CHAPTER XVIII.

FULL-BLOWN ERROR.

"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition."-MATT. xv. 6.

THE rhetoric of the unwise fathers has become the faith of the foolish children. These, as the following extracts show, literally regard Mary as the highest of creatures in purity, power, and glory. "St Michael," as St Augustine says, “although the prince of all the heavenly court, is the most zealous in honouring her and causing her to be honoured, while he waits always in expectation that he may have the honour to go, at her bidding, to render service to some one of her servants." "Her intentions are so pure, that she gives more glory to God by the least of her actions—for example, in twirling her distaff or pointing her needle-than all the saints by all their heroic actions put together..... She gave more glory to God than all the angels and saints have given Him, or ever will give Him." "The angels have no greater honour or pleasure than to descend to earth to obey any of her commandments, and to succour any of her servants." They are "millions and millions of times a day prostrating themselves before her, and begging of her, in her graciousness, to honour them with some of her commands." "Mary commands in the heavens the angels and the blessed. As a recompense for her profound humility,

God has given her the power and permission to fill with saints the empty thrones from which the apostate angels fell by pride. Such has been the will of the Most High, Who exalts the humble, that heaven, earth, and hell bend with good-will or bad-will to the commandments of the humble Mary, whom He has made sovereign of heaven and earth." 1 Mary is the masterpiece of nature, the flower of the old generations, and the wonder of ages." 2 "She has loved God in the first moment of her existence, more than all the saints and all the angels have loved Him during the whole course of their lives. . . . . If the love which all mothers bear to their children were united with the love which all men bear to their spouses, and with the love which all the saints and angels bear to their clients, it would not equal the love which Mary bears to a single soul." 3 "God loves her alone more than He loves all other creatures." "She is exalted above the seraphim and cherubim, and all the hosts in heaven, above the thrones and the powers and the dominations. She is therefore unequalled in the order of nature, in the order of grace, in the order of glory." 4 "She in that first moment" of her being "received a greater amount of grace than all the choirs of angels and the entire multitude of saints had ever received." 5 "The fathers of the Church, from the earliest to the latest times, have rivalled each other in placing the mother of God above all the choirs of angels, and next her Son in power and glory." "The interval between the thrones of the saints and the throne of Jesus is filled up." Mary is "raised to an office, to a dignity and an alliance with her God which, next to her Divine Son, makes her one and unapproachable in excellence, above the angels, yea,

1 Montfort.

4

M'Corry.

2 Orsini.

5 Melia.

3 Liguori.

above the seraphs." She is "higher in holiness, as in dignity, than any other of God's creatures, whether men or angels; higher than angel or archangel, cherubim or seraphim, thrones, principalities, and powers; in a word, Queen of heaven and earth.” 2

The doctrine that Mary was conceived without any stain of sin makes her superhuman. She is named Divine mother; queen of virgins, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, all saints; queen and joy of angels. She is raised to equality with Christ, or He is degraded to her level, when with Joseph they are called "the terrestrial trinity." The glory of Christ is ascribed to her. Her will is put before his in prayer-" According to thine and thy Son's will." She is entitled the only bridge of God to men; the hope, refuge, and advocate of sinners; the star of Jacob, of the morning, of the sea; the repairer of woman;

1 Ullathorne.

3 Lyra.

2 Northcote.

4 "School and Family Hymns."

our deliverer from hell; the restorer of the human race; the fountain of the life-giving stream; our life; the unquenchable lamp; the light of the world; the world's treasure; the treasure of the Lord; the mould, sanctuary, altar, tabernacle, temple, city, world of God; the cabinet of the secrets of God; the chamber of the divine sacraments; the spiritual vessel, the most honourable vessel, the vessel of singular devotion; the patroness and protectress of believers; the house of gold; the house and seat of wisdom; the wisdom of God; the mirror of justice; the flower of grace; the mystical rose; the lily; the tower of ivory; the tower of David; the paradise of the new Adam; the door of paradise; the heavens carrying the Divinity; the city's eastern gate; the gate of heaven; the health of the weak; the help of the afflicted; the avenue of God's tender mercies; the queen of mercy; the mother of life, beauty, majesty, holiness, salvation; the bruiser of the serpent's head; the rod out of the stem of Jesse; the fruitful vine; the ark of the covenant; the firstborn in the orders of nature, grace, and glory; our Lady of good heart, of good counsel, of good delivery, of hope, succour, victory, liberty, peace, consolation; the magnificence of God, &c., &c. It is said that "all power is given unto" her "in heaven and in earth," and that "without " her we 66 can do nothing."

Dr Newman scorns to affirm so much of Mary. As if forgetting that he is no longer a Protestant, he expresses his opinion that "it cannot be said that devotion to her is a sine quâ non of salvation." But it has been so said by Roman authorities times without number, and it is usual. with them to say so; and so said it still is by priests whom the Pope delights to honour, and by His Holiness himself. If not concerned for the Roman crockery he is

breaking, the would-be Marian apologist might take a little more care for himself. Would he like to find his name in the Index, side by side with that of the author of the Eirenicon? What is the difference between the two old friends? One said hastily, "I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." The other only proceeded as far as he could conscientiously in the same direction, and then stopped short, and with his olive-branch dealt Popery a stunning blow. The uncomfortable pervert might as well seize Dr Pusey's offered hand, and leap back out of the ditch of Antichrist.

If some

Redemption itself is ascribed to the Virgin. of the fathers seem to have given her this praise, it is only when we look at their expressions in the presence of Popery. They but aimed to set forth, beyond any personal influence of Mary, the great results connected with her election by God to be the humble and obedient mother of the Incarnate Redeemer. "The knot of Eve's disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith." "Eve had believed the serpent, Mary believed Gabriel the fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing blotted out." In these pretty rhetorical antitheses, which, and the like, Papists are fond of producing, Irenæus and Tertullian for the moment forgot that "in Adam all die;" but they did not write so unguardedly and falsely as many who claim their example and authority. Romish authors occasionally so qualify their unscriptural statements as to give their own words the lie; but language pardonable in the Church's youth and inexperience is a presumptuous offence in her mature days.

Mary was chosen, one says, "to repair the primeval