P-^^*«s?i EOIE-HER MW DOGMA AND OUR DUTIES. A SERMON, PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, AT ST. MARY\S CHURCH, OXFORD, ON THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, 1855, SA^niEL LOED BISHOP OF OXFOED, CHANCELLOR OF THE MOST NOBLE OKDEll OP THE GARTER, AND LORD HIGH ALMONER TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE REVEREND THE VICE-CHANCELLOR AND OTHERS. OXFOED AND LONDON, JOHN HENRY PARKER. SI DCCC LV. d' A SERMON, St. Luke i. 28. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among women. The feast of the " Amiimoiation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" falling upon this day, seems to call upon me to interrupt that general com'se of subjects which I had proposed to myself to handle here, and to address you upon the special matter for our meditation which is this day set before us by the Chiu'ch. At any time this would, I think, have been right and profitable. It would be in accordance with the tone of our Prayer-book, in which is appointed for our daily reading, the Blessed Vii-gin's Psalm of Thanksgiving; one of those "fii'st gratulations," as our Hooker terms it, " wherewith oiu' Lord and Sa- viom- was joyfidly received at His first entrance into the world, by such as in their hearts, arms, and very bowels embraced Him^" It would have been in ac- cordance with the prophetical declaration of the * Eccles. Pol, lib. V. § 40. B Blessed Vii'gin herself, wlien under the afflatus of the Holy Ghost she declared, "For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed'';" it "would further have tended to guard us against what must, from the constitution of the mind of man, be on the one side our special danger. For in protesting against the fearful superstitions with which, as we contend, the simple truth of God's word has, as to this subject, been overlaid by papal error, it cannot be but that we should be tempted to run into the opposite extreme, and to withliold the honour due to her whom those against whom we protest have sought so unduly to exalt. And hence must flow evil to oiu"selves. ^ot, indeed, be- cause we can trace either in the Word of God, or the practice of the primitive Church, any signs that she is entitled to, or received, any honour different in kind from other saints. On the contrary, we find both in the Word of God and in the records of the early Church, what seem to be specific cautions against the rise of that superstitious reverence which has since defaced so large a part of Chi'istendom. Such, in the Word of God, are those passages in which, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee, our Lord rejects her interference with His miraculous work- ing **; and that in which, when "a certain woman t St. Luke i. 48. '^ So Epiplianius employs this text to check the excessive reverence for the Blessed Vii'j^in which was manifesting itself in his day. " She herself worshipped Him who was born of her flesh. This the Gospel assures us of; relating how our Lord Himself said to her, ' Woman, what have I to do with thee ? ' / of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee'V lie replied, "Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it." And that again, in which, when " it was told Him by certain, Thy mother and Thy brethi-en stand without, desii'ing to see Thee . . . He answered . . . My mother and My brethren are these which hear the Word of God, and do it^." Such, in the early Church, — not to multiply quotations where one may shew its temper, — is the caution of Epiphanius : " Let Mary be held in honom', let the Lord be worshipped^." It is not, therefore, because she has any special prerogative or prevalence in heaven, that we cannot without loss refuse to her the high honour which belongs to her; but, first, because such a temper towards any of Chi-ist's saints departed, must injure that reverential habit of mind which we so greatly need to cultivate ; and, secondly, because we cannot fail in the most reverend esteem of her, without lessening our adoring gratitude for that inestimable blessing of the incarnation of our Lord, for bestow- ing which on man she was the chosen instrument. Well, therefore, may we this day remember the Lest any should thiuk lier to be of a liiglier nature, He calls lier ' woman,' as foresliewiug that there should he heresies and schisms, and that no one through too much awe of her might fall into the folly of this heresy. She was indeed a chosen vessel, hut was still a woman, and in nothing ditferent in nature to others, though honoured as the saints." St. Epiphanius, iv. p. 1061, quoted in the " Christian Eemembrancer," No. 76. ^ St. Luke xi. 27, 28. "= St. Luke viii. 20, 21. ^ St, Epiphanius, lleres. 79, quoted by Bp. Peai'sou on the Creed, fol. 179. u2 caution given to us by the wise, leai-ned, and holy- Bishop Pearson : '' Far be it from any Christian to derogate from that special privilege granted her, which is incommimicable to any other. We cannot bear too reverend a regard unto the mother of our Lord, so long as we give her not that worship which is due unto the Lord Himself. Let us keep the language of the primitive Church; let her be honoured and esteemed, let Him be worshipped and adored"." "Well might we dwell upon this side of our danger, if we were not to-day forced rather, by what is happening around us in so large a portion of West- ern Christendom, to examine anew the verity of our own doctrine, and anew to arm oiu-selves, by the authority of Scriptui-e and the practice of piu'er ages, against the new efforts of a prevailing super- stition. It is then to this, my brethren, specially that I would call your attention this afternoon; consider- ing, so far as the needful limits of time render pos- sible, — • I. "WTiat is the new doctrine with regard to the Blessed Virgin, which has been recently promulgated by the Eoman Pontiff? II. The penalties under which it has been de- clared. III. Our reasons for protesting against the pro- mulgation. lY. The heretical tendencies, to say the least, which we charge upon the doctrine itself. * Pearson on the Creed, Art. iii. V. The duties which so sad a spectacle enforces on ourselves. First, then, what is the doctrine ? It is, that the Blessed Virgin Mary was herself, by a miraculous interposition of God's providence, conceived without the stain of original sin. That the nature, therefore, with which she was born into this world was, from the first moment in which she began to exist, not that nature which all inherit who "naturally are engendered of the offspring of Adam," but another nature ; free from that fault and coiTuption which, as an hereditary taint, infects every member of the fallen race who is naturally bom into this world. And now let us see, secondly, the penalties under which this doctrine is promulgated. They are those of the Church's anathema and the condemnation of God. Whosoever henceforth shall deny it is con- demned as an heretic. "Let no man," says the decree, "interfere with this oiu' declaration, pro- nimciation, and definition, or oppose or contradict it with presumptuous rashness. If any should pre- sume to assail it, let him know that he will incur the indignation of the Omnipotent God, and of His blessed apostles Peter and PauP." Thii'dly, let us consider our reasons for objecting to this promulgation : — ^ Here, as elsewhere in this sermon, when this " Letter Apostolic" is quoted, the qxiotation is taken from the trans- lation which appeared in the " Tablet" of Jan. 27, 1855, — a Eoman Catholic source. • . Fii'st, then, we object to it as au unlawful ad- dition of a now article to the Creed. And here, first, we must establish that it is such an addi- tion. Kor is the proof of this difficult. For that which is declared to be the revealed truth of God, which none can deny imder pain of damnation, is by that declaration asserted to be an article of the Chi'is- tian man's belief, the holding of which, when pre- sented to him, is essential to his salvation. And this is what is done by Kome here. There can be no mis- take as to this matter. Before the promulgating of this decree, any one within the Eoman communion might, as she teaches, deny, with St. Bernard and St. Augustine, the doctrine of the immaculate concep- tion of the Virgin and be saved ; since that 8th of December, whosoever denies it must be lost. It is therefore, on theii- shewing, a new and necessary arti- cle of a Christian man's faith^. Andj as such, this dogma is set forth by those who have declared it, having been published (on Friday the 8th of Decem- ber,) in St. Peter's Chiu'ch at Eome during divine service, in the presence of Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops, to the number of 2,00^ and a vast con- gregation, estimated as amoimtingto 30,000 j^ersons, and from thence published throughout the dioceses of all Bishops in visible commimion with the Pope. It is then set forth as an article of the Creed, and if an article of the Creed, it is beyond all doubt a new e See an able article in the " Catholic Layman," Dublin, (a publication full of learning on the various points of our con- troversy witli Rome,) vol. iii. p. 148. article ; and as such, secondly, we object to its pro- mulgation, as being contrary to the fundamental laws of Ch ist's Chui'ch. To establish this objection, we must fii'st consider what the creeds are, and what is the Church's power concerning them. In the earliest days of the Chui-ch of Chiist there were no creeds. To be free from such stereotyped forms of faith was in many respects the blessed privilege of her virgin purity ; for the reduction of the sacred mys- teries of her belief into fixed and published sen- tences, inevitably imparts to them a certain air of formality, and endangers greatly the perfect reve- rence with which alone they can be safely contem- plated. At that blessed age of her being, the Church, now fresh from the presence and discourses of her Lord, just baptized with the outpouring of Pentecost, guided by inspired apostles who had seen the Lord, and burning with her first love, was knit so closely together, that "the multitude of them that beheved were of one heart and of one souP." But this period was soon passed. Divisions early crept into the united fold. The words of Holy Writ were differently interpreted. The line of apo- stolical tradition became every day less broadly marked and less readily discerned. Then the in- stinct of the Church, quickened by the Divine Spirit, perceived the need of fixing in formal sen- tences, whilst yet agreement on them was possible, what had been fi-om the beginning the message " once for all delivered to the saints." Thus rose the h Acts iv. 32. 8 creeds : they were the wi'itten record of that which, upon disputed points, the Chiu^h had held from the beginning ; the tnie and lawful form of an apostolical tradition. As heresy attempted to disfigure any part of the common truth, the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, sought to ascertain and to fix, as to that disputed point, what had been from the beginning the, until then, universal teaching. Thus from the first there were certain fixed limits, within which alone she could declare any dogma to be a portion of the Creed. Whatever was to be thus in- cluded, must possess these marked characters. It must be a part of the original revelation, for to that no addition could be made : and to establish its place in the original revelation, it must first be ca- pable of proof from Holy Scripture ; next, it must be possible to trace it up, as held by the faithful, in an unbroken line from that time when the fii-st out- pouring of the Spirit fell upon the waiting apostles, " teaching them all things, and bringing all things to their remembrance, whatsoever Jesus had spoken unto them' ;" lastly, it must be received as such by the whole body of the faithful. AYithin these limits only were the creeds formed : they contained no new doctrine ; they were the old doctrine used as a touchstone to detect the new falsehood. They did not even enlarge the knowledge of the Church; they did but formalize its ovra. expression of the truth : and God in His providence permitted all the great doctrines of the faith to be assailed, whilst the ' John xiv. 26. 9 Chiu'ch was comparatively young, and the unbroken line of transmitted interpretation could be thus re- covered ; and whilst she was one in such a visible and active union that she could agree upon the common truth. Further, in every instance, after the canon of her sacred Avritiags had been fixed, she appealed to them as the supreme authority, to prove those separate propositions as to the faith, which in their tiu'n fixed for after times as true, certain inter- pretations of the text of Scripture. To exceed on any side these limits would have been to deny the completeness and sufficiency of the origiQal reve- lation, to add something to what the Holy Ghost had once for all taught, and to set at nought the written volume of inspiration given as the abiding record of her Master's words. Every lawful addi- tion then to the Creed must be made in accordance with these conditions. And now, if we try this newly propounded article by these conditions, we shall be able to prove its unlawfulness. For, first, it lacks the condition of the assent of the whole body of the faithful. It is assented to neither by the Eastern, nor by our own branch, of the universal Chui'ch. It is true that this argument will not weigh with Rome, because, after the exact pattern of the old Donatist schismatics, she claims to be exclusively the catholic body, and makes, as they did, communion vdth herself the one condition of communion with her Lord. But to all beyond these comparatively naiTOW limits, this argument against her intrusive article is of itself unanswerable. But further : not only is 10 it thus unlawfully inserted in her Creed, because it lacks the consent of the Chui'ch now living upon earth, but next it falls under the same condemnation, because it is not the old truth held from the begin- ning, but a new proposition, which was not received of old. To prove this, we need but to compare a few of the plainest facts of history with the very words of the decree by which this dogma has been now promulgated. "The Church," it declares, " has never ceased to lay down this doctrine, and to cherish and to illus- trate it continually by numerous proofs, and more and more daily by splendid facts. For the Church has most clearly pointed out this doctrine, when she did not hesitate to propose the conception of the Yirgin for the public devotion and veneration of the faithfuls By which illustrious act she pointed J The whole controversy as to the alleged immaculate con- ception of the Virgin turns so much upon this feast, that it may be well to add a word or two concerning it. Although the extravagant expression of certain writers had been preparing the way for the rise of the doctrine, yet it was not until about the middle of the twelfth century that it was fixed in any of the ceremonies of the Church. At that time the canons of Lyons instituted a feast in honour of the immaculate conception. Against this novelty St. Bernard remonstrated in a letter addressed to them ; in which, amongst other remarkable pas- sages, occur the following: — He expresses his wonder that they should have ventured to introduce " novam celebritatem quam ritus Ecclesise nescit, non probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio." He expresses his own disbelief in the " scriptum supernse revelationes," which was asserted as ised *." Here then is our first objection to this promul- gation. In the words of St. Vincent of Lirens : " To teach anything to catholic Christians besides that which they have received, never is lawful, never has been lawful, never will be lawful ; and to anathematize those who do teach anything besides that which has been once for all received, was always a duty, is always a duty, mil be always a duty. ... If any man shall teach a new dogma, let him be anathema ""." But next (IV.) we object, not only to any introduc- tion of a new dogma, but we object also in particular to this as, to say the least, having direct tendencies to heresy "". For it is no mere speculation; it is full of t Gal. i. 8, 9. " Vincent. Lirinensis, Comraou. i. '^ " And, firstly, there is a certain and not slight moral weight against Perrone, in the manner in which the early writers meet the opponents of their faith on the primary question of the nature and personality of our Lord ; and their words do, as it appears to us, by anticipation, utterly quash and overthrow the doctrine for which Perrone is contendii^g. They are all careful and scrupulous in laying it down, — in which they surely follow the holy apostles themselves, — that He was God the Son, taking upon Himself the nature of His own creature, man, of the blessed Virgin Mary, by miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost, that so He might escape that contarjio peecali which attaches to all the natural descendants of Adam, without excep- tion, and which He expiated by His death on the cross "Had the early Gnostics known that it was an especial doc- trine of Christianity, that His mother aUo, the naturally born C 2 20 deadly consequences. For, first, if in the coui'se of the divine process for working out our salvation, our fallen natiu'c was pure from spot of sin in any one before that in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord, it was, thi'ough the operation of the Holy Ghost, sanctified wholly by the union of His Godhead with it, then is that one, and not He, the first fountain of new life to our corrupted race. This teaching, therefore, points us not to Christ, but to Mary, as the well-head of our restored humanity ; and thus does it directly shake the great doctrine of the in- daugliter of mei'e Imman parents, was, from the first monieut of her existence, exempt from all sin, what an advantage would it not have afforded them in their denial of His real and very man- hood and human flesh, and how prone they would have been to avail themselves of it ! and how could St. Irenaeus have so dwelt, as he does, on every point of His identity with us as the Son of Man,— sin excepted in Him alone, and in no one else,— against the brood of Simon and Valentinus ; or how could he have com- bated the idea, as he did, that the Son of a mother perfectly sinless, and therefore, as they might well have concluded, not really human, was not an incorporeal ' Visas,' as held by Saturninus, or a mere manifestation, ' in forma, hominis,' as Marcion believed ? ' Qui dicunt eum putative manifestum, neque in carne natum, adhuc sub veteri damnatione, advoca- tiouem prsebeutes peccato, uon devicta secundum eos morte, quae regnavit ab Adam usque ad Moysem etiam in eos qiu nou peccaverunt in similitudinem transgressionis Adam,' (p. 248, Grabe). We might cite numberless passages from the works of this fiither and martyr, for the moral weight they contain, and the indication they give of the direction of his belief: — 1. On the universality, with one only exception, of sin, both ori- ginal and actual, in all men ; and 2. That Christ took human nature from Mary, not already purified, but to make it pure by taking it." — Christian Remembrancer, No. 76, p. 383, &c. 21 carnation^, which teaches us that the union of Deity with our natiu-e in His person made that nature uncorrupt, and that He deriyeth into us from His person that incorruption which we need. Nor does the Eoman communion shrink from this false con- clusion; for, in strict accordance with it, she instructs her people to address the Virgin as the '' principium salutis mundi''," the beginning and fountain of all benediction''." And then, further, if that nature which He thus took in the womb of His Virgin mother was not that which she, like others, inherited from Adam, but one made by God's creative power to exist under new conditions of original purity, how can we say that He indeed took from her our very nature? Then was that quarry whence was dug that flesh which He united to His Godhead, not of our fallen, but of a new and different, nature ; and then is His perfect brotherhood with us destroyed. To Mary then, again, and not to Him, must we look as having, like oiu-selves, a mother of the fallen race, and as being the true link between incorrup- tion and impurity. And yet once more : this last conclusion leads us to another reason why, in God's y " That whicli in Him made our natures uncorrupt was the union of His Deity with our nature. He liaviug Adam's nature as we have, but incorrupt, deriveth not tliat nature but incor- ruption, and tliat immediately from His own person into all that belong unto Him." Hooker, Eccl. Pol., lib. v. § 50. ' Novena Conceptionis, fifth day. ^ An Italian Stcllario for tlie conception lately authorized nt Eome. Both of these are quoted by Dr. Wordsworth in tlie notes to "Occasional Sermons," No. 43. Name, we protest against this dogma. For it is not merely accidentally, and by some deduced inference, that it thus endangers our faith in the true incarna- tion of our Lord, and points our eyes from Him to His mother as the medium between God and us ; but this dangerous delusion is a part, and the crowning part, of a whole system which does thus place on the Mediator's thi-one the Virgin mother instead of the incarnate Son. For tliis is the grand characteristic of the whole Eoman system of Mario- latrous impostiu'e. It docs confer upon the Vii'gin Mary the IMediator's office. It does not intentionally raise her to deity, although many of the words it sanctions do express even this amount of blas- phemy, and though, in impiously imploring her to command her Son, it in some sort sets her even above deity ^. Still, however the Eoman Chiu'ch may incidentally favour this awful blasphemy, she undoubtedly disclaims it in intention. But she cannot disavow her substitution of the Virgin for her Son, upon the intercessor's seat. The whole system of Eomc does make the Virgin mother the special mediator between God and man. It teaches sinners to look to her as more tender, more mer- cifid, more full of pity, more able to sympathize with their infirmities, than is that triLO High- priest, who is such as " became us," because He is fitted by the perfect holiness, and yet true bro- therhood with us, of the natui'e He assumed, "to '' "Jure matris impei'a tuo dilectissimo Filio." Bonavcnturte, canonized in 1482, Opera, torn. vi. p. 4G6. Moguntite, 1609. 23 have compassion upon the ignorant, and upon them that are out of the wa5^" Amongst all its deface- ment of the truth of Christ, this is perhaps the plainest and one of the most hideous features of Eoman superstition. In this, as in an outward sign, may its corruption everywhere be traced, from the tawdiy shrines of S^^ain and Italy to the ''Mary- temples" of southern India. Nor is any sign of evil in that communion more remarkable, than the festering growth with which, as with some germinating principle of corruption, this false doctrine is instinct. Generation seems to vie with generation in heightening to the very verge of dii*ect blasphemy, the ascriptions of the Sa- viour's honour to His merely human mother. Litany succeeds litany in still grosser and more glowing language, until the Chui'ch's noble h}Tnn of praise to the Almighty Father is travestied to exalt her glory, and the Te Deiim Laudamus becomes a song of praise to Mary. Wherever, moreover, there has seemed of late to be a revival of warmth and earnestness of religious feelings within that com- munion, this special form of error, like some close- clinging parasite, has enlarged and multiplied its evil growth. To this new and false dogma then we object, as being the culminating point of this deadly system \ and as sure to act back again, with fresh agencies of evil, upon the unhappy body by which it has been promulgated. Already, indeed, we have proof of this new growth of evil, since the decree which 24 establishes tlie dogma coutains words wliicli but a little while ago would in our mouths have been condemned as the grossest calumnies ; for it di-awse from its promulgator this practical conclusion: "Let all the cliildren of the Catholic Chiu'ch, most dear to us, hear these our words ; and with a more ar- dent zeal of piety, religion, and love, proceed to worship, invoke, and pray to the most Blessed Yir- gin Mary, mother of God, conceived without original sin ; and let them fly with entire confidence to this most sweet mother of mercy and grace, in all dan- gers, difficulties, doubts, and fears ^" V. Lastly, brethren, suffer me to lay before you some of the duties which, as it seems to me, are enforced upon us by this sad spectacle of deep cor- ruption within the Eoman Chui-ch. 1. The first is that which, however inadequately, I have felt bound to attempt this day to discharge. It is to protest anew against this monstrous effort to corrupt, by man's additions, the revealed truth of God. We may not lawfully accept such new dog- mas. On us in our day, as having inherited the pure deposit ; on us as witnesses and guardians ol the ancient faith ; on us as solemnly set to interpret God's Word, as from old it has been interpreted, — • the duty is imperative to declare that this is not ^ Tlie words in the Latin are— " Audiant hsec nostra verba omnes nobis carissimi Catholice Ecclesitc filii et ardentiori usqiu pietatis religionis et amoris studio, pergaut, colere invocar* exorare beatissimam Dei genetrieem Virginem Mariam," &c. The translation in the text is here, as elsewhere in this ser- mon, copied from the Eoman Catholic ("Tablet") paper. 25 wliat God's Word reveals ; that it is not what apo- stles taught; that it is not what the Church has learned ; that it is another Gospel ; and so this day, from the bosom of this ancient University, as the bishop of this Chiu-ch, set in trust with this guar- dianship, in God's Name, and with you all as wit- nesses, I solemnly denounce it. 2. l^ext, surely it is oui* duty, with all sadness of soul, to make on behalf of those who have so deeply fallen, our humble intercessions with our long-suffering Lord. For what sight can be sadder ? Time was when the ancient Church of Eome was the especial guardian of the common faith. But she was lifted up, and she fell. Her very greatness proved her do^\aifall. The honour', wealth, and great- ness of the earth flowed with a strong tide into her, as the Church of the whole world's metropolis, and she grew proud and earthly, fierce and arrogant in her temper ; priestcraft and superstition ruled her, and the purity of the faith fled far away : and now she has fallen even unto this. Who can read the ofiicial announcement, — " The Pope, ofliciating at St. Peter's, has declared the expected decree. The immaculate conception of the Yirgin is declared to be the faith of the Church, and whoever denies it to be a heretic. — Eome is di'unken with joy," — who, I say, remembering how many souls this vast perversion of tlie truth has slain, by turning them from seeking in their only Lord the grace, mercy, and peace of which He, and not His mother, is the only fountain for the lost, — who can read the words, " Eome is 26 di'uuken witli joy," and compare them witli the awful vision, " And I saw the woman, whose name was mystery, drunken mth the blood of saints ''," and not gaze with grief and fear at this sad spectacle of what was once the faithful city, now become an harlot ? who would not weep even tears of blood at such a sight ? who will not pray that now, even now, it may be granted unto her " to remember how she has received and heard, and to hold fast, and repent, lest the Judge should come upon her as a thief, and she know not the hour when He will come * ?" 3. Again, the sight of this evil sui*ely enforces upon us another duty. For the sake of truth and for the love of souls, we, whose rule of faith is God's Word, and whose interpreter of Scripture is true catholic consent, are boimd to hold faster than ever to these our real principles. Taught by the example of others, we should guard specially against our otvn dangers. ISTo di'ead of evil imputations, no infection of the spuit of the day, no imdue fears, even of the errors against which we protest, should lead us to shrink in any thing from adhering to our own princijDles, and so endangering on our side too the precious deposit of God's ancient truth. Who can say, if only we are kept faithful, what may not be yet in store for us as a nation and Church; or of what inestimable blessing we may be made the channel to the rest of Christendom ? Many within the Eoman communion are outraged by this new ^ Eev. xvii. G. « Eev. iii. 3. 27 invasion of the truth. Abeady the Trarning has been addressed by one of his o^^ti sous to the Eoman Poutiif : — •^' If you shoukl command the reception of such a dogma, ...it will be a new argument ... That the Bishop of Eome is, like other men, a weak man, prone to sin, obnoxious to error ; and that it may happen that he may become a prevaricator in his holy office, and be deceived, and endeavoui* to deceived" In how many hearts may not this same spiiit be stiiTing ? May we not hope that God, whose province it is to bring good out o'f evil, may through the very intenseness of this evil deliver some hitherto captive souls fi'om the chains of error ? And may it not be the special mission of our own communion to afford to such the haven which they need ? To offer them Evangelical purity with Apostolical order ; God's pure Word within Christ's holy Church ; and so to be the blessed means at once of draAving them from the errors of superstition, and saving them from the ship- wreck of unbelief? But for this end it is essential that we maintain, without flmching from reproach or yielding to the whispers of a specious liberality, our o^m catholic standing-place fu-mly and immoved. 4. But we have yet another duty, as we contem- plate this fearful spectacle ; we have to separate ourselves from its evil. To us sounds forth the voice of warning, " Come out of her. My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that 5^e receive not of her plagues^;" on us, as of old on the linger- ing patriarch, the long-suffering angel of wi'ath lays f Letters from the Abbe Laborde, of Lectouse, to Pope Pius IX., reprinted in "The Ecclesiastic," Xo. 23. s Eov. xviii. 4. 28 graciously 11 is hands, hastening us in mercy from the doomed city. For to us there is here indeed, on this side also, a startling warning, — a warning which, when we look along our ranks and see places emf)ty Avhicli were once — how nobly I — tilled, who dare say that we do not greatly need ; lest, tempted by its sweetness or allured by its sparkling pro- mise, we taste one di'op of the cup of her enchant- ments ? For undoubtedly there are minds amongst us to which her promises are most alluring. Amidst the strife of opinions wherewith the soul is often torn well-nigh asunder, her voice of assumed au- thority is heard promising the peace of certainty ; amidst the divisions which perplex and weaken us, she claims, and to a superficial glance appears, to be, the one only embodiment of Catholic unity. These are her spells ; and mighty hearts — oh that the Spii'it of the Lord might set them ft'ee ! — ^have sunk entranced beneath them. Let no man un- dervalue their potency or trifle with their might. It is the very character of the cup of the sorceress, that its lightest taste so besots the subtlest intel- lect and subdues the strongest will, that her victim follows her bidding, lead him whithersoever it may. The only safeguard, therefore, is in the earliest and most instant refusal to diink of the wine of her fornication. And this which we have seen happen before us should surely enforce this caution ui^on us. AYliat though the cup of the sorcerer sparkle brightly, and he promise high, yet, if we see crowding in a shameful herd around him the transmuted forms of 29 those whom he has robbed of the reason and the gifts of man, who will taste of his enchantments ? And is not a sight all too like to this opened here before our eyes ? Hare we not seen those who, amongst ourselves, had the sensitive con- sciences, the manly hearts, the pure love of truth, and the keen insight into its depths, which of God's great mercy oiu* apostolic Chui'ch breeds in her true sons ; but who have yielded to temptation and har- boured discontent with what they had, and who thus have, step by step, been led on to submit themselves to Eome, when once in her toils, become the most implicit receivers of her uttermost corruptions ? And why, if we suffer ourselves to follow them, why should we escape ? Surely " in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird ;" and is not this spread openly before our eyes ; is not the latest end exposed to our gaze in this last act of the Roman Pontiff ? Rome may promise us a certainty of belief, and an infallible guide, a rest for our aching spuits amidst Aveary distractions, and the unity of an unbroken body amidst countless divi- sions ; but here we may see what is the real worth of these high-sounding offers : for first we see her vaunted infallibility and imity broken up and dis- credited by the manifest presence in her body of discord and contradiction ; and next we see, from the beginning, what must be the end. They who cast in their lot with her must take her whole or take her not at all ; and here we see her making false doctrine, condemned by God's Word, contradicted 30 by catliolic antiquity, rejected by all the saints, and resting mainly for its credit upon the grossest inventions and most lying legends^, articles of ^ Tlic reception of a miraculous writing on the subject was the first justification of their new feast, alleged by the canons of Lyons, and discredited by St. Bernard. The following is another example of this species of authoi-ity : — " A French priest, who w-as in the custom of singing the hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, returning from a house wdiere he had committed adultery with another man's wife, entered a boat alone to cross tlie river Seine, — ' Pelagus Sequanse ;' and as he sailed he began to sing the hours ; and when he came to the invocation, ' Ave Maria,' and was got into the middle of the water, a great crowd of devils overthrew him, together with his boat, and carried his soul to hell. On the third day, the mother of Jesus came, with a vast company of angels, to the place of his torment, and said to the devils, ' Why do you torment the soul of my servant thus unjustly ?' Tliey replied, ' We ought to have him, and rightly, as he was taken in our works.' To which she replied, ' If he is his whose works he was doing, he ought in triith to be mine, as he was saying my matins when you seized him ; so that you are more to blame than he is, in having acted thus unfairly to me.' On these words the devils dispersed, and fled hither and thither ; and the Blessed Virgin Mary restored his soul to the body, and seizing him by the arm, whom she had saved ' ab utroque funere,' she commanded the wvaters to stand as a w^all on the right hand and on the left, and brought him from the depth of the sea to a safe port. He in joy then fell down at her feet and said, ' O dearest Lady and most beautiful Virgin, thrice grateful to Christ, what shall I give you for the benefits which you have done to me ? Ton ha\'c delivered me from the mouth of the lions, and my soul from the most griev- ous torments of liell.' To wliom the mother of Jesus replied, ' I entreat you not for the future to fall into your former sin, lest a worse fiite overtake you ; and I beg you, besides, to cele- brate yearly the festival of my conception on the 0th of the Ides of December, and teach it everywhere.' When she had said this she ascended into heaven iu his sight ; and he, leading an 81 her creed. And, from the beginning, t\'c kno"W that to this they mnst assent at last, who assent to her at alL For the most part, the growth of error is so slow and gradnal, it comes forth from truth with such minute degrees of exaggeration, with such severally small measures of deviation, that it is most difficult to fasten upon any one teacher, or even any one school or age, the crime of its evil parentage. But God has suffered us to see the work done openly before our eyes, that we may fly, as from His judgments, from the evil worker. Let us take the caution. We have faults, evils, deficiencies, Grod knows, amongst ourselves ; we feel them, perhaps groan nnder them, and would fain cast them out or impatiently fly far from them ; and she, veiling from us the grossness of her own evils, invites us with honeyed words of seeming sympathy to fly from them to her. But see in this one in- stance what is indeed the truth in all. See from the first where you must end, and remember that no preference for certain things in her communion can ever justify your accepting, in any one the least particular, what you know to be falsehood, as the truth of God. And yet this they must do who take her as their guide. They must come to bear with her trifling with the truth ; with her undervaluing of God's Word; with her portentous system of eremitical life, related Avliat liatl happened to all who wished to hear it. And afterwards, as long as he lived, he celehratcd the feast of the conception solennily and devoutly, and taught its celebration to all." — Christian licmemhranccr, No. 76, p. 402. 32 priestcraft, whereby, first, the sacred and inalien- able responsibility of conscience is invaded, and then its purity corrupted, and in many instances its very life extinguished ; they must endure her substi- tution of another Mediator for the co-eternal Son, the Yirgin-born ; they must receive her new-coined dogmas, and her spui'ious articles of faith. See, then, all this from the begimiing, and when she comes to you with her faii-est promises, with all her grossness veiled from you, and she herself trans- formed into an angel of light, to work yom* downfall, then, to disenchant your beguiled senses, read and weigh the warning graven by the finger of God upon her forehead, and upon that of every other carnal perverter of the Church's pm-ity : " Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth v ' Eev. xvii. 5. TRIMED BY MtS US. PAIiKHR, COKNMARKtT OXFORD. -ik' ..(.■ik . '^M- -> '->,)" > J i P^ ^J\-^^ ■^ > t^^l i ^^» > > > J ^ > •> > > J) X. > 7,> J -.. - J . ~; <'-^:^ \ 3 -■-:* >T) ,^ J