our Lord has occasion mildly to rebuke her,* when she presumed to appeal to his miraculous power; and though at her instance he turned water into wine, he intimated that he owed her no longer that voluntary subjection, which as a pattern as well as a fulfilment of the law, he paid to his earthly parent, during his infancy, and until his heavenly Father had audibly owned and claimed him at his baptism. Once she and his brethren seem to have interfered with his ministerial usefulness, from too great an anxiety about his bodily and mental safety;+ but when it was intimated to him that they stood without desiring to speak with him, while he was exercising his ministry, he looked round upon his believing hearers and declared, that they were his mother and his brethren." And when at another time a woman from the crowd, in admiration of his miracles, exclaimed "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked," he declared, "Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it."§ Hence, we learn that the Virgin Mother is worthy of our honour and respect, as "blessed among women;" for the graces with which she was endowed, and the mighty miracle of God incarnate, of which she was the vessel. May we follow her meekness, patience, faith, prayerfulness, and holy obedience! But do we worship her? Do we pray to her? Do we ask her mediation with God or Christ her Son? By no means! This were idolatry, to be abhorred of all the Church of God; and with which, doubtless, her holy nature is grievously offended. Not once is any such adoration hinted at in Scripture. All the fables of Popery respecting her, are but imitations of * John, ii. 4 † See Dr. Bloomfield's Note on torn, Mark, iii. 21. and on iii. 31. Luke, xi. 37, and 38. Mark, iii. 34. the heathen worship of their false goddesses: yea, their very images and temples were converted in the dark ages, into shrines of the "Queen of Heaven," as the Virgin was called, with scarcely any change, but the name of her who was thus exalted. It is true that the Church of the fifth Century, adopted with reference to her the term Theotokos, which has been commonly, but (as Bishop Pearson shews) erroneously translated "the Mother of God," in its zeal against the heresy attributed to Nestorius; but our Church has wisely avoided the term itself, as well as all versions of it, in all her Articles, Liturgies, Canons, and Homilies; with many others of a doubtful, if not idolatrous meaning. All her orthodox writers have, nevertheless, maintained the doctrine affirmed by the third General Council at Ephesus, in the fifth Century, as opposed to the Nestorians, who denied the reality of the union of the Divine and human natures in one person, in the Christ; as well as that of the fourth General Council at Chalcedon; in the which was denounced the opposite error of Eutyches, who denied the distinction of natures in one person, and taught that the human was absorbed in the Divine. But the Church holds the doctrine opposed to these heretics; not because fallible councils have so decreed, but forasmuch as the decrees themselves are according to Scripture; accepting the testimony of councils and fathers, not as a rule but as a monument of faith. Nor does she bind herself or her children to any terms not found in Scripture, by which those doctrines are expressed: and surely her ministers cannot fairly or charitably be accused of heresy in doctrine, or laxity in expression, who, not being wiser than herself, decline the use of a term from which she has abstained throughout those documents, with which she entrenches her faith, and regulates her service! But while we do not refuse the canonical Greek term, Theotokos, or the Latin, Deipara, in their original meaning, we maintain the impropriety of the English term, "The Mother of God." For though we acknowledge that Mary was the Mother of Christ, and that Christ is God, we do not say that Mary is the Mother of God; because that would convey more meaning to the common hearer than is possible to be true. It is not merely to be acknowledged, but earnestly contended for, as a part of "the faith once delivered unto the saints!"*-that the Divine and human natures were united in one person, never to be divided, in the womb of the Virgin; so that in a limited sense she was Theotokos, or God bearer; but she was not the Mother of God in the sense of communicating substance to the Divine nature, or producing Deity from her own. be The learned Roger Hutchinson, the zealous confederate of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, in opposing the heresy of Joan of Kent, says of our Lord, that "touching his human nature, he was born without a father; as touching his other nature, he lacked a mother." And this may taken as an index of the sentiments of those Reformers, who, with such cautious, but instructive silence, purged the service-book of our Church from this offensive term. Which, though not without a certain, true, and definite meaning, had led to many superstitions, and was always dangerous, and liable to misapprehension. In the Nicene Creed, our Lord is called "Very God of (or out of) very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father;" and in the Athanasian Creed, it is affirmed, that he is "God of the substance of the Father; begotten before the worlds:"-here is the origin of his Divine nature. "Man, of the substance of his mother, born in * Jude, 3. † “ Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ.” † τεχθεις. the world;"-here is the parent of his human nature; but to call her, without explanation, the Mother of God, is to lead the ignorant to suppose that we believe the Deity had a beginning in time, and that He, who created all things, was himself produced of the substance of his creature. The Apostle Paul says, that he used "great plainness of speech"* in declaring the Gospel; but in speaking of such mysteries as the Trinity, which no man can fully comprehend; and of the incarnation, which the angels stoop down with wonder to look into; it is our duty to keep as closely as possible to Scripture, and what can be plainly deduced from Scripture. And, happily, this has been done for us nearly fourteen hundred years ago. The three creeds used in the Church, are the result of the collective wisdom of the whole Christian body, during the first five hundred years of its history. They are the hedges which protect truth without unduly concealing it: which preserve a due reverence for its mysteries, while they plainly declare all that can be gathered clearly respecting that truth, which of all others must be the most sublime and profound-the nature of the infinite and eternal Jehovah! Let us then "worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance;" and Him only let us worship with any sort of adoration whatever. And to this we are guided by the song of the blessed Virgin herself,-" My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in GOD my Saviour." Let us, then, SECONDLY, consider the spiritual and instructive import of the words of our text. We have here the outbursting of a devout soul, full of * 2 Cor. iii. 12. gratitude for the amazing condescension of the Lord of the Universe, in taking upon him our nature, that he might deliver man from sin, death, and hell! That he had made herself, so lowly in actual condition, and in her own eyes, the peculiar vessel of Divine favour. The same feeling possessed gracious Elizabeth when she said, "Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come unto me?" An amazing view of love and mercy was disclosed to their contrite and humble spirits, such as possesses every true believing handmaid of the Lord, when she becomes acquainted with that inward work of the Spirit, "which is Christ in you the hope of glory." The same view is taken of the condescending grace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit engaged in the work of salvation, and brought effectually, not to the Church in general only, but to her own soul in particular; of sovereign grace, passing by angels-yea, and so many others of her own nature-and fixing its love upon her; and giving her to be "partaker of the Divine nature”† of Christ, and heir with him of immortal glory! Such, apart from her miraculous history, must have been the experience of Mary, the Mother of our Lord, or even she could never have beheld his heavenly face with joy. Before the bar of Heaven no other plea would avail her, more than the least favoured daughter of Adam, but the pardon sealed in the blood of the Son of God. She must take her lowly station among the ransomed throng, or she could never be hailed, as among the redeemed out of the earth, the first born, the spiritual virgins, in whose mouth there is no guile.‡ But we say not that a higher place shall not be assigned eventually to her in heaven, who was so "highly favoured" whilst on earth. Her graces exercised shall be crowned † 2 Pet. i. 4. * Col. i. 27. Rev. xiv. 4 and 5. |