passage, which different writers of the Roman Catholic communion have recommended for the adoption of the faithful, and I desire not to make any remarks upon them. Let the passage be interpreted in any way which enlightened criticism and the analogy of Scripture will sanction, and I would ask, after a careful weighing of this incident, the facts, and the words in all their bearings, would any unprejudiced mind expect that the holy and beloved person, towards whom the meek and tender and loving Jesus employed this address, was destined by that omniscient and omnipotent Saviour to be an object of those religious acts with which, as we shall soon be reminded, the Church of Rome now daily approaches her?

It is pain and grief to me thus to extract and to comment upon these passages of Holy Writ. The feelings of affection and of reverence approaching awe, with which I hold the memory of that blessed Virgin Mother of my Lord, raise in me a sincere repugnance against dwelling on this branch of our subject, beyond what the cause of the truth as it is in Jesus absolutely requires; and very little more of the same irksome task awaits us. You will of course expect me to refer to an incident recorded with little variety of expression, and with no essential difference, by the first three Evangelists. St. Matthew’s is the most full account, and is this,-"While he yet talked to the people, behold his mother and his brethren stood without desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, {280} Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother." [Matt. xii. 46.] Or, as St. Luke expresses it,-"And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these, who hear the word of God and do it." [Luke viii. 21.]

Humanly speaking, could a more favourable opportunity have presented itself to our blessed Lord of referring to his beloved mother, in such a manner as to exalt her above her fellow daughters of Eve,-in such a manner too, as that Christians in after days, when the Saviour’s bodily presence should have been taken away from them, and the extraordinary communications of the Spirit of truth should have been withdrawn, might have remembered that He had spoken these things, and have been countenanced by his words in doing her homage? But so far is this from the plain and natural tendency of the words of her blessed Son, that, had He of acknowledged purpose (and He has condescended to announce to us, in another place (John xiii. 19, &c.), the purpose of his words) wished to guard his disciples, whilst the world should last, against being seduced by any reverence and love which they might feel towards Himself into a belief that they ought to exalt his mother above all other created beings, and pay her holy worship, we know not what words He could have adopted more fitted for that purpose. There was nothing in the communication which seemed to call for {281} such a remark. A plain message announces to Him as a matter of fact one of the most common occurrences of daily life. And yet He fixes upon the circumstance as the groundwork not only of declaring the close union which it was his good pleasure should exist between obedient and true believers and Himself, but of cautioning all against any superstitious feelings towards those who were nearly allied to Him by the ties of his human nature. With reverence I would say, it is as though He desired to record his foreknowledge of the errors into which his disciples were likely to be seduced, and warned them beforehand to shun and resist the temptation. The evidence borne by this passage against our offering any religious worship to the Virgin, on the ground of her having been the mother of our Lord, seems clear, strong, direct, and inevitable. She was the mother of the Redeemer of the world, and blessed is she among women; but that very Redeemer Himself, with his own lips, assures us that every faithful servant of his heavenly Father shall be equally honoured with her, and possess all the privileges which so near and dear a relationship with Himself might be supposed to convey.-Who is my mother? Or, who are my brethren? Behold my mother and my brethren! Whosoever shall do the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my mother. No less should we be expected in this place to take notice of that most remarkable passage of Holy Scripture, [Luke xi. 27.] in which our blessed Lord is recorded under different circumstances to have expressed the same sentiments, but in words which will appear to many even more strongly indicative of his desire to prevent any {282} undue exaltation of his mother. "As he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked." On the truth or wisdom of that exclamation our Lord makes no remark; He refers not to his mother at all, not even to assure them (as St. Augustine in after-ages taught, see De Sacy, vol. xxxii. p. 35.), that however blessed Mary was in her corporeal conception of the Saviour, yet far more blessed was she because she had fully borne Him spiritually in her heart. He alludes not to his mother except for the purpose of instantly drawing the minds of his hearers from contemplating any supposed blessedness in her, and of fixing them on the sure and greater blessedness of his true, humble, faithful, and obedient disciples, to the end of time. "But he said, Yea, rather [or, as some prefer, yea, verily, and] blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." Again, it must be asked, could such an exclamation have been met by such a reply, had our Lord’s will been to exalt his mother, as she is now exalted by the Church of Rome? Rather, we would reverently ask, would He have given this turn to such an address, had He not desired to check any such feeling towards her? That most truly affecting and edifying incident recorded by St. John as having taken place whilst Jesus was hanging in his agony on the cross, an incident which speaks to every one who has a mind to understand and a heart to feel, presents to us the last occasion on which the name of the Virgin Mother of our Lord occurs in the Gospels. No paraphrase could add force, or clearness, or beauty to the simple narrative of the Evangelist; no exposition could bring out its parts more prominently or {283} affectingly. The calmness and authority of our blessed Lord, his tenderness and affection, his filial love in the very midst of his agony, it is impossible to describe with more heart-stirring and heart-soothing pathos than is conveyed in the simple language of him whom the Saviour at that awful hour addressed, as He committed his mother to him of especial trust. But not one syllable falls from the lips of Christ, or from the pen of the beloved disciple, who records this act of his blessed Master’s filial piety, which can by possibility be construed to imply, that our blessed Lord intended Mary to be held in such honour by his disciples, as would be shown in the offering of prayer and praise to her after her dissolution. He who could by a word, rather by the mere motion of his will, have bidden the whole course of nature and of providence, so to proceed as that all its operations should provide for the health and safety, the support and comfort of his mother-He, when He was on the cross, and when He was on the point of committing his soul into the hands of his Father, leaves her to the care of one whom He loved, and whose sincerity and devotedness to Him He had, humanly speaking, long experienced. He bids him treat Mary as his own mother, He bids Mary look to John as to her own son for support and solace: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son; then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother." [John xix. 25.] And He added no more. If Christ willed that his beloved mother should end her days in peace, removed equally {284} from want and the desolation of widowhood on the one hand, and from splendour and notoriety on the other, nothing could be more natural than such conduct in such a Being at such a time. But if his purpose was to exalt her into an object of religious adoration, that nations should kneel before her, and all people do her homage, then the words and the conduct of our Lord at this hour seem altogether unaccountable: and so would the words of the Evangelist also be, "And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."

After this not another word falls from the pen of St. John which can be made to bear on the station, the character, the person, or circumstances of Mary. After his resurrection our Saviour remained on earth forty days before He finally ascended into heaven. Many of his interviews and conversations with his disciples during that interval are recorded in the Gospel. Every one of the four Evangelists relates some act or some saying of our Lord on one or more of those occasions. Mention is made by name of Mary Magdalene, of Mary [the mother] of Joses, of Mary [the mother] of James, of Salome, of Joanna, of Peter, of Cleophas, of the disciple whom Jesus loved, at whose house the mother of our Lord then was; of Thomas, of Nathanael. The eleven also are mentioned generally. But by no one of the Evangelists is reference made at all to Mary the mother of our Lord, as having been present at any one of those interviews; her name is not alluded to throughout. On one solitary occasion subsequently to the ascension of Christ, mention is made of Mary his mother, in company with many others, and without any further distinction to separate her from the rest: "And when {285} they were come in (from having witnessed the ascension of our Saviour), they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." [Acts i. 13.] Not one word is said of Mary having been present to witness even the ascension of her blessed Son; we read no command of our Lord, no wish expressed, no distant intimation to his disciples that they should even show to her marks of respect and honour; not an allusion is there made to any superiority or distinction and preeminence. Sixty years at the least are generally considered to be comprehended within the subsequent history of the New Testament before the Apocalypse was written; but neither in the narrative, nor in the Epistles, nor yet in the prophetic part of the Holy Book, is there the most distant allusion to Mary. Of him to whose loving care our dying Lord committed his beloved mother of especial trust, we hear much. John, we find, putting forth the miraculous power of Christ at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple; we find him imprisoned and arraigned before the Jewish authorities; but not one word is mentioned as to what meanwhile became of Mary. We find John confirming the Church in Samaria; we find him an exile in the island of Patmos; but no mention is made of Mary. Nay, though we have three of his epistles, and the second of them addressed to one "whom he loved in the truth," we find neither from the tongue nor from the pen of St. John, one single allusion to the mother of our Lord alive or dead. And then, whatever may have been the matter {286} of fact as to St. Paul, neither the many letters of that Apostle, nor the numerous biographical incidents recorded of him, intimate in the most remote degree that he knew any thing whatever concerning her individually. St. Paul does indeed refer to the human nature of Christ derived from his human mother, and had he been taught by his Lord to entertain towards her such sentiments as the Roman Church now professes to entertain, he could not have had a more inviting occasion to give utterance to them. But instead of thus speaking of the Virgin Mary, he does not even mention her name or state at all, but refers only in the most general way to her nature and her sex as a daughter of Adam: "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, MADE OF A WOMAN, made under the law; to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." [Gal. iv. 4.] From a time certainly within a few days of our Saviour’s ascension the Scriptures are totally silent throughout as to Mary, whether in life or in death.

Here we might well proceed to contrast this view which the Scriptures of eternal truth give of the blessed Virgin Mary with the authorized and appointed worship of that branch of the Christian Church which is in communion with Rome. We must first, however, here also examine the treasures of Christian antiquity, and ascertain what witness the earliest uninspired records bear on this immediate point.

{287} CHAPTER II.-EVIDENCE OF PRIMITIVE WRITERS.

Closing the inspired volume, and seeking at the fountain-head for the evidence of Christian antiquity, what do we find? For upwards of three centuries and a half (the limit put to our present inquiry) we discover in no author, Christian or heathen, any trace whatever of the invocation of the Virgin Mary by Catholic Christians. I have examined every passage which I have found adduced by writers of the Church of Rome, and have searched for any other passages which might appear to deserve consideration as bearing favourably on their view of the subject; and the worship of the Virgin, such as is now insisted upon by the Council of Trent, prescribed by the Roman ritual, and practised in the Church of Rome, is proved by such an examination to have had neither name, nor place, nor existence among the early Christians. Forgive my importunity if I again and again urge you to join us in weighing these facts well; and to take your view of them from no advocate on the one side or the other. Search the Scriptures for yourselves, search the earliest writers for yourselves, and for yourselves search with all diligence into the authentic and authorized liturgies of your own Church, your missals, and breviaries, and formularies. Hearsay evidence, testimony {288} taken at second or third hand, vague rumours and surmises will probably expose us, on either side, to error. Let well-sifted genuine evidence be brought by an upright and an enlightened mind to bear on the point at issue, and let the issue joined be this, Is the practice of praying to the Virgin, and praising her, in the language of the prayers and praises now used in the prescribed formularies of the Roman Church, primitive. Catholic, Apostolical?

I am aware that among those who adhere to the Tridentine Confession of faith, there are many on whom this investigation will not be allowed to exercise any influence. The sentiments of Huet, wherever they are adopted, would operate to the total rejection of such inquiries as we are instituting in this work. His words on the immaculate conception of the Virgin are of far wider application than the immediate occasion on which he used them, "That the blessed Mary never conceived any sin in herself is in the present day an established principle of the Church, and confirmed by the Council of Trent. In which it is our duty to acquiesce, rather than in the dicta of the ancients, if any seem to think otherwise, among whom must be numbered Origen." [Origen’s Works, vol. iv. part 2, p. 156.] In this address, however, we take for granted that the reader is open to conviction, desirous of arriving at the truth, and, with that view, ready to examine and sift the evidence of primitive antiquity. In that investigation our attention is very soon called to the remarkable fact, that, whereas in the case of the invocation of saints and angels, the defenders of that doctrine and practice bring forward a great variety of passages, in which mention is supposed to be made of {289} those beings as objects of honour and reverential and grateful remembrance, the passages quoted with a similar view, as regards the Virgin Mary, are very few indeed: whilst the passages which intimate that the early Christians paid her no extraordinary honour (certainly not more than we of the Anglican Church do now) are innumerable.

I have thought that it might be satisfactory here to refer to each separately of those earliest writers, whose testimony we have already examined on the general question of the invocation of saints and angels, and, as nearly as may be, in the same order. In the former department of our investigation we first endeavoured to ascertain the evidence of those five primitive writers, who are called the Apostolical Fathers; and, with regard to the subject now before us, the result of our inquiry into the same works is this:

1. In the Epistle ascribed to BARNABAS we find no allusion to Mary.

2. The same must be affirmed of the book called The Shepherd of HERMAS.

3. In CLEMENT of Rome, who speaks of the Lord Jesus having descended from Abraham according to the flesh, no mention is made of that daughter of Abraham of whom he was born.

4. IGNATIUS in a passage already quoted (Ad Eph. vii. p. 13 and 16) speaks of Christ both in his divine and human nature as Son of God and man, and he mentions the name of Mary, but it is without any adjunct or observation whatever, "both of Mary and of God." In another place he speaks of her virgin state, and the fruit of her womb; and of her having borne our God Jesus the Christ; but he adds no {290} more; not even calling her "The blessed," or "The Virgin." In the interpolated Epistle to the Ephesians, the former passage adds "the Virgin" after "Mary," but nothing more.

5. In the Epistle of POLYCARP we find an admonition to virgins (Page 186), how they ought to walk with a spotless and chaste conscience, but there is no allusion to the Virgin Mary.

JUSTIN MARTYR. In this writer I do not find any passage so much in point as the following, in which we discover no epithet expressive of honour, or dignity, or exaltation, though it refers to Mary in her capacity of the Virgin mother of our Lord:-"He therefore calls Himself the Son of Man, either from his birth of a virgin, who was of the race of David, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, or because Abraham himself was the father of those persons enumerated, from whom Mary drew her origin." [Trypho, § 100. p. 195.] And a little below he adds, "For Eve being a virgin and incorrupt, having received the word from the serpent, brought forth transgression and death; but Mary the Virgin having received faith and joy (on the angel Gabriel announcing to her the glad tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadow her) answered, Be it unto me according to thy word. And of her was born He of whom we have shown that so many Scriptures have been spoken; He by whom God destroys the serpent, and angels and men resembling [the serpent]; but works a rescue from death for such as repent of evil and believe in Him." One more passage will suffice, "And according to the command of God, Joseph, taking Him with Mary, went into Egypt." [Trypho, § 102. p. 196.]

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Among those "Questions" to which we have referred under the head of Justin Martyr’s works, but which are confessedly of a much less remote date, probably of the fifth century, an inquiry is made, How could Christ be free from blame, who so often set at nought his parent? The answer is, that He did not set her at nought; that He honoured her in deed, and would not have hurt her by his words;-but then the respondent adds, that Christ chiefly honoured Mary in that view of her maternal character, under which all who heard the word of God and kept it, were his brothers and sisters and mother; and that she surpassed all women in virtue. [Qu. 136. p. 500.]

IRENÆUS. To the confused passage relied upon by Bellarmin, in which Irenæus is supposed to represent Mary as the advocate of Eve, we have already fully referred (page 120 of this work). In that passage there is no allusion to any honour paid, or to be paid to her, nor to any invocation of her. In every passage to which my attention has been drawn, Irenæus speaks of the mother of our Lord as Mary, or the Virgin, without any adjunct, or term of reverence.

CLEMENT of Alexandria speaks of the Virgin, and refers to an opinion relative to her virgin-state, but without one word of honour. [Stromat. vii. 16. p. 889.]

TERTULLIAN101. The passages in which this ancient writer refers to the mother of our Lord are very far from countenancing the religious worship now paid to her by Roman Catholics: "The brothers of the Lord had not believed on him, as it is contained in the Gospel published {292} before Marcion. His mother likewise is not shown to have adhered to him; whereas others, Marys and Marthas, were frequently in his company." (See Tert. De carne Christi, c. 7. (p. 364. De Sacy, 29. 439.)) And he tells us that Christ was brought forth by a virgin, who was also about to be married once after the birth, that the two titles of sanctity might be united in Christ by a mother who was both a virgin and also once married102.

Footnote 101:(return)

Paris, 1675. De carne Christi, vii. p. 315. De Monogamia, vii. p. 529. N.B. Both these treatises were probably written after he became a Montanist.

Footnote 102:(return) On the works once ascribed to Methodius, but now pronounced to be spurious, see above, p. 131.

ORIGEN thus speaks: "Announcing to Zacharias the birth of John, and to Mary the advent of our Saviour among men." [Comment on John, § 24. vol. iv. p. 82.] In his eighth homily on Leviticus, he refers to Mary as a pure Virgin. [Vol. ii. p. 228.] In the forged work of later times, the writer, speaking of our Saviour, says, "He had on earth an immaculate and chaste mother, this much blessed Virgin Mary." [Hom. iii. in Diversos.] In CYPRIAN we do not find one word expressive of honour or reverence towards the Virgin Mary. Nor is her name mentioned in the letter of his correspondent Firmilian, Bishop of Cappadocia.

LACTANTIUS speaks of "a holy virgin" [Vol. i. p. 299.] chosen for the work of Christ but not one other word of honour, or tending to adoration; though whilst dwelling on the incarnation of the Son of God, had he or his fellow-believers paid religious honour to her, he could scarcely have avoided all allusion to it.

EUSEBIUS speaks of the Virgin Mary, but is altogether silent as to any religious honour of any kind being due to her. In the Oration of the Emperor Constantine (as it is recorded by Eusebius), direct mention is made of the "chaste virginity," and of the maid who was mother {293} of God, and yet remained a virgin. But the object present to the author’s mind was so exclusively God manifest in the flesh, that he does not throughout even mention the name of Mary, or allude to any honour paid or due to her. [Cantab. 1720. § 11. p. 689. and § 19. p. 703.]

ATHANASIUS, bent ever on establishing the perfect divinity and humanity of Christ, thus speaks: "The general scope of Holy Scripture is to make a twofold announcement concerning the Saviour, that He was always God, and is a Son; being the Word and the brightness and wisdom of the Father, and that He afterwards became man for us, taking flesh of the Virgin Mary, who bare God ([Greek: taes theotokou])." [Athan. Orat. iii. Cont. Arian. p. 579.] The work which we have already examined, called The Apostolical Constitutions, compiled probably about the commencement of the fourth century, cannot be read without leaving an impression clear and powerful on the mind, that no religious honour was paid to the Virgin Mary at the time when they were written; certainly not more than is now cheerfully paid to her memory by us of the Anglican Church. Take, for example, the prayer prescribed to be used on the appointment of a Deaconess; the inference from it must be, that others with whom the Lord’s Spirit had dwelt, were at least held in equal honour with Mary: "O Eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of male and female, who didst fill with thy Spirit Miriam, and Hannah, and Holda, and didst not disdain that thy Son should be born of a woman," &c. [Book viii. c. 20.] Thus, {294} too, in another passage, Mary is spoken of just as other women who had the gift of prophecy; and of her equally and in conjunction with the others it is said, that they were not elated by the gift, nor lifted themselves up against the men. "But even have women prophesied; in ancient times Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses; after her Deborah; and afterwards Huldah and Judith; one under Josiah, the other under Darius; and the mother of the Lord also prophesied, and Elizabeth her kinswoman; and Anna; and in our day the daughters of Philip; yet they were not lifted up against the men, but observed their own measure. Therefore among you also should any man or woman have such a grace, let them be humble, that God may take pleasure in them." [Book viii. c. 2.] In the Apostolical Canons I find no reference to Mary; nor indeed any passage bearing on our present inquiry, except the last clause of all, containing the benediction. In this passage not only is the prayer for spiritual blessings addressed to God alone, but it is offered exclusively through the mediation of Christ alone, without alluding to intercessions of angels saints, or the Virgin: "Now may God, the only unproduced Being, the Creator of all things, unite you all by peace in the Holy Ghost; make you perfect unto every good work, not to be turned aside, unblameable, not deserving reproof; and may He deem you worthy of eternal life with us, by the mediation of his beloved Son Jesus Christ our God and Saviour: with whom be glory to Him the Sovereign God and Father, in the Holy Ghost the Comforter, now and ever, world without end. Amen." [Vol. i. p. 450.]

I have not intentionally omitted any ancient author {295} falling within the limits of our present inquiry, nor have I neglected any one passage which I could find bearing testimony to any honour paid to the Virgin. The result of my research is, that I have not discovered one solitary expression which implies that religious invocation and honour, such as is now offered to Mary by the Church of Rome, was addressed to her by the members of the primitive Catholic Church.

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