Primitive Christian Worship Part 26

The Te Deum is thus lamentably perverted:

"We praise thee, Mother of G.o.d; we acknowledge thee, Mary the Virgin.

[Te Matrem Dei laudamus; Te Mariam Virginem profitemur.]

"All the earth doth wors.h.i.+p thee, spouse of the eternal Father.

"To thee all Angels and Archangels, Thrones and Princ.i.p.alities, faithfully do service....

"To thee the whole angelic creation with incessant voice proclaim,

"Holy! Holy! Holy! Mary, parent, mother of G.o.d, and virgin!...

"... Thou with thy Son sittest at the right hand of the Father....

"O Lady, SAVE THY PEOPLE, that we may partake of the inheritance of thy Son.

"And rule us and guard us for ever....

"Day by day we salute thee, O pious One; and we desire to praise thee in mind and voice even for ever.

"Vouchsafe, O sweet Mary, now and for ever, to keep us without sin.

"Have mercy upon us, O pious One; have mercy upon us.

"Let thy great mercy be with us, because we put our trust in thee, O Virgin Mary.

"In thee, sweet Mary, do we hope, defend thou us eternally. {363}

"Praise becomes thee, empire becomes thee; to thee be virtue and glory for ever and ever. Amen."

[SALVUM FAC POPULUM tuum, Domina, ut simus participes haereditatis Filii tui,

Et rege nos et custodi nos in aeternum.

Dignare, Dulcis Maria, mine et semper nos sine delicto conservare.

Miserere, Pia, n.o.bis! miserere n.o.bis! Fiat misericordia tua magna n.o.bisc.u.m, quia in te, Virgo Maria, confidimus. In te, Dulcis Maria, speramus, nos defendas in aeternum. Te decet laus, te decet imperium, tibi virtus et gloria in saecula saeculorum, Amen.]

Can this by any the most subtle refinement be understood to be a mere request to her to pray for us?

The Athanasian Creed is employed in the same manner; and it is very remarkable that the a.s.sumption itself of the Virgin into heaven is there specified as one of the points to be believed on pain of losing all hopes of salvation.

"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold firm the faith concerning the Virgin Mary: which except a man keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly....

[Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est ut teneat de Maria firmam fidem.]

"Whom at length He took up (a.s.sumpsit) unto heaven, and she sitteth at the right hand of her Son, not ceasing to pray to her Son for us. [Quam demum ipse in coelum a.s.sumpsit, et sedit ad dexteram Filii, non cessans pro n.o.bis Filium exorare.]

"This is the faith concerning Mary the Virgin, which except every one believe faithfully and firmly he cannot be saved." [Haec est fides de Maria Virgine: quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.]

In the Litany addressed to her, these sentences are found.

"Holy Mary, whom all things praise and venerate, pray for us,--be propitious,--spare us, O Lady.

"From all evil deliver us, O Lady.

"In the devastating hour of death, deliver us, O Lady.

"From the horrible torments of h.e.l.l, deliver us, O Lady.

"We sinners do beseech thee to hear us.

"That thou wouldest vouchsafe to give eternal rest {364} to all the faithful departed, we beseech thee to hear us. &c. &c."

[Sancta Maria, quam omnia laudant Et venerantur, ora pro n.o.bis.

Propitia esto. Parce n.o.bis, Domina.

Ab omni malo libera nos, Domina.

In hora mortis devastante libera nos, Domina.

Ab inferni horribili cruciamine libera nos, Domina.

Peccatores te rogamus, audi nos.

Ut cunctis fidelibus defunctis requiem aeternam donare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos.]

I will add to this catalogue of prayers and praises to the Virgin, only the translation of one prayer more from the same canonized Saint; it contains a pa.s.sage often referred to, but the existence of which has been denied. It stands, however, in his works, vol. vi. page 466.

"Therefore, O Empress, and our most benign Lady, by THY RIGHT OF MOTHER COMMAND thy most beloved Son [JURE MATRIS IMPERA tuo dilectissimo Filio], our Lord, Jesus Christ, that He vouchsafe to raise our minds from the love of earthly things to heavenly desires, who liveth and reigneth."

Now let any man of common understanding and straightforward principles say, whether any, the most ingenious refinement can interpret all this to mean merely that Bonaventura invoked the Virgin Mary to pray for him, or for his fellow-creatures. It looks as though he were resolved on set purpose to exalt her to an equality with the Almighty, when we find him not once, not casually, not in the fervent rapture of momentary excitement, but deliberately, through one hundred and fifty Psalms, applying to Mary the very words dictated by the Holy Spirit to the Psalmist, and consecrated {365} to the wors.h.i.+p of the one supreme G.o.d; and then selecting the most solemn expressions by which the Christian Church approaches the Lord of heaven and earth, our Father, our Saviour, our Sanctifier: employing too the very words of her most solemn form of belief in the ever-blessed Trinity, and subst.i.tuting Mary's name for the G.o.d of Christians. On the words, "By thy right of mother command thy Son," beyond the a.s.sertion of the fact that there they are to this day, I wish to add nothing, because the very denial of their existence often repeated shows, that many Roman Catholics themselves regard them as objectionable.

But, if such a man as Bonaventura, one of the most learned and celebrated men of his age, could be tempted by the views cherished by the Church of Rome, to indulge in such language, what can be fairly expected of the large ma.s.s of persons who find that language published to the world with the highest sanction which their religion can give, as the work of a man whom the Almighty declared when on earth, by miracles, to be a chosen vessel, and to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and of whom they are taught by the infallible testimony[134] of his canonization, that he is now reigning with Christ in heaven, and is himself the lawful and appointed object of religious invocation. I profess to you that I see no way by which Christians can hold and encourage this doctrine of the Invocation of Saints, without at the same time countenancing and cheris.h.i.+ng what, were I to join in such invocation, would stain my soul with the guilt of idolatry. If the doctrine were confessedly Scriptural, come what would come, our duty would be to maintain it at all hazards, {366} and to brave every danger rather than from fear of consequences to renounce what we believe to have come from G.o.d; securing the doctrine at all events, and then putting forth our very best to guard against its perversion and abuse.

But surely, it well becomes our brethren of the Church of Rome, to examine with most rigid and unsparing scrutiny into the very foundation of such a doctrine as this; a doctrine which in its mildest and most guarded form is considered by a very large number of their fellow Christians, as a dishonouring of G.o.d and of his Son, our Saviour; and which in its excess, an excess witnessed in the books of learned and sainted authors, and in the every day practice of wors.h.i.+ppers, seems to be in no wise distinguishable from the practices of acknowledged polytheism, and pagan wors.h.i.+p. If that foundation, after honest and persevering examination, approves itself as based sure and deep on the word of G.o.d, and the faith and practice of the apostles and the Church founded by them from the first, I have not another word to say, beyond a fervent prayer that the G.o.d in whom we trust would pour the bright beams of his Gospel abundantly into the hearts of all who receive that Gospel as the word of life. But were they my dying words to my dearest friend who had espoused that doctrine, I would say to him, Look well yourself to the foundation, because I am, after long examination, convinced, beyond a shadow of doubt that the doctrine and practice of the Invocation of Saints and Angels is as contrary to the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, as it is in direct opposition to the express words of Scripture, and totally abhorrent from the spirit which pervades the whole of the Old, and the whole of the New Testament of G.o.d's eternal truth.

[Footnote 134: Bellarmin, in his Church Triumphant, maintains that in the act of Canonization, the Church is infallible. Vol.

ii. p. 871.] {367}

SECTION IV.--BIEL, DAMIa.n.u.s, BERNARDINUS DE BUSTIS, BERNARDINUS SENENSIS, &c.

Unhappily these excesses in the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin Mary are not confined to Bonaventura, or to his age. We have too many examples of the same extravagant exaltation of her as an object of adoration and praise in men, whose station and abilities seemed to hold them forth to the world as burning and s.h.i.+ning lights. Again, let me repeat, that in thus soliciting your attention to the doctrines and expressed feelings of a few from among the host of the Virgin's wors.h.i.+ppers, I am far from believing that the enlightened Roman Catholics in England now are ready to respond to such sentiments. My desire is that all persons should be made aware of the excesses into which even celebrated teachers have been tempted to run, when they once admitted the least inroad to be made upon the integrity of G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p; and I am anxious also, without offence, but with all openness, to caution my countrymen against encouraging that revival of the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin in England, to promote which the highest authorities in the Church of Rome have lately expressed their solicitude, intimating, at the same time, their regret that the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin at the present time has, in England, degenerated from its exaltation in former ages, and that England is now far behind her continental neighbours in her wors.h.i.+p. Though these excessive departures from Gospel truth and the primitive wors.h.i.+p of one G.o.d by one Mediator may not be the doctrines of all who belong to the Church of Rome, yet they are the tenets of some of her most {368} celebrated doctors, of men who were raised to her highest dignities in their lifetime, and solemnly enrolled by her among the saints of glory after their death. Their words and their actions are appealed to now in support of similar tenets and doctrines, though few, in this country at least, are found to put them forth in all their magnitude and fulness. But even in their mildest and least startling form these doctrines are awfully dangerous.

The fact is, that the direct tendency of the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin, as practically ill.u.s.trated in the Church of Rome, is to make G.o.d himself an object of FEAR, and the VIRGIN an object of LOVE; to invest Him, who is the Father of mercy and G.o.d of all comfort, with awfulness, and majesty, and with the terrors of eternal justice, and in direct and striking contrast to array the Virgin mother with mercy and benignity, and compa.s.sionate tenderness. Christians cannot be too constantly and too carefully on their guard against doing this wrong to our heavenly Father. His own inspired word invites us to regard Him not only as the G.o.d of love, but as Love itself. "G.o.d is love;" [1 John iv. 8.] and so far from terrifying us by representations of his tremendous majesty, and by declarations that we cannot ourselves draw nigh to G.o.d; so far from bidding us to approach Him with our suits and supplications through mediators whom we should regard as having, more than our blessed Redeemer, a fellow-feeling with us, and at the same time resistless influence with Him; his own invitation and a.s.surance is, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest:" [Matt. xi. 28.] "No one cometh unto the Father but by me:" [John xiv. 6.] "Him that cometh to me I will {369} in no wise cast out:" [John vi. 37.] "Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." [Heb. iv. 16.]

How entirely opposed to such pa.s.sages as these, breathing the spirit that pervades the whole Bible, are those doctrines which represent the Virgin Mary as the Mediatrix by whom we must sue for the divine clemency; as the dispenser of all G.o.d's mercies and graces; as the sharer of G.o.d's kingdom, as the fountain of pity, as the moderator of G.o.d's justice, and the appeaser of his wrath. "Show thyself a mother."

"Compel thy Son to have pity." "By thy right of mother command thy Son."

"G.o.d is a G.o.d of vengeance; but thou, Mary, dost incline to mercy;" such expressions convey sentiments and a.s.sociations shocking to our feelings, and from which our reason turns away, when we think of G.o.d's perfections, and the full atonement and omnipotent intercession of his Son Christ our Redeemer. But it must not be disguised, that these are the very sentiments in which the most celebrated defenders of the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin, in the Church of Rome, teach their disciples to acquiesce, and in which they must have themselves fully acquiesced, if they practised what they taught. It is very painful to make such extracts as leave us no alternative in forming our opinions on this point; but it is necessary to do so, otherwise we may injure the cause of truth by suppressing the reality; a reality over which there seems to be a strong disposition, in the present day, in part at least, to draw a veil; an expedient which can only increase the danger.