and ascribe peculiar power to particular images, Nothing can be more certain than that this is the practice in Roman Catholic countries,.. nothing more notorious to those who have lived in them, or who are conversant with Roman Catholic books. May I not in my turn inquire whether you do not perceive something reprehensible in the doctrines which I have set before you as inculcated by Monks and Friars and Jesuits, and Cardinals and Saints? But what, Sir, will you say when I shall show,..as I proceed to do,..that in support of this doctrine, as thus stated, revelations are quoted and miracles adduced? It is the Virgin herself who is said to have told the Swedish St. Bridget that the “Esta he huma excellencia, con que a Virgem Maria quiz singularizar os privilegios desta sua Casa, sobre todas as que tem milagrosas no mundo, e sobre todas as que tem nesta Cidade. Deyxemos as do mundo, porque fora discurso muy dilatado: Vamos às de Lisboa. Foy milagrosa em Lisboa a Casa de Nossa Senhora da Natividade; mas passaram os milagres da Natividade. Foy milagrosa a Casa de Nossa Senhora do Amparo; mas passaram os milagres do Amparo. Foy milagrosa a Casa de Nossa Senhora do Desterro; mas passaram os milagres do Desterro. Foy milagrosa a Casa de Senhora da Luz; mas passarum os milagres da Luz. Só a Casa de Nossa Senhora de Penha de França foy milagrosa, e he milagrosa, e ha de ser milagrosa."-Sermoens, t. i. 710. Devils release their victim if they hear her name! It is Christ himself who is represented as telling the same personage that were it not for his Mother's mediation there would be no hope for mercy!* Your creed binds you to believe in St. Bridget's Revelations; for in it you profess undoubtedly to receive every thing delivered and declared by General Councils ;" and these revelations have been approved by the Councils of Constance and of Basil, and moreover by three Popes. It is Christ himself who, in the book thus ratified and set forth by the highest authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, is introduced as saying that he cannot deny any thing which his Mother asks, and as promising the kingdom of Heaven to all who, with the intention of amending their lives, shall put their trust in her. It is the Father who in the same book is represented as saying to the Virgin, "thy will shall be done; because thou when on earth hast denied me nothing, I will deny thee nothing in Heaven!" And St. Ger trude in her revelations describes our Saviour * Verè ecclesia mea nimis longè recessit a me, in tantum quod nisi preces Matris meæ intervenirent, non esset spes misericordiæ. -Revel. I. vi. c. xxvi. p. 364. + Ib. l. i. c. 1. p. 62. "levantandose el Hijo de Dios con gran acatimiento, y as kneeling before his Mother in Heaven, and setting an example of filial obedience! * The women into whose feverish heads these fancies entered may have been as crazy as Joanna Southcott, when they spake of themselves, and were not (which others of the same class plainly were) the tools or accomplices of a knavish confessor: but what shall be said of those persons, high in authority, who set their official stamp upon such things, that they might pass for sterling truths? Long ago, Sir, the remark was made, that when any new doctrine passando delante de su Madre hincò sus rodillas, y baxando la cabeça con amor y reverencia, digna del que fue exemplo de la obediencia y respeto con que han de tratar los hijos a los padres, la saludd."-Vida y Revelaciones de S. Gertrudis la Magna, 1. iii. c. xix. p. 128. Madrid. 1689. * "The Heavens are terrified, the Angels tremble, all creatures stand astonished, whole Nature is amazed at the birth of this Great-Little-Man-God into the world, whilst you, O Blessed Virgin Mother! remain undaunted, and not only lodge him in your bosom, receive him into your embraces, refresh him with your breast-milk, but moreover, with an unparalleled confidence you make him pay for his entertainment, asking no less a reward for his nine months lodging than the grant of a general and universal peace to the world, Glory for the heavenly inhabitants, Grace for earthly criminals, Life for the dead, a strict league between the Church militant and triumphant, and a perpetual alliance of his divine person with our human nature."-Jesus, Maria, Joseph. was to be established in your Church, any fresh device of man's invention to be added to the corruptions of Christianity, signs and wonders in abundance were produced to give it credence. One wickedness drew on another; fictions which had been invented in wantonness of mind, opinions which had been thrown out in the sport of a subtle intellect, or advanced in the heat of argument, or of declamation, were maintained with deliberate falsehood; and the dreams of folly, or the ravings of delirium, were attested as solemn and sacred truths, with all the hardihood of confirmed impiety. The history of every corruption in the Papal Church, in other words, of every doctrine wherein it differs from the Reformed Churches, may supply proofs of this. We shall find enough in the subject which is immediately before us. Here, Sir, are some of the tales by which that figment was supported which takes from the Redeemer his attribute of mercy, and invests the Virgin with it in his stead. A holy Cistercian, by name Wichelm, was rapt in spirit before the tribunal of Christ, when our Lord was so full of wrath against this sinful world, that he commanded one of his Angels to sound a trumpet. The trumpet was sounded, and the world shook like a leaf upon a tree that is shaken by the wind. Our Lord * Cæsarius, l. ii. c. xviii. Quoted in Andrade, p. 500. |