THE AMERICAN PROTESTANT. VOL. IV.] [No. IV. AVE MARIA. SEPTEMBER, 1848. The accompanying plate presents the picturesque aspect of a false and fatal practice. It may be that there are lights in which the reverence and devotion exhibited by Romanists in the worship of the Virgin, is beautiful. But we have only to pause a single moment, and thoughtfully inquire into the real nature and inevitable fruits of the piety which appears so touching, in its grateful confidence and its calm repose, to be impressed with as painful a sense of the impiety and profaneness of Rome as can be derived from any of the dogmas or practices of that apostate communion. We say the worship of the Virgin. To worship is, in the proper use of language, to render divine or supreme honor. When the requisitions of the Word of God are remembered, which demand for Jehovah alone the supreme homage and worship of his creatures, and the scarcely less emphatic dictates of the universal human conscience, that to the Divine Being only are these affections due, it will not be questioned that if the Church of Rome enjoins or allows this supreme worship to be paid to a created being, however excellent or exalted, that church is guilty of idolatry. It becomes then an inquisition of facts-a cautious examination of the authoritative doctrines and acknowledged usages of the Romish communion. It is to this point that our brief inquiry, in which we are mainly 7 VOL. IV. NO. IV. guided by a recent article in a foreign review, shall relate. And in prosecuting it, we wish to observe the utmost candor. We have no purpose to serve by falsehood or exaggeration. Conscious of no other feeling towards our Catholic friends than unaffected desire to do them good; and free from any partisan purposes, we desire to ascertain, and kindly to speak, the truth, and the truth alone. We are inclined to think that Protest. ants are hardly aware of the extent to which the Virgin Mary engrosses the Church of Rome. It would seem, at least at some periods of her history, that the full strength of the religious feeling and enthusiasm of the church has been directed to the exaltation and glory of Mary. A recent work, evidently in good repute among the Catholics, entitled "Devotion to the Holy Virgin; or the Knowledge and the Love of Mary,” and composed by a Jesuit father, Gallifet, discloses a state of feeling as current in that church which is as astonishing as it is extravagant. The Protestant who jealously reserves his supreme worship to the Divine Being, will peruse expressions of this author like the following, with pain; and will wonder that those who believe and utter them can have the presumption to profess and call themselves Christians. "To whom do men recur for relief more confidently, in their spiritual and temporal wants, than to Mary ? Το whom do sinners fly to obtain pardon of * their crimes, sooner than to Mary, who is their refuge? * ** Confidence in this powerful Mediatrix is so engraven in the hearts of the faithful that even in unforeseen accidents, under which by an involuntary impulse one recurs to God, Mary is not forgotten. * * If one open the rituals and pontificals which serve for the most sacred functions, namely, the administration of the sacraments, &c., the name of Mary, the intercession, the invocation of Mary, is found throughout them. The Eternal Father wills that nothing be demanded of him but through the merits of his Son; and it would seem the Son wills that all our prayers should be presented to him through the hands of his Mother. In this spirit the church begins and ends each canonical hour by invoking her. Children can no sooner speak than they are taught to pronounce the sacred names of Jesus and Mary. The first forms of prayer they are taught are the Pater Noster and Ave Maria; the first instruction they receive, after having learned to know, adore, love, and hope in God, and Jesus Christ his Son, is to honor the Blessed Mother, and to invoke her in all times and necessities. Those prayer-books which are continually in use among the faithful are full of hymns, litanies, offices, &c., in honor of Mary." Holy Mother of God, pray for_us. Mother of Justice, Cause of our Joy. Mystical Rose, Tower of David, Tower of Ivory, House of Gold, Ark of the Covenant, Gate of Heaven, Refuge of Sinners, Queen of Angels, Queen of all Saints, &c., pray for us." "The Glories of Mary," by Liguori, is a commentary upon the prayer called the "Salve Regina," which is as follows: "Hail! Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life, Sweetness, and Hope, hail! To thee we sigh, groaning and weeping in this valley of tears. Come then, our advocate, turn those compassionate eyes of thine on us; show to us Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb, O merciful, O pious, O sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be rendered worthy of the promises of Christ." In the Roman breviary we find a rubric directing that the Gloria should be repeated at the end of every psalı, except when otherwise noted. Instead of this ascription of praise to the Trinity, the Church of Rome, on certain occasions-as the Feast of the Assumption, for example-substitutes an anthem to the Virgin. At the conclusion of the This is but the simple fact, as the whole history of the church declares. And in proof of which we adduce the following testimony, the authority of which will not be denied, and the meaning of which we are content to leave to the intelligence of any candid reader. The prescribed services and author-eighth psalm, we find two anthems anized formularies of the missals and brevaries of the church are full of prayers to, and expressions concerning, the Virgin Mary, to which no other sense can be attached than that involving idolatry. A few specimens follow: nexed thus:-"O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the world." Ant.-" The Holy Mother of God is exalted above the choir of angels to the heavenly realms. The gates of Paradise are opened to us by thee, O Virgin, who The most remarkable of his works is the Psalter, in which the name of Mary is substituted throughout for that of God. However painful to the feelings of the reader, it is necessary to give a few extracts :— gloriest this day triumphantly with the | Mary must be taken as the teaching of angels." To the last verse of 95th the Church. psalm (Heb. and English, 96th) an anthem is immediately appended. "He shall judge the earth in equity, and the people with his truth." Ant.-Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, thou alone hast destroyed all heresies in the whole world. Deem me worthy to praise thee, hallowed Virgin. Give me strength against my ene mies." The following is called, in the Roman breviary," A Prayer to the blessed Virgin, before the celebration of the Mass:" "O Mother of pity and mercy, most Blessed Virgin Mary, I, a miserable and unworthy sinner, flee to thee with my whole heart and affection, and I pray thy sweetest pity, that as thou didst stand by thy sweetest Son upon the cross, so thou wouldst vouchsafe of thy clemency to stand by me, a miserable priest, and by all priests, who here, and in all the Holy Church, offer Him this day; that, aided by thy grace, we may be enabled to offer a worthy and acceptable victim in the sight of the most high and undivided Trinity. Amen." Next in authority to the standards and formularies of the church, are the writings of her canonized saints, which are carefully examined and solemnly sanctioned before their author is admitted into the calendar-a process in which the Church is believed to act infallibly. Among authorities of this class, Bonaventura stands pre-eminent. He was born in 1221, and died in 1274. He was of the order of St. Francis, and was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignities. More than two centuries after his death he was canonized by Sixtus IV, on the 14th of April, 1482. In his diploma he is called the "Seraphic Doctor." It is impossible, therefore, that higher sanction should be given to the writings of any human being than have been given to his. What he teaches concerning the attributes and worship of Psalm xxx.-"In thee, O Lady, have I trusted; let me not be confounded forever. Thou art my fortitude and my refuge; my consolation and my protection. Into thy hands, O Lady, I commend my spirit, my whole life, and my last day." Psalm xxxi.-"Blessed are they whose hearts love thee, O Virgin Mary; their sins shall be mercifully blotted out by thee." Psalm xxxv. 2.-" Incline thou the countenance of God upon us; compel Him (coge illum) to have mercy upon heaven, and thy grace is spread over the O Lady, thy mercy is in the whole earth." sinners. Psalm lxvii.-"Let Mary arise, and let her enemies be scattered." mercy upon us, O pious one-have mer- | been used by the Church on the 8th of December. He wrote various works on cy upon us. "Let thy mercy be made great with us; because in thee, O Virgin Mary, we put our trust. In thee, sweet Mary, do we hope; defend us for ever. "Praise becomes thee. Empire becomes thee. To thee be virtue and glory for ever and ever. Amen." In the Litany addressed to Mary, these sentences occur: Holy Mary, whom all things praise and venerate, pray for us. Be propitious; spare us, O Lady, From all evils deliver us, O Lady. In the devastating hour of death, deliver us, O Lady. From the horrible torments of hell deliver us, O Lady. We, sinners, do beseech thee to hear us. That thou wouldst be pleased to give eternal rest to all the faithful departed, we beseech thee to hear us, O Lady." The following prayer, from the same canonized saint, will be found in his works, though its existence has often been doubted or denied, by reason of its incredible blasphemy : "Therefore, O Empress, and our most benign Lady, by the right of a mother COMMAND thy most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that he vouchsafe to raise our minds from the love of earthly things to heavenly desires, who liveth and reigneth.-Jure Matris impera tuo dilectissimo filio." In a collection of hymns to her honor, called "Nouveau Recueil de Cantiques à l'usage des Confréries des Paroisses de Paris," Paris, 1839, p. 175, we have the following as part of a hymn. What an idea it gives of the Supreme Ruler !— "Calm the rage of thy heavenly husband, Let him show himself kind to all those that are thine ! Of thy heavenly husband calm the rage! Bernardinus de Bustis was the celebrated author of the Office of the "Immaculate Conception," which was confirmed by the bull of Sixtus IV, and has since the Virgin, under the title of Mariale. The following are specimens of his teaching: "In the fourth place he may appeal to her, if any one feels himself aggrieved by the justice of God! For whereas God has justice and mercy, he retained justice to himself to be exercised in this world, and granted mercy to his mother; and thus if any one feels himself to be ag grieved in the court of God's justice, let him appeal to the court of mercy of his mother." In another place he thus exalts Mary : "Since the Virgin Mary is the mother of God, and God is her son, and every son is naturally inferior to his mother, and subject to her, and the mother is preferred above and is superior to her son, it follows that THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS HERSELF SUPERIOR TO GOD, and GOD himself is her subject, by reason of the ** 0 humanity derived from her. * unspeakable dignity of Mary, who was worthy to command the Commander of all!" (Cologne, (1607, Part iii., Serm. 2, p. 176; Part ix., Serm. p. 605; Part xii., Serm. 2, p. 816. There was another Bernardine-Bernardinus Sennensis-who was a canonized saint. He, like his namesake, writes about Mary in a perfect delirium of idolatry. He states that "all things, even GoD, are servants of the empire of the Virgin; that "by the law of succession and the right of inheritance, the primacy and kingdom of the whole universe is due to the blessed Virgin;" that she could annul the will of her Son, if made to the prejudice of herself;"that" from the time she conceived God, she obtained a certain jurisdiction and authority in every temporal procession of the Holy Spirit, so that no creature could obtain any grace or virtue from God, except according to the dispensation of his Virgin mother." |