call those opinions superstitious which you yourself have not hesitated to pronounce accursed. And if I prove also that miracles and revelations have been pretended for confirming those opinions, all of which supposititious proofs have been licensed for publication by the official censors of your Church, and some of them sanctioned by a General Council, you must admit that this is a case in which imposture also has been made out. I can hardly persuade myself that you know so little of your own Church history as not to know what abundant evidence might be adduced.

According to what you present as a true and clear statement of the doctrine of the Romish Church, the Virgin Mary is nothing more than a creature. According to your Breviary, Sir, she is exalted above every creature, and stiled the Mistress of all creatures; she is the Queen of Angels, and "the summit of her merits is exalted above all the choirs of Angels, even to the throne of the Godhead." You tell us, on the credit of Mr. Gother, that the Romish Church holds her to be only a creature; but the Venerable Abbot Engelbert tells us that she holds an undivided empire with her Son;..

*

* Pezii Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. i. 505.

FF

but St. Bernard tells us that all Scripture was given concerning her, and because of her, and that for her sake this whole world was made; .. but the Romish Church in its offices applies to her the attributes of the Divine Wisdom,† as given by the son of Sirach, and those words of Solomon which are often used as proving the eternal generation of the Son of God. Cursed, according to your exposition, are those who believe that the Blessed Virgin can in any thing command her Son. Why, Sir, the Venerable Abbot Engelbert, who surely is not less venerable than Dr. Challoner, or Mr. Gother, tells us that her Son cannot deny any thing that she asks; and applies to this the text in Kings,‡ "Ask on, my mother, for I will not say thee nay."§... Why, Sir, it has been preached in your Church, and sanctioned for publication after it was preached, that all things are subject to the command of the Virgin, even God himself! that "considering the Blessed Virgin

*Super Salve Regina. 1740.

+ Dr. Phillpotts' Letters, p. 43-47.

i. ii. 20. Pezii Thes. ut supra.

§ The text is stronger in the Latin. Pete, Mater mea; neque enim fas est ut avertam faciem tuam.

|| Imperio Virginis omnia famulantur, et Deus.-Bernardinus de Busto. Ussher, 481.

is the Mother of God, and God is her Son, and every son is naturally inferior to his mother, and subject to her, and the mother hath preeminence and is superior to her son, it therefore followeth that the Blessed Virgin is superior to God, and God himself is subject unto her in respect of the manhood which he assumed from her."* Why, Sir, it is said in a book which is of as much authority as Mr. Gother's " Papist Misrepresented," and which has been much more widely read, that the Virgin herself has said,† speaking in her own person, "the will of the Blessed Trinity and mine is one, and to whatsoever pleaseth me, the whole Trinity with unspeakable favour consenteth." It has been preached from your pulpits and published from your presses, that the Virgin appeared to Thomas à Becket, and said unto him, "Rejoice,

*Cum beata Virgo sit Mater Dei, et Deus filius ejus; et omnis filius sit naturaliter inferior matre et subditus ejus, et mater prælata et superior filio; sequitur quod ipsa benedicta Virgo sit superior Deo, et ipse Deus sit subditus ejus ratione humanitatis ab eá assumptæ.-Ussher, ut supra.

+ Promptuar. Disc. de Miraculis B. Mariæ, exemp. xiv. p. 8. Edit. Moguntiæ, 1612. Quoted in Archb. Ussher's Answer to a Challenge, p. 487. ed. 1631.

Gaude quia FILIUS MEUS MIHI SEMPER EST OBEDIENS, et meam voluntatem et cunctas preces meas semper exaudit.-Bernardinus de Busto. Mariale, Part x. serm. ii. sect. ult. Quoted by Archb. Ussher, ut supra.

because my Son is always obedient unto me, and my will, and all my prayers he always heareth." Do Do you believe this, Sir? or will you acknowledge that doctrines, which you with Mr. Gother and Dr. Challoner anathematize, are taught by your divines; and that fables in confirmation of them have been preached and published as revelations, with the knowledge and with the sanction of a Church which suffers nothing to be printed that it disapproves? If you abide by Mr. Gother, here, you must acknowledge, is a case of impiety and imposture proved,..not upon the Seraphic preacher, who may in good faith have believed the legend which he repeated, but upon the inventor of the fable, whoever he may have been, and upon that Church which, having infallibility vested in its Head, or in its members, suffered it thus to go forth as a truth to be believed! If you abide by Mr. Gother, your curse alights upon no less a person than Bonaventura, a Cardinal and a Saint, and upon all those who use prayers which he has prescribed to be said with the Rosary; for in those prayers the Virgin* is

* O Imperatrix et Domina nostra benignissima, jure Matris impera tuo dilectissimo filio Domino nostro Jesu Christo, ut mentes nostras ab amore terrestrium ad cœlestia desideria erigere dignetur -Bonaventuræ Opera, t. vi. edit. Rom. 1588. Quoted by Ussher, ut supra, 489.

intreated by the authority of a Mother to COMMAND her most beloved Son that he would vouchsafe to lift up our minds from the love of earthly things unto heavenly desires: and again in his "Lady's Psalter," he says, Incline the coun

tenance of God upon us, mercy upon sinners."*

coмPEL him to have Are the devotees

accursed, Sir, who repeat Cardinal St. Bonaventura's crown, believing that it contains the doctrine of their Church? Or are they entitled to the two hundred and seventy-three thousand seven hundred and fifty-eight days of indulgence, which, according to the Seraphic F. Bernardinus de Busto,† is the sum total of indulgences granted for reciting every one of these crowns?

Where, Sir, is the boasted unity of your Romish Church, and where its infallibility? We have here an opinion of such moment, that, according to your own representation, error in

* Inclina cultum Dei super nos, coge illum peccatoribus misereri-(Ib. in Psalt. B. Mariæ Virg.), the harshness whereof, says Ussher, our Romanists have a little qualified in some of their editions, reading thus: Inclina vultum filii tui super nos: coge illum precibus nobis peccatoribus misereri.-(Ed. 1598.) ... Thus it is that the Romanists tamper with authorities, and alter to their own convenience the text of their own Doctors and Saints!

+ Ussher, ut supra, 489.