SECTION V.

MODERN WORKS OF DEVOTION AMONG ROMAN CATHOLICS.

It may perhaps be surmised, that the authors referred to in the last section lived many years ago, and that the sentiments of the faithful members of the Church of Rome have undergone material changes on these points. Assurances are given on every side, that the invocation of the saints and of the Virgin is nothing more than a request, that they would intercede with God, and implore his mercy for the suppliants. But whatever implicit reliance we may place on the good faith with which these declarations are made, we can discover no new key by which to interpret the forms of prayer and praise satisfactorily. Confessedly there are no changes in the authorized services. We discover no traces of change in the worship of private devotion. The Breviary and Missal contain the same offices of the Virgin Mary as in former days. The same sentiments are expressed towards her in public; the same forms of devotion', both in prayer and praise, are prepared for the use of individuals in their daily exercises. Whatever meaning is to be attached to the expressions employed, the prevailing expressions themselves remain the same as we found them to have been in past ages.

Since I made these extracts from the learned and celebrated doctors and canonized saints of former ages, my attention has been invited to the language now

1 Works of this character abound in every place, where Roman Catholic books may be purchased.

used in forms of devotion, the spirit of which implies similar views of the power and love of the Virgin Mary, as the fountain of mercies to mankind, and the dispenser of every heavenly blessing.

At the head of these modern works, I was led to read over again the encyclical letter of the present sovereign pontiff, from the closing sentences of which I have already made extracts. And referring his words to a test which we have more than once applied in a similar case that of changing the name of the person, and substituting the name of God, or his blessed Son, I cannot see how the spirit of his sentiments falls in the least below the highest degree of religious worship. His words, in the third paragraph of his letter, as they appear in the Laity's Directory for 1833, are these:

"But having at length taken possession of our see in the Lateran Basilic according to the custom and institution of our predecessors, we turn to you without delay, venerable brethren, and in testimony of our feelings towards you, we select for the date of our letter this most joyful day on which we celebrate the solemn festival of the most blessed Virgin's triumphant assumption into heaven, that she who has been through every great calamity our patroness and protectress, may WATCH OVER US WRITING TO YOU, AND LEAD OUR MIND BY HER HEAVENLY INFLUENCE to those counsels which may prove most salutary to Christ's flock.”

Let us substitute for the name of Mary, the holiest of all, The Eternal Spirit of Jehovah Himself; and will not these words be a proper vehicle of the sentiments of a Christian pastor? Let us fix upon Christmas-day, or Easter, or Holy Thursday, and what word expressive

of gratitude for past mercies to the supreme Giver of all good things, or of hope and trust in the guidance of the Spirit of counsel, and wisdom, and strength—of the most High God, who alone can order the wills and ways of men-might not a bishop of Christ's flock take from this declaration of the Sovereign Pontiff, and use in its first and natural sense, when speaking of the Lord Jehovah Himself? "We select for the date of our letter this most joyful day on which we celebrate the solemn festival of the most blessed Redeemer's nativity, (or glorious resurrection, or ascension,) that He who has been through every great calamity our patron and protector, may watch over us writing to you, and lead our mind by his heavenly influence to those counsels which may prove most salutary to Christ's flock.”

In these sentiments of the present Pope there is no allusion (as there is in the other clause) to Mary's prayers and intercessions. Looking to and weighing the words employed, and as far as words can be relied upon as interpreters of the thoughts, looking to the spirit of his profession, only one inference can be fairly drawn. However direct and immediate the prayers of the suppliants may be to the Virgin for her protection and defence from all dangers, spiritual and bodily, and for the guidance of the inmost thoughts in the right way, (blessings which we of the Anglican Catholic Church, following the footsteps of the primitive flock of Christ, have always looked for at the hand of God Almighty only, to be granted by Him for the sake of his blessed Son,) such petitioners to Mary would be sanctioned to the utmost by the principles and example of the present Roman Pontiff.

We have already, when examining the records of

the Council of Chalcedon, compared the closing words of this encyclical letter with the more holy and primitive aspirations of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople in those earlier days; and the comparison is striking between the sentiments now expressed in the opening parts of the same letter, and the spirit of the collects which were adopted for the use of the faithful, before the invocation of saints and of the Virgin had gained its present strong hold in the Church of Rome. For example, a collect at Vespers teaches us to pray to God as the source from whom all holy desires and all good counsels proceed'; and on the fifth Sunday after Easter this prayer is offered: "O God, from whom all good things do come, grant, we pray Thee, that by thy inspiration we may think those things that be good; and by thy guidance may perform the same;" whilst on the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, in a collect, the spirit of which is strongly contrasted with the sentiments in both parts of this encyclical letter, God is thus addressed: "We beseech thee, O Lord, with thy continual pity, guard thy family, that, leaning on the sole hope of heavenly grace, it may ever be defended by thy protection 2.”

Similar materials are abundant. A whole volume, indeed, might readily be composed consisting solely of rules and instructions, confessions and forms of prayer, appertaining to the Virgin and the Saints, published by authority at the present day, both in our country and on the Continent, for the use of our Roman Ca

1 Hiem. 149.

2 Ut quæ in sola spe gratiæ cœlestis innititur, tua semper protec

tione muniatur.-Hiem. 364.

"Let us raise our eyes to the Blessed Virgin, who is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope.

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tholic brethren; but to which the word of God, and the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, are in our estimation as much opposed as to the prayers of Bonaventura, or to the doctrine of either of the Bernardins. It would, however, be unprofitable to dwell on this subject at any great length. I will, therefore, only briefly refer to two publications of this sort, to which my own attention has been accidentally drawn: "The Imitation of the blessed Virgin," and the "2 Little Testament of the holy Virgin."

The first professes to be "composed on the plan of the Imitation of Christ."" This is, in itself, highly objectionable; its tendency is to exalt Mary, by association, to the same place in our hearts and minds, which Thomas à Kempis had laboured in his "Imitation of Christ," to secure for the Saviour; and it reminds us of the proceedings of Bonaventura, who wrote psalms to the honour of the Virgin after the manner which David used in his hymns to the Lord of Glory. In this work we read the following prayer to the Virgin, which seems to be stained with the error, the existence of which elsewhere we have already noticed, of contrasting the justice and the stern dealings even of the Saviour, with the mercy, and loving-kindness, and fellowfeeling of Mary; to make God an object of fear, Mary an object of love.

3 "Mother of my Redeemer, O Mary, in the last mo

1 "The Imitation of the Blessed Virgin, composed on the plan of the Imitation of Christ. London, 1816. Approved by T. R. Asselini, Doctor of Sorbonne, last Bishop of Boulogne. From the French."

"The Little Testament of the Holy Virgin, translated from the French, and revised by a Catholic Priest. Third Edition. Dublin, 1836."