Continued from Chapter III. Rome Belies the Truth, and Falsifies the Scripture to Aid the Worship of Mary.

Christ Guarded Against Mariolatry.

Rome teaches it. Peter says: “It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”

Jesus being “the way, the truth, and the life,” it follows that whosoever attempts to attain heaven through the aid of Mary rejects Christ and brings damnation upon the soul. There are millions thus deluded. It is ours to warn them against the perils which surround them.

Paul said, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:6–9).

To place Mary in the stead of Christ is to insult Christ. It is Christ’s love that saves. Because He suffered we rejoice. He bore our sins for us to the tree, and nailed them to the cross. Because of His atonement we are free. Romanism rejects Christ, accepts of Mary, and then by Satan’s direction seeks to render life miserable by self-inflicted tortures. Superstition unites with Ritualism in contending for the perpetual virginity of Mary. To speak against Mariolatry is called by Romanists blasphemy. They teach that Mary was conceived without sin, that she is not only the Mother of God, but is our co-redemptrix; that in the Eucharist we not only receive and eat her flesh and blood, but pass into one flesh with her; that from the moment of the conception of Jesus the blessed Virgin was deified; and that to deny the assumption of Mary—that she is in heaven and is the mediator between Christ and the suppliant—is to deny the doctrine of the Incarnation. Romanism demands not only that we declare that Christ was born of a Virgin, but that she was ever-Virgin.

To exalt Mary is to degrade Christ. Jesus alone is the chiefest among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely. He was not the being painted by Raphael or Rubens. He had a scarred visage. There was power in His look as He came from Nazareth to the Jordan, when the multitudes parted and made way for the God-Man; and John, clothed in camel’s hair and with a leathern girdle about his loins, in his preaching said to the multitudes who bent before his surprising appeals: “He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.”

John saw Him, and went before Him in adoration, and when Christ desired a public baptism at his hands, John forbade Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” And Jesus answering said unto him, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying… This is—what? The Son of Mary? Not at all!

Mary is made to pass as the goddess of poverty and sorrow, of pity and mercy, of motherhood with large capacities of sorrow, with the memory of bitter sufferings, and with sympathies large enough to embrace every anguish of humanity—qualities which do not belong specially to Mary, but are the distinguishing features of our Lord’s life.

Mary, when she went to see her cousin Elizabeth, went as the woman who had realized the fond expectation of womanhood through all the ages. See her entering the home of Zacharias and saluting Elizabeth: “And it came to pass, that, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”

In all this there is nothing of sorrow, but rather of congratulation. No woman was ever more blessed. This Mary felt and said: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.”

THE LADY OF THE JESUITS

is a mythical creation, represented in many a shrine, church, and monastery. Rome insists on our accepting the divine incarnation of Mary. Is it not our duty to head against the tendency? Because I attempted to do so in the way set forth, the following correspondence with Rev. J.G. Gregory and others has gone over the world:

“Chichester, August 29, 1889.

“Reverend and Dear Sir,—At a public meeting in the Dome, on August 16th, you being in the chair, Dr. Fulton, whom you introduced, is reported to have said that ‘the Virgin Mary was not much of a virgin.’ This provoked laughter. On reading this profane utterance I was shocked, but I hoped the lecturer might have been misunderstood or misrepresented. But at a meeting at Fishergate, on August 21st, Dr. Fulton admitted the accuracy of the report of his address as to this particular point, and proceeded to justify it by a process of illustrations even worse than the original statement.

“Now, I do not presume to interfere with your freedom of action, or to question your right to attend or preside over any meeting, and though I may widely differ from your controversial statements and arguments, and still more from the tone and spirit of the lecturer’s addresses, I should not think it my duty to offer any observations on the course you have thought fit to pursue. The inspection of religious houses, under proper authority, and with due safeguards in order to prevent alleged abuses, may very reasonably be asked from Parliament, and that was the special object of the meeting in the Dome.

“But when a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith is openly assailed in your presence, I hold it to be your duty to stand up for the faith as it is in Jesus, and to rebuke the gainsayer. Now, the lecturer in attacking, and I must say vilifying, the Virgin Mary did in fact attack the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of that Incarnation, the greatest of all mysteries, the Virgin Mary was the pure and holy channel. God sent forth His Son made of a woman, but that woman, according to prophecy, a virgin. The word was made flesh, but in a new and strange way in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the operation of the Holy Ghost.

“The history of the Annunciation is most precise. The creeds and formularies of the Church of which you are an ordained minister, and to which you have solemnly given your assent and consent, repeat the language and teaching of Holy Writ. It is a lamentable thing that in order to expose and refute the Mariolatry so grievously prevalent in the Romish Communion, the lecturer, Dr. Fulton, should speak in terms which contradict the very letter of Scripture, and not by inference only, but directly impugn the vital doctrine of the Incarnation. But it is also deeply to be regretted that you should have allowed such statements to pass without rebuke or protest.

“I hope you will take some opportunity of publicly repudiating the lecturer’s revolting statements, which must give much offence to all pious believers. It is amazing that they should have been received on one occasion with laughter, on another with applause, by an audience professing and calling themselves Christians.

“Permit me to say the position that you occupy as a leader of a considerable party in Brighton makes it, in my opinion, incumbent on you to disavow any agreement with the statement of Dr. Fulton affecting the person and character of the Virgin Mary, for I cannot suppose that you share his sentiments in this respect. Such a declaration on your part is due to the many who look up to you for teaching and guidance.

“You contend that Dr. Fulton only assailed the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary as an invention of the Romanists to support their unscriptural teaching and practice in regard to her. But you, as a theologian, well know that the doctrine of the perpetual virginity is no Romish figment, but held by the Church universal in very early times, taught by the greatest divines of our own Church, and supported by arguments and inferences from Holy Writ which cannot be disposed of in the summary way familiar to the lecturer and those who follow in his track. I maintain that Dr. Fulton has entirely failed to comprehend the character of our Lord’s mother as presented in Holy Writ—a character beautiful in her submission to God’s will, her thoughtfulness, humility, and self-abnegation.

“I am, rev. and dear sir, faithfully yours,
“R. Chichester.”

The Rev. W.T. McCormick, vicar of St. Matthew’s, Brighton, has written the following letter to the Bishop of Chichester in answer to the Bishop’s remonstrance, which appeared in the newspapers:

“My Lord,—I have been absent from Brighton for some days past, or I should have replied to your letter sooner. In the letter, which was addressed to the Rev. J.G. Gregory, the Rev. G. Hewitt, and myself, and which I regret Your Lordship has permitted to appear in the public press before I had the opportunity of replying, we are called upon publicly to repudiate the language and teaching of Dr. Fulton as reported in the local papers. I readily acknowledge your right as chief pastor and bishop to exercise fatherly care over the clergy in your diocese. But as Your Lordship is aware, newspaper reports (even parliamentary), when not revised, are oftentimes most misleading.

“I can also state, with all deference, that, although the brusque American manner in which Dr. Fulton dealt with the subject of Mariolatry may not have been sufficiently refined for English ears, I can assure you he holds, with as much tenacity as we do, the grand fundamental doctrines that Your Lordship supposes he has impugned.

“I never heard a word spoken by him in disparagement of the Virgin Mary, although he did express an opinion against the teaching of the Church of Rome as to her perpetual virginity. Mary, as the mother of our Saviour and Redeemer, may well be esteemed by us as one who was ‘blessed among women.’ It never occurred to me, however, for one moment that anything spoken by Dr. Fulton could possibly have been construed by any unprejudiced mind into a doubt of the scriptural and Church of England doctrine of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Had it been so I should certainly have been the first publicly to have repudiated both Dr. Fulton and his teachings.”

The Bishop’s reply is as follows:

Sept. 13th, 1889.

“Rev. and Dear Sir,—You write in your letter of September 9 that if anything spoken by Dr. Fulton could possibly have been construed into a doubt of the Scriptural and Church of England doctrine of the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, you would have been the first publicly to repudiate both Dr. Fulton and his teaching.

“I am glad to receive this assurance, which is no more than I expected from you. But I must beg your attention to facts.

“It is certain that Dr. Fulton did openly declare that the Virgin Mary was not much of a virgin. There can be no question as to the accuracy of the report of these words, for Dr. Fulton, in a meeting at the Congregational chapel at Fishergate, accepted and justified them.

“Now, whatever may have been the lecturer’s meaning, these words, spoken on a most solemn subject to a promiscuous audience, were, to say the least, strongly unguarded and liable to serious misconstruction. They required correction at the time if possible, if not, at the earliest opportunity. In my opinion, which I now repeat, it was and is the duty of the clergymen present to disclaim agreement with the tone and substance of such a statement. The feelings of many sober Christians who heard, and of yet more who read the report of this lecture, must have been wounded by such coarse language applied to the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

(To be continued.)