Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

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,

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 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

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 salva

T

tion. 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 authorised 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'." 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 authorised 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

1 Gen. iii. 15.

« AnteriorContinuar »