not forbear thereupon to break out into this amazing acclamation to the Virgin Mary: Vivat tuum decus, tua laus, tua gloria, quamdiu vivent angeli, quamdiu vivent homines, quamdiu vivet Christus, quamdiu Deus erit Deus, in omnia sæculorum sæcula ¶. Which words, not without a kind of tremor, I thus English: "Let thy honour, thy praise, thy glory live, as long as angels live, as long as men shall 66 66 . live, as long as Christ shall live, as long as God "shall be God, even for ever and ever." But how vain are these men! The expression of the blessed Virgin doubtless signifies but the same thing, though in a wider extent, with that of Leah upon the birth of her son Asher, Gen. xxx. 13. where the LXX. hath it, Happy am I, for the daughters shall call me blessed. No man can be so foolish as to imagine she meant, that the daughters should pray to her and worship her; but only that they should think and acknowledge her to be a happy woman. So here, when the holy Virgin saith, all generations. shall call me blessed; she means no more, than that all generations should, upon the account of her bringing into the world the common Saviour, esteem and proclaim her the most blessed woman. And this we most willingly and gladly do. We think and speak most respectfully of her, and do not ordinarily mention her name without a preface or epithet of honour, as the holy, the blessed Virgin, and the like. We do, by the appointment of our church, sing or rehearse in our daily service her excellent magnificat; and thereby we testify our assent to, and complacence in, those singular favours that God is therein said to have bestowed on her; and together with her, we finally return the praise and glory of all to God alone. We celebrate two annual festivals in her memorial, the feasts of her annunciation and purification. And if we could think of any other honour that we could do her, without dishonouring God the Father and his eternal Son, we would most willingly yield it to her. Wherefore the papists are themselves egregious ca-. lumniators, when they charge us protestants, that we are beatæ Virginis conviciatores," reproach"ers of the blessed Virgin." We defy their charge; we honour the blessed Virgin as a most singular elect vessel of God; as one in the highest degree of all mere mortals honoured by God: but therefore we will not yield her any of that honour that is culiar to God; for God himself hath told us, that he will not give his glory to another, Isai. xlii. 8. She saith indeed, that all generations should call her blessed; but not that any generation should call upon her to bless them. This had been a most arrogant sacrilegious speech, altogether unbeseeming the most humble, as well as holy Virgin. pe We have carefully read the holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and cannot find any one iota in them, that makes in the least for the invocation and adoration of the Virgin Mary. Nay we find the stream of holy writ carrying and directing all our prayers and supplications to God alone, through Jesus Christ the only Mediator. And for the blessed Virgin, we cannot be so stupid as not to remark and s Maldonat in loc. observe the great silence concerning her in sacred history, after the relation of her bringing forth our Saviour, and her presentation of him in the temple, and their exile into Egypt, and return to Nazareth. After this we hear of her but seldom, and that only occasionally. Once she is mentioned as present, and receiving a check from our Saviour, at the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee, John ii. 1. &c. Another time she is mentioned together with the brethren of our Saviour as inquiring after him, Matt. xii. 47. &c. She is mentioned again, John xix. 25, 26, 27. as standing by the cross of her Son, beholding his passion, and thereby fulfilling the prophecy of good old Simeon, that a sword should pierce through her own soul, Luke ii. 35. And lastly, she is mentioned by St. Luke as present at that assembly of Christians, wherein Matthias was elected to the apostleship in the room of Judas, Acts i. 14. In all which places the mention of her is such, as may seem purposely designed to have prevented that superstitious and idolatrous worship of her, which was afterward set up in the church of Rome. In the rest of the writings of the New Testament, the Epistles of the apostles, wherein they fully instruct us in all the essentials of that religion and worship which Christianity requires of us, she is not so much as once named; much less is there any the least intimation of any invocation or religious worship due to her from us. It is a most ridiculous account which the Ro t [It is not actually said that she was present at the election of Matthias compare v. 15. The Romanists say that she was present with the apostles on the day of Pentecost.] : manists give us of this silence of the holy Scriptures. Lorinus, a very learned and approved writer among them, in his exposition of Acts i. 14. thus resolves the difficulty. "There are few things delivered con"cerning the mother of Christ in the Scriptures, "because those things were sufficient which in her "respected Christ; and also because that one title "of the mother of Christ and of God serves instead " of all praises; and farther, because her testimony might be suspected by the unbelieving world : "and lastly, because as Adam was formed out of "the unformed and thick earth, and then Eve out "of his rib; so Christ was first to be preached, and "the virtue of Christ to be made known in the rude "earth of persecutions and martyrs ". Afterwards "the blessed Virgin was celebrated by many enco"miums of the Fathers, and made illustrious by 66 66 66 many miracles, temples, festivals," &c. Thus far he. But, 1. the Jesuit yields all that we désire, when he confesseth "that those things were sufficient to have been spoken concerning the blessed Virgin, which in her respected Christ." Nothing more certain. It was the setting forth Christ, not of his mother, which was the end and design of the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures of the New Testament; and therefore that was sufficient to be spoken of her which served to lead us to the knowledge of, and to faith in, Christ. 2. As for the title of the mother of God, it doth not at all infer any right the blessed Virgin hath to our religious adoration of her. By that relation to the Son of God she cannot challenge any share with him in his divine honour; " In rudi terra persecutionum et martyrum. much less any commanding power over him, which yet hath been formerly in the public offices of the church of Rome, and I am certain is still in some of their private offices, attributed to hery. For though she was the mother of him that was God, yet she' contributed nothing to him as God; but he, as such, was and is her God, Lord, Creator, and Saviour; to whom therefore she, together with us, pays all humble adoration and worship. Nay, she was not his mother as man, in so strict a sense as other women are mothers of their children; for she conceived him not naturally, but by the help of the divine Spirit overshadowing her: so that her very conception of him as man was immediately due to him as God, and she was eternally bound to praise him for so wonderful an operation wrought in her. And it is to be observed, that the ancient doctors of the church, when they contested with heretics about the title beoтókos, mother of God, designed not by that title so much to advance the honour of the blessed Virgin, as to secure the real and inseparable union of the two natures in Christ; and to shew that the human nature, which Christ took of the holy Virgin, never subsisted separately from the divine person of the Son of God. 3. His third reason of this silence is plainly foolish and absurd, "that her testimony "would have been suspected by the unbelieving "world:" for by the same reason the Scriptures must have been silent concerning Christ himself also. Be x [Accedit ad illud aureum Divinæ Majestatis tribunal, non rogans, sed imperans, domina non ancilla. Damianus. Maria orat ut filia, jubet ut soror, imperat ut mater. Bibl. Maria.] Albertus Magnus, y [Monstra te esse matrem. Office of the Virgin.]. |