CHAP. I.

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION VIEWED AS EXPLANATORY OF

SCRIPTURE.

1. HITHERTO nothing greater has been assumed in this work for the blessed Virgin, than that she began by being a good woman, and that she had extraordinary opportunities for advancing in grace. Of these two positions, the first is an admission which the Angel Gabriel has forced even those out of the Church to make: the second is a fact which nobody can deny, who is anxious to keep from drifting off through Nestorianism into Pelagianism. But all Protestants are well aware that Catholics claim something more for the holy Virgin than this, that we not only have a different and more rigorous idea of a good woman than what they have, but also claim for the blessed Virgin something distinctive. They have mostly heard, that we believe she was assumed into heaven, body and soul, and crowned there by her Son: for this works of Catholic art would bring before them, even if they had never learnt it from books. Perhaps they know too, that we honour her Nativity, because it remains marked in their Calendar, even though the service for it is gone. This book will have suggested to them, that she was early dedicated to God in the Temple before she conceived Jesus. But all these privileges they know very well are nothing to one we do claim for her, which is, that she was conceived without sin. If

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she was so conceived, it is no wonder that her Nativity is honoured; no wonder that she early adopted an angelic kind of life in the temple; no wonder that Christ selected her to be his Mother out of all women; no wonder that she shared in the way she did in the work of our redemption; no wonder that she died in part in order to be like Jesus, and that death had no dominion over her; no wonder that she ascended body and soul into heaven".

2. Now a person outside the Church may, as I have said, be brought to consider her doctrine as a philosophy, and regard its developments in a purely human light, as things which men were driven to for consistency's sake. He might say, 'I find the theory of her commencing a monastic life in the temple very early men having once got hold of this notion, were led on to assume, that if she had light enough to anticipate the Christian scheme before her Son's birth, she must have had some extraordinary graces. Therefore they attributed to her a birth without sin, in order to account for the existence of these graces. But when they came to bethink themselves, they found this would not be enough. The Baptist they found had this privilege, and he was only the precursor, not the Mother of the Messias. Hence they were led to assume something more for the Mother, and while they were about it, it was as well to make their God sanctify her as soon as she was created, and not a good bit before the Baptist's time of sanctification. All this, he might say, is a consistent phi

Jo. Damasc. ap. Triart. i. p. 419. εἰ ὁ ταύτης Καρπὸς .... τаþην úπÉστη Éкkovσíws ws Ovnròs, πῶς τὴν ταφὴν ἀρνήσεται ἡ ἀπειροyáμws κvýσaσa; Comp. Gelas. ap.

Hard. ii. p. 931. ubi [in Christo] causa mortis non erat (puta peccatum) non debebatur et pœna. b See Trombelli, vol. i. p. 298.

losophical process.' Whether then we commence from the principle of the Immaculate Conception, and measure other articles of common belief by it, or whether we commence from these as facts, and assume one thing after another till we are driven to it, the principle itself is found to be perfectly consistent with those other articles. If it is regarded as a fiction, it cannot be condemned as an inconsistent fiction: its consistency with the other articles gives it, as far as it goes, the appearance at least of truth.

3. This consistency might be dwelt upon much here: the Immaculate Conception might be regarded as the key which explains why the other articles were believed. It might be said, if God intended his Church to believe this, it is plain why he paved the way for it by leading her into the other truths; and therefore if you do want to shew that the Church has no commission from God to teach, you cannot, in order to shew this, make out that she holds at one part of her life things inconsistent with what she held at an earlier period of her life, so far as the blessed Virgin is concerned. She may for all this have been actuated throughout by one Spirit, who certainly can lead into truth unknown before, and certainly cannot deny himself. The grand question which a man has to put to himself is, Has God set up on the earth any Body authorized to teach me what is Scripture, and what not, what is my duty to believe and to practise, and what not? Reason can do something towards answering this question. The fact that the Church is the only body which expects her priests to study what may be called the anatomy and pathology of the human soul, i. e. moral theology, may influence one person to believe she is the most likely of all claimants to be the

teacher sent from God to sinners. Her miracles, and the miraculous holiness of her saints, shewn in all ages, and proved by the most incontestable evidence, may convince another of her mission from above. Her unity and harmony throughout the world may act upon another, and her majestic ritual on another, while others may be more influenced by the fact, that the doctrine of the present Church agrees with that of the ancient in all positive matters; that whatever supposed additions have been made, Trent does not discard Chalcedon Ephesus or Nicea, St. Alphonsus make no account of St. Chrysostome, or St. Thomas of St. Augustine, or Petavius of St. Cyril.

4. This kind of marvellous and consistent growth of doctrine is of a very proper nature to influence a person out of the Church, or not obstinately persuaded, when reason is against him, that he is in it. For if there be such things as dim and vague proofs of any present doctrine being early held, they will be dim and vague to those not in the Church. It does not follow, that if you look into the land of Goshen through an Egyptian darkness, you will have the same idea of the light in their dwellings that the children of Israel have, or see the objects with the same clearness: it does not follow, because the Light of the world gives light to all that are in the house, that therefore those without it will see the same things quite as clearly as these do. Nevertheless, a person who is without the house may see the consistency of such things as he does see clearly: till he can prove that he is in the house, he must not complain if he is bid to take heed to a light shining into a dark place. A person out of the Church then, though wholly incompetent to appreciate the value of indistinct texts of Scripture, or the Fathers,

may be competent to judge, whether what is positively and clearly taught by these, is inconsistent with what is clearly and positively taught by the present Church. I say, may be competent, because he need not be so, if he judges as some do in utter ignorance of our system, and predetermined to find idolatry and abominations of every kind in it. He may also be competent to see, that even obscurer texts admit of a meaning not at variance with present teaching. Upon such a person the evidence for the Catholic Church from the consistency of her doctrine may be fairly and properly urged; and in this instance he may take the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in hand, and examine other doctrines commonly received before it, and see whether or no they are inconsistent with it. He may see also, whether or no obscure passages, supposed to intimate it, really may, not do, intimate it. Of this he is not a judge, till he has been some time in the Church, any more than one not a member of a college, guild, or community, would be a fair judge, if those within it put an honest sense on its statutes and prescriptions in a difficult case.

5. To use the Immaculate Conception in this way, is to treat it like a theory which may or may not be true. Its agreement with the things already noticed, is too palpable to require farther comment: assuming it true, they are no obstacle to its truth; assuming it false, they are not demonstrative proofs of its truth, but weak presumptions, or strong, as may be. But the more facts a theory will explain, the more likelihood there is of its truth; and therefore I shall proceed to notice some other and less obvious facts which this theory will explain; and I wish it distinctly and particularly to be observed,