Edward Bouverie Pusey · 7 of 21

Main Body · Part 7

These and the like expressions are the necessary consequences of the doctrine, that “God does not will to give any thing except through the Blessed Virgin;” “He has placed her between Christ and the Church.” Our Lord has bidden us ask the Father in His Name; and we should not expect to be heard except through our Divine Redeemer. In like way, if God had “placed the Blessed Virgin between Christ and His Church,” then, so far from there being any thing amiss in the exclusiveness of these prayers, it would rather seem, that to pray “to Mary,” or “through Mary,” would be the only legitimate form of prayer, as our prayers are to God “through Jesus,” or “to Jesus,” God and Man. It is the natural result of this belief, that, in almost every case, the hopes are expressed, that “Mary will do this or that.” I remember few cases only, in which any Bishop said, “God would do it” (there may of course have been more), and one or two, that “the prayers of Mary, solemnly declared by the Holy See Immaculate in her Conception, will

draw her Son out of that deep sleep which He seems to take in that boat.” “The Virgin Mother of God, helping our infirmities, will entreat her Son for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Where our natural language would be, “God will do this or that,” there it seems equally natural to Roman Catholics to say, “Mary will do it.” At least, where we expect beforehand, in the unfinished sentence, to find “God,” or “Jesus,” we find “Mary.”

The ways in which the declaration of the Immaculate Conception as matter of faith was to obtain these benefits to the Church were twofold, either as the direct fruit of the honour so shown to the Blessed Virgin in propitiating her, or (more rarely) by increasing the devotion of the people to her. Thus the Bishop of Sion urged it as an argument for the direct definition of the doctrine, that the “indirect definition of it would not increase devotion to the Blessed Virgin.”

The results hoped from the definition were most large. The most common, perhaps, was the destruction of heresies throughout the world; a Missionary Bishop in China expected “the conversion of idolaters speedily;” the Patriarch of Venice looked for “universal peace and love and duty;” “the Bishop of Pampeluna, “that the wicked one would be slain by the breath of the mouth of Mary;” the Archbishop of Ferrara, “that she would complete the conquest of the infernal Serpent.”

The Irish Bishops expected, “The Mother of Mercy will arise, when she shall understand that her glory is at our hearts, and stretching forth t the right hand of her might, amid the most dire storms and tempests wherewith we are tossed, she will lead us to the port of safety; she will arise and utterly destroy all heresies, which, to the detriment of our faith, carry their inroads boldly and with impunity.”

On this side, there seem to be no limits to the extent, either of the increase of the devotion to the Blessed Virgin or the subjects which may be made doctrines of faith. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin is to be the great means of obtaining favours from God, Who “wills that all favour should come through her;” one chief means of showing that devotion is held to be, to declare what had been held as “pious opinions,” or were taught with a quasi-authority in the Church, to be matters of saving faith. The existence of such teaching, spreading in the Church, is itself to be a proof that it is true. The natural issue of the precedent now set is, step by step to declare as matter of faith any and every thing which is taught about the Blessed Virgin, so soon as it has, through the constant and diligent teaching of the priesthood, taken root enough.

And this decision, by a further precedent, now made, would depend not on a General Council, not on the consent of the whole Roman Communion, but on the will of the Pope of that time.

And not only this, but the way also in which any decree on any given subject is to be framed, would, according to this precedent, rest with the Pope or his Consistory. That wonderful exposition of the doctrine of the Incarnation, the “tome” of Leo I., was accepted by the Council of Chalcedon, on the ground that it agreed with the faith, expressed or accepted by the Councils before it. The terms in which the decree as to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin was framed, were settled, not by any Council, nor by any consent of the Church, but by Pius IX. and his Theologians at Rome.

Yet it was a very delicate point. According to the physical theories of those times, a distinction had been made between what was called the active and the passive conception of the Blessed Virgin; the active conception relating to the derivation of the body from her parents, the passive being the infusion of the soul from God. It used to be thought that there was an interval between the first formation of the body and the infusion of the soul; so that the body might have been conceived in original sin, according to the law of the transmission of this inherent sin, but have been cleansed from its stain before the soul was infused into it by God, so that it should not communicate itself to the soul. Probably the distinction was altogether wrong. Yet some of the Bishops expressed that they wished it to be declared that “the passive Conception” was immaculate, in other words, that the soul of the Blessed Virgin, being infused pure by God, was preserved pure from the stain of sin. The decree itself ignores all such distinctions, and defines that it is revealed by God, that “the most Blessed Virgin Mary was, in the first instant of her conception, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Saviour of the human race, preserved free from all taint of original guilt.” The words “in the first instant of her conception,” are a known phrase among the Schoolmen. S. Thomas, e. g. inquires whether, contrary to the Aristotelian physics, “the body of Christ was animated in the first instant of His conception;” and answered, of

course, that the Word of God took, at one and the same instant, body and soul. In like way he shows, that “in the first instant of conception Christ had the fulness of grace sanctifying His Soul and Body;” “in the first instant of His conception Christ had the use of freewill;” “in the first instant of His conception He merited;” “in the first instant of His conception He beheld God in His essence clearer than all creatures.” What, then, Pius

IX. has, in fact, decreed, is that the Blessed Virgin Mary, although conceived after the way of nature, had “in view of the merits of Christ” precisely that same privilege which our Lord had, being “conceived of the Holy Ghost,” in that, “in the first moment of her conception,” she was not only sanctified, but kept absolutely free from all taint of original sin. This certainly was not what some of the Bishops meant, who concurred in asking for the definition, in that they spoke of the “passive conception” only, as immaculate.

In fixing this doctrine, as matter of faith, the principle of the Council of Trent was maintained in words, that the faith must be contained in Scripture or continuous tradition from the Apostles, having been taught by our Lord or by God the Holy Ghost. But another principle came in, which made all evidence as to fact superfluous. It was this, that the Church being incapable of erring, any thing taught throughout the Church, although not defined by any authority, or representing any thing beyond the opinion of the actual clergy, was necessarily true. In the old words, the “quod ubique” was to be, ipso facto, a test of the “quod semper.” Any doctrine being taught “everywhere” at this present moment was to be a proof of a Divine tradition that it had been “always” taught. The present reception of any “pious opinion,” especially at Rome,—“the mother and mistress of all Churches, in which alone religion hath been guarded inviolably, and from which all other nations must needs borrow the transmission of faith,”—is apparently, according to the principles of that decree, a guarantee, that that opinion has always (however or by whomsoever contradicted) been part of the Divine revelation.

In like way, to those who believed the personal infallibility of the Pope, the fact that he pronounced any thing to be true was to be a proof that it had been always taught. Only, in that case the heresy contained in the formal letter of Honorius would be true. This argument was used again and again by the Bishops,— the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception must be true, because the Church teaches it everywhere, and the Church cannot err. They urge continually, if the people were to think that this, which has been taught confidently as Divine truth, was doubtful, they might doubt every thing.

We have been often told that it was enough for any one in the Roman Communion to believe the Canons of the Council of Trent. The Bishops of Spain and Portugal, especially, tell us of a vast practical system, which the Bishops and Priests teach, and the people believe, as matter of faith. And this system being taught everywhere, then, on the principle upon which the Immaculate Conception was affirmed, it too might be, and must be assumed to be, of Divine tradition, and might be declared to be matter of saving faith. Some of the Bishops observed that the doctrine of the

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, i. e., as it is now understood, of the taking of the body up into heaven without seeing corruption, rested on the self-same authority. The feast of the Assumption, as well as that of the Conception, has been changed from its original meaning, and, having originally denoted the removal of the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary to heaven, is now held in honour of the Ascension, soul and body. There is the same practical teaching of the Assumption as there was of the Immaculate Conception. Indeed, the doctrine that her “flesh saw no corruption” is the legitimate consequence of the freedom from sin, original as well as actual. For death is the penalty of sin. The bold conception of some, that her death was but the dissolution of soul and body through ecstasy of love, and that her body, though buried, rose from the closed tomb before it could “see corruption,” and was taken up to the Right Hand of her Son, as He to the right hand of God, is but the complement of the other doctrines about her. It is said that it is to the honour of the Son that His Virgin Mother, of whom He vouchsafed to be born, should not undergo corruption, the penalty of sin, as that she should not, in the first moment of her conception, have had original sin.

To us, the most startling part of this system is its completeness. It shocked us to find that she was accounted to be “placed by God between Christ and the Church” (and so, of course, between Him and each individual); but the one-half of the ground alleged for this, that we, as sinners, were of ourselves too unworthy to approach to Christ, found too much response in the hearts of us, miserable sinners. We know that we are unworthy to approach Him, but that He said—not, Go to My Mother, but—“come unto Me,” and “whoso cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” But now we find, over and above this, a studied identification of her, in all but what follows from the Hypostatic Union, with her Divine Son. And this, partly because, in the offices in honour of her, passages of Scripture which relate to Divine Uncreated “Wisdom are recited; in some degree also, because what has been said of her by the Fathers, as the chosen vessel of the Incarnation, was applied personally to her; yet more on account of spurious passages attributed to Fathers of great name.

We had heard before, repeatedly, that she was the Mediatrix with the Redeemer; some of us, who do not read Marian books, have heard now for the first time, that she was ever our “Co-Redemptress.” The evidence lies, not in any insulated passage of a devotional writer (which was alleged in plea for the language of M. Olier), but in formal answers from Archbishops and Bishops to the Pope as to what they desired in regard to the declaration of the Immaculate Conception as an Article of Faith. Thus the Archbishop of Syracuse wrote, “Since we know certainly that she, in the fulness of time, was Coredemptress of the human race, together with her Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” From North Italy the Bishop of Asti wrote of “the dogma of the singular privilege granted by the Divine Redeemer to His pure mother, the Co-redemptress of the world.” In South Italy

the Bishop of Gallipoli wrote, “the human race, whom the Son of God, from her, redeemed; whom, together with Him, she herself co-redeemed.” The Bishop of Cariati prayed the Pope to “command all the sons of Holy Mother Church and thy own, that no one of them should dare at any time hereafter to suspect as to the Immaculate Conception of their co-redeemer.” From Sardinia, the Bishop of Alghero wrote, “It is the common consent of all the faithful, and the common wish and desire of all, that our so beneficent Parent and Co-redeemer should be presented by the Apostolic See with the honour of this most illustrious history.” In Spain, the Bishop of Almeria justified the attribute by appeal to the service of the Conception. “The Church, adapting to the Mother of God in the Office of the Conception that text, ‘Let Us make a help like unto Him,’ assures us of it, and confirms those most ancient traditions, ‘Companion of the Reedemer,’ ‘Co-Redemptress,’ ‘Authoress of everlasting salvation.’” The Bishops refer to these as ancient, well-known, traditionary titles at least in their Churches in North and South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain.

This doctrine, which is here alluded to, is drawn out by Roman Catholic Divines of every school. It occurs in a Lapide, a repertorium for sermons, as well as in the most Marian writers. Proceeding on that same ground of the Scriptures adapted to the Blessed Virgin, Salazar writes,—

“It was not fitting that Christ Alone should give Himself to the regeneration of man; and so it was necessary that a woman, Mary, like unto Him, should be given Him, that, with her and by her, all the regeneration and adoption of the sons of God should take place.”

“She merited by congruity the salvation of the whole world; not only because she bare Christ, but because she gave to us Him Whom she had borne and Who was truly hers, and for us she offered Him to death. For each will of the Mother and the Son, throughout concordant and conspiring, sacrificed to God one and the same holocaust for the salvation of the world.”

“The ways in which the Blessed Virgin cooperated with Christ to the salvation of the world may be classed as three:—

“1. As far as she so sacrificed herself to God for the salvation of the world by the wish and longing for death and the cross, that, if it could be, she too, for the salvation of the universe, was willing to co-die (commori) with her Son, and to meet a like death with Him.

“2nd, and chiefly, whereby the Virgin gave her help to Christ for the common salvation, in that she, exhibiting a will altogether conformable and concordant with the will of Christ, gave her Son to death for the common salvation. And her zeal for the human race is not seen only therein, that it made her will conspire with the will of her Son, but also in that she excited and impelled Him to undergo death.

“3rdly, That she acted as mediatrix with the Mediator. The work of our salvation was so wrought. The Virgin expressed to her Son the wishes and desires which she had conceived for the salvation of the human race; but the Son, deferring to the Mother, received these, and again presented to the Father the desires both of His Mother and His own; but the Father granted what was wished, first to the Son, then to the Mother.

“It is clear from this, that the salvation of the world was granted by the Eternal Father, not only to Christ, but also to the Virgin; yet so that the Son, as the first and principal cause, gave the price of condignity for our redemption, but the Virgin obtained the same redemption by a sort of congruity. So Mary was an aider and helper to Christ the Lord for our redemption; not that Christ needed that help or aid, since the value of His Blood surpassed by a boundless interval the compensation of our debts, but because the authority and dignity of the mother demanded this, that her merits, prayers, and desires should be united with the desires and merits of Christ, so that the salvation of men should be bestowed on both.

“But if you ask how much of help and aid the Virgin gave to the common salvation, I have said boldly, that Christ the Lord obtained nothing by His merits, either for us or for the Virgin herself, which the Virgin Mother of God did not also gain out of congruity (excepting always the original and first grace wherewith the Virgin was gifted; for this the Virgin could not obtain by any way of congruence). Thence it follows that the Virgin Mother of God, from the aforesaid congruence, so obtained of God the common salvation of the human race, that even the extinction of original sin is also to be referred to her.”

Whereas the Fathers speak of the Blessed Virgin as the instrument of our salvation, in that she gave birth to the Redeemer, the modern Marian writers expressly reject this. “This,” they say, “was an act of nature only; to have merited the Incarnation ‘ex congruo’ and so to have accelerated it, was,” they say, “common only with Patriarchs and the old Fathers; to have prayed for the salvation of mankind was also common with others. In order, then, to establish that she had something special to herself, it must be laid down that ‘Christ, God, and Man, ’ was the true Son of Mary, and so was something of her own, placed under her parental authority, and, as it were, dominion. She, then, is to be said to have given of her own; and of Mary it may be said, ‘So’ Mary ‘loved the world, that she gave her only begotten Son.’ The Virgin not only, concordant with the Father, gave her Son to the world, but also, in conformity with her Son, with priestly piety offered Him up as a sacrifice for the world. We owe then to the Virgin Mother of

God, not only that she bare Christ to the world, but also that she truly gave to the world, and voluntarily offered Him for the salvation of the world, as something which was her own.” “After the manner of a Priest, acting in a manner together with her Son the Priest, she offered to the Eternal Father the Sacrifice of redemption. Christ the Lord was offered once upon the cross; but in her heart a thousand times, i. e., so often as she voluntarily assigned Him to death. The life, the Passion of Jesus Christ, and His Death itself, were the price of our redemption, so far as they were voluntarily undertaken by Christ; but the will of the Virgin, whereby she offered her Son, related to that same life and Passion. “Wherefore it was meet, that, as that Life and Passion, as being voluntary in the Son, merited the salvation of all, ‘of condignity;’ so the same life and Passion, as being voluntary in the Mother, should merit that same salvation, ‘of congruity.’ To speak more plainly, it is equitable, that, as the Son voluntarily enduring death satisfied for all, so the Virgin, voluntarily offering her Son to that same death, obtained the salvation of all. The act, whereby the Virgin both gave her Son to us and offered Him for us to the Father, was most surpassing and especially meritorious, and so, worthy to be computed together with the Passion of Christ. So that, as the Passion of Christ is said to have satisfied for the common salvation of all, so this so great action of Mary may be said in a special manner to have obtained it. On the ground of this action of such value and merit, the Virgin Mother of God was worthy that the common salvation and redemption of the whole human race should be ascribed in a manner to her. And since she had this in common with Christ, that she is said really and properly to have given and offered the price of our redemption, therefore she bears, together with Him, all the titles and names which are wont to be ascribed to Christ, and is rightly called Redemptress, Restoress, Mediatress, Authoress, and Cause of our salvation.

“In another way, she may be called coöperatress and helper of Christ, viz., that as many other things made death not a little difficult and arduous to Christ, moved whereby He burst out into those words, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,’ nothing could more load His mind and make death more difficult to Him, than that it should be displeasing to His most loving Mother. Who sees not this? Wherefore, contrariwise? nothing so took a load off His mind, and so incited Him to suffer death, as that ready will of His Mother, altogether concordant with the will of His Father; so that I should venture to affirm that, besides the will of His Father, than which nothing was dearer to the Son, and which he wished in the first instance to execute, nothing stood nearer than this will of His Mother, to whom He deferred next to the Father. So, then, He Who addressed His Father, ‘Not My will, but Thine be done,’ and, owning the will of His Father, willingly offered Himself to death, did also gain great courage to end ure death, in that He knew that His Mother willed the same; yea, we may say that by dying He obeyed not only His Father, but also His Mother. I add, that it may be questioned whether, if, ‘per impossibile,’ there there had been no will of the Father, and His Mother alone wished and decreed that her Son should die for men, this would suffice that Christ, obeying His Mother, should willingly undergo death. I believe that Christ so deferred to

His Mother, that it would have sufficed. Let others think as they will. I add that the Mother of God herself embraces the human race with so much love and affection that if, according to the aforesaid supposition, that will of the Eternal Father were wanting, she would yet, of her own will, choose that her Son should die for men. Therefore, since the Virgin Mary much strengthened her Son to endure death, and lightened to Him death itself, exhibiting her will in that respect conformable to the Divine will, therefore she ought rightly to be called His helper. So that it might be said much more truly of the Second Adam, that ‘a help like unto Him was given to Him’—like, I say, not in dignity or merits, but in will and mind towards men, because she so ardently desired the salvation of the human race, that by her own will, perhaps by exhortation also, she confirmed in some measure her Son Who willed to die. ‘A help meet,’ I say, because that salvation of the whole human race which her Son merited ‘de condigno’ she, ‘de congruo’ in a certain excellent way obtained and promoted.”

This is altogether deliberate dogmatic language, touching upon the character and attributes of our Lord and God, His office as our Redeemer and the very centre of the faith. It gives the same aspect of our redemption, as other language does of our Lord’s perpetual Intercession for us sinners,—that the Blessed Virgin had authority over our Blessed Lord in regard to this His Divine work, and that it was accomplished, in part, in obedience to her maternal authority. It is the “Monstra te esse Matrem” applied to His office for us on earth; and that, not as any hyperbole, but with dogmatic preciseness. “Since the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God, and God is her Son, and every son is naturally inferior to his mother and her subject, and the mother is set over and superior to her son, it follows that the Blessed Virgin herself is superior to God, and God Himself is her subject, in regard to the Humanity which He took from her.” This doctrine, again, bears very closely upon the doctrine of our Redemption, in that our Blessed Lord’s perfect Obedience paid the Price of our disobedience, and “by the Obedience of One many were made righteous.” “He became obedient unto death, the Death of the Cross.” But now we are told of another obedience, not as the ensample which He gave us in His Holy Childhood by being subject to His parents, the real and the reputed alike, but, in His office as our Redeemer, to her whom He redeemed. The Blessed Virgin stands out in this system, not only in her own special gifts, but as already, before the Price was paid for her redemption, subject to no law of humanity, except of suffering together with her Son, and interceding for our fallen race, as one who did not belong to it.

It seems to be a part of this system, to parallel the Blessed Virgin throughout with her Divine Son, so that every prerogative which belonged to Him by nature or office should be in some measure imputed to her. As His Conception, not in the way of nature, but by the Holy Ghost, was Immaculate, so, it is said, was hers by the Divine

interference, her birth of barren and aged parents being (it is said) scarcely by way of nature; as He was the Son of God by Nature, so, they say, was she “by a more noble right than that of adoption only, a right which emulates in a manner natural filiation;” as He was perfect, so was she, in such sense perfect, and “such must needs be the virtues of the Virgin, that Christ, imitating them, fulfilled the office of Saviour; that as Christ, both as God and Man, bore the image of the Eternal Father, so it was meet that, God and Man, He should bear the character of His Mother. As God in Christ, by ‘ interchange of properties,’ is called Son of Mary, so He is said to have the character of His Mother on that same principle. In order, then, that we might say, that not Man only but God also should have the character of His Mother, need was that the Virgin should by the bounty of God have many properties and conditions of God, whereby she might be as like as possible to Him.” As Jesus, our High Prie st, had no need to offer sacrifice for Himself; so she is spoken of, as desiring nothing but the salvation of mankind; as Jesus merited our salvation, of condignity, so she, of congruity; as He died for us in act, so she in will; as He offered “a full, perfect, and sufficient, sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world,” viz. Himself, so she, they say, sacrificed her Son for us all. As our Redemption gained its sufficiency and might from Jesus, so, they say, did it gain its beauty and loveliness from the aid of Mary. As we are clothed with the merits of Christ, so, also, they say, with the merits of Mary. As Jesus rose again the third day without seeing corruption, so they speak of her Resurrection “so as to anticipate corruption, in some three days;” as He was the first-fruits of them that slept, so is she; as He was taken up into heaven in the body, so, they say, was she; as He sits at the Right Hand of God, so she at His Right Hand; as He is there our perpetual Intercessor with the Father, so she with Him; as “no man cometh to the Father,” Jesus saith, “but by Me;” so “no one cometh to Jesus,” they say, “but by her;” as He is our High Priest, so she, they say, a Priestess; He, our High Priest, gave us the sacrament of His Body and Blood; so, they say, did she, “her will conspiring with the will of her Son to the making of the Eucharist, and assenting to her Son so giving and offering himself for food and

drink, since we confess that the sacrifice and gifts, given to us under the form of bread and wine, are truly hers and appertain unto her.” As in the Eucharist He is present and we receive Him, so she, they say, is present and received in that same sacrament. The priest is “minister of Christ,” and “minister of Mary.” They seem to assign to her an office, like that of God the Holy Ghost, indwelling in the soul. They speak of “souls born not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God and Mary;” that “the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady to bring His fruitful-ness into action by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members; “that “according to that word, ‘the kingdom of God is within you,’ in like manner the kingdom of our Blessed Lady is principally in the interior of a man, his soul;” that “when Mary has struck her roots in the soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce, because she alone is the fruitful Virgin, who never has had, and never will have, her equal in purity and fruitfulness.” “She alone,” we are told, “can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things. When the Holy Ghost, her Spouse, has found Mary in a soul, He flies there. He enters there in His fulness; He communicates Himself to that soul abundantly, and to the full extent to which she makes room for her Spouse. Nay, one great reason why the Holy Ghost does not now do startling wonders in our souls is, because He does not find there a sufficiently great union with His faithful and indissoluble Spouse.” At Holy Communion, the soul is taught to desire that she will come and dwell with it in order to receive her Son, which “she can do by the dominion she has over all hearts, and her Son will be well received by her without stains and without danger of being outraged or destroyed.” To the Son, the soul is to “pray to have pity upon you, that you may introduce Him into the house of His own Mother and yours, and that you will not let Him go without His coming to lodge there.” The Holy Ghost “you can pray to come Himself in Mary, His indissoluble Spouse, telling Him that her bosom is as pure, and her heart as burning as ever, and that, without His descent into your soul, neither Jesus nor Mary will be formed, nor yet worthily lodged.”