Magnificat, or Song of the Virgin, might be in a large degree applied to that of Zacharias, beginning "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people ;" and to that of Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word;" and the Church, feeling as well the blessedness of such Christian hymns, as the deficiency of even the prophetic and gracious Psalms of David, in those clear views of the Gospel which it is the privilege of "the least in the kingdom of heaven" to enjoy, has added that exquisite and appropriate service called the "Te Deum," beginning, "We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord," and others in the Communion Service, which are some of the richest spiritual treasures bequeathed to us by the ancient Church. These precious gems were rescued at the Reformation from the wood, hay, and stubble of the idolatrous worship of saints and angels, with which they were encompassed; and only serve to kindle our desire, that more of the same pure, spiritual, and evangelical character were added by due authority to the service of the sanctuary; and that in the matter of distinctively Christian praise, there was as full, rich, and uniform a system as in that of instruction and prayer.

We should thus, with one heart and one voice, praise the Lord, as we pray to him throughout the ten thousand churches of our land; and there is scarcely a more beautiful picture of Christian unity than that which is thus presented, so far as it exists, in our parochial psalmody. Throughout that myriad of heaven's lower courts-be they the simple and wind-beaten chapels of our mountain wilds, or the elaborate and lofty cathedrals of our stately cities-the words and notes of that imperishable melody, the old hundredth Psalm, are the very expression of that simple and sublime devotion, which is as enduring

as the Church itself; and we can never imagine a period of the Church militant on earth, yea, even of the Church triumphant above, when it will not be her fit and cheerful, though humble and adoring language—

"For why? the Lord our God is good,

His mercy is for ever sure.

His truth at all times firmly stood,

And shall from age to age endure."

For if praise be cheering to our dull and sluggish natures, our cold and lifeless affections on earth, we are sure that it occupies the loftiest and holiest energies of the seraphic and redeemed spirits in heaven. It is indeed the only employment directly ascribed to those who have been delivered "out of great tribulation;" the only glimpse afforded us of that world, of which it is written, as if to blind the intrusive gaze of vain curiosity and humble the haughty imagination of mortals, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love him."

To love him, is then our known duty below; and to praise him, will be our known privilege above. Let us then humbly seek, in all the ordinances of his grace, for the increase of faith, hope, and love here, and so shall we doubtless, through the blood and righteousness of our only Redeemer, attain unto those unspeakable joys, in which we shall never cease to sing, with holy Mary, and all the host of heaven, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

23

ΘΕΟΤΟΚΟΣ:

A CANDID AND HISTORICAL DISCUSSION OF

The Question,

"IS THE BLESSED VIRGIN TO BE CALLED THE
MOTHER OF GOD?"

THE question has been recently raised-" Whether a man is not guilty of heresy, when he ventures to censure the above expression who ventures to declare that Mary is

not the Mother of God."*

A disposition is also exhibited not only to defend, but to revive the term: for in a sermon recently delivered before the venerable Primate of the northern province and published by request,† we find the following passage.

"The very reason why the highest title which the Virgin bears was conceded to her by the universal Church in the Council of Ephesus-that of the Mother of GOD-is a kind of protest against this sin of worshipping her."

We have, therefore, two subjects of inquiry, as it ap pears to the writer of these pages: first, as to the doctrinal, and, secondly, as to the practical propriety of the term, which not being found either in Scripture or the authorized formularies of our Church, is fairly open to such a consideration on the part of the most faithful and attached minister of our Catholic and Reformed communion.

These, I presume, are the tests by which heresy is to be condemned; and the limits within which liberty may be * "Christian Remembrancer, September, 1842.

↑ "Peril of Idolatry," a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hook.

permitted: and with this caution, I would express assent to the following extract from the same discourse.

"There must be a Church with a power to decide before there can be a heresy; and heresy is an offence ascertainable in any given instance by a prosecution in our ecclesiastical courts. Let the Sabellian and the Nestorian, let those who deny the grace of the sacraments, and contradict in the pulpit the doctrine taught at the font or the altar, be duly punished-but within the limits permitted by the Church, let liberty be conceded them, and the liberty we claim for ourselves let us extend to others."

And I would strenuously maintain that no man can be legally convicted of heresy for his rejection of an expression not thus made part of the statute law of the Church to which he belongs, unless it plainly appears, that he intends thereby to deny some doctrine which is part of the Catholic faith, "which except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly."

There can be no reasonable doubt that the doctrine of two natures, the human and divine, in one person, being conceived, borne and brought forth of the Virgin Mary, is a part of that faith which was once delivered unto the saints," of the precious inheritance which the Church of England guards with jealous care; the denial whereof saps the foundation of the hope of salvation, which every true member has, through the merits and mediation of the God-man, Christ Jesus. He, therefore, who shall deny this TRUTH, may be convicted of either that heresy, which is called after the name of Nestorius, or the opposite one condemned in Eutyches, and which the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon successively denounced. But it appears to be a gratuitous if not uncharitable assumption that "he who ventures to censure an expression," which is only an imperfect translation of an

ancient term, not perpetuated in any of our established formularies, is necessarily guilty of the heresy which the original phrase was currently or even canonically used to oppose. Its very omission is a primâ facie proof that it was not deemed necessary in order to express those truths "of which it may be declared that they are taken out of holy Scripture.

The propriety of the particular term "Mother of God,” appears to be one of those questions which arise in point of fact from a misconception of the meaning of the expression, as applied by one party and denied by the other; rather than from any substantial difference of faith. For in conversation with those of either opinion there has been found no difference of views on the subject of the Hypostatical union: all abhorring the Nestorian heresy as anathematized by the Canons of the Ephesian Council, and adhering to the Catholic doctrine as expressed in the second article of our Church. And among those whose scruples are against the phrase, some have feared an inlet to Mariolatry, and others that, by calling her exclusively or currently the Mother of the divine nature, in a certain sense, it might be lost sight of that she was, in all senses, the mother of the man Christ Jesus. We shall have occasion to show that these fears are not without their foundation in the experience of the Church. Our inquiry relates not therefore to the divinity of our Lord, but to the maternity of Mary it is not whether He is truly God, but whether she is to be called the Mother of that Divine nature-the Mother of God?

It is the intention of the writer of the following pages, to show that, (although the use or rejection of the term is not a subject of censure by an ecclesiastical court,) the question itself has, like the fabled shield of old, two sides,

* Art. XXI.