brought through the air and over the sea, house and all, by Angels?* And yet, Sir, you resent *It is a relief to turn from these wicked fables to the language of a protestant divine, one from whom Mr. Butler has not withheld his praise, and who for clearness, and strength, and sobriety of intellect, has never been surpassed. "This relation of the blessed Virgin to our Lord, says Barrow, (vol. iv. 563. 4th Ed. 1818.) as it should beget a precious esteem and honourable memory of her, (for let that mouth be cursed which will not call her blessed, let the name of him be branded with everlasting reproach of folly, who will not prefer her in dignity before any queen or empress,) so it should not serve to breed in us fond opinions, or to ground superstitious practices in regard to her, as it hath happened to do among divers sorts of Christians; especially among the adherents to Rome. For, They (out of a wanton mind, but in effect profanely and sacrilegiously) have attributed to her divers swelling and vain names, divers scandalously unsavoury, some hideously blasphemous titles, elogies, as alluding to, so intrenching upon, the incommunicable prerogative of God Almighty and of our blessed Saviour; such as the Queen of Heaven, the Wealth of the World, the Mother of Mercies, the Spouse of God, Our Lady, (as if, beside our unus Dominus, there were una Dominà in the Church forgotten by St. Paul) with the like. "They ascribe to her the most sublime attributes of God, together with his most peculiar actions of providence and protection over us, yea of redemption itself. "They yield acts of religious veneration (prayer and praise) to her, and those in a very high manner and strain; professing not only to serve her religiously, which the holy scripture chargeth us to do in regard to God and him only, but væreρduAɛve, to do more than serve her, or to serve her with exceeding devotion. "Who commonly do at the end of their works, join, praise be a charge of idolatry and superstition against a Church in which such things are believed,.. of imposture and wickedness against a Church in which such things have been invented! You affect surprize and indignation at the imputation! You accept complacently a vote of public thanks from the British Roman-Catholic Association for refuting the calumny! to God and to the blessed Virgin! as if she were to share with God in the glory and gratitude due for blessings or success upon our performances. All this they do, without any plain reason, any plausible authority, any ancient example, yea manifestly against the best reason, the commands of God, the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, all which do conspire in appropriating religious adoration to God alone, neither the holy Scripture nor the first Fathers excepting the blessed Virgin from the general rule, or taking notice of her as an object of our worship, but nipping the first essays of such a superstition in the Collyridians. "Such groundless and foolish conceits, such dangerous and impious practices, we should carefully beware; the which as they much derogate from God's honour, and prejudice his service, and thwart his commands, so they indeed do rather greatly discredit, injure, and abuse the blessed Virgin, (making her name accessary to such enormous scandals,) than they do bring any honour, or do any right to her. "And I doubt not but ei riç aïonous, if she from her seat of bliss doth behold these perverse services, or absurd flatteries of her, she with holy regret and disdain doth distaste, loathe, disdain, and reject them; with a Non nobis, Domine, (Psalm 115.) Not unto us, O Lord; and with the Angel in the Apocalypse, "Opa μn. see thou do it not!" THE ROSARY. THERE is another topic connected with the hyperdulia,* super-service, or ultra-devotion to * Hyperdulia, a word, says Dr. Clagett, which our people cannot understand better, than by knowing the practice which it is a name for. "It is so vast a proportion of religious service which they render to her, it consists of so many parts and diversities, that it were a labour to recount them as particularly as the case would bear. It shall suffice to mention some of the principal heads. They worship her with religious prayers and vows. They erect Churches and Oratories for her service, where they worship her very Images and Pictures, and pretended Reliques. They make Rosaries, and compose hours, psalters, and other forms of devotion to her. They ask things of her, that are proper to be asked of God only. They burn Incense to her Images, and offer their very Sacrifice of the Mass in her honour. "Now as to this, and all the rest, we cannot but stand amazed that this service of the blessed Virgin should grow to be one of the principal parts of their religion, when the Holy Scriptures have not given us the least intimation of rule or example for it, or of any doctrine or practice that leads to it. That it should be a main design of their Catechisms to instruct youth in the worship of the Blessed Virgin; of their sermons to excite the people to put confidence in her and to call upon her, for the present occasion; of their books of devotion to direct them to pray to her, and magnify her in formal invocations; of their confessors to enjoin penitents to say so many Ave the Virgin, which may in this place properly be brought under your consideration. The facts which I shall bring forward may possibly induce you to doubt whether the charges which Protestant Christendom brings against the Church of Rome are so easily refuted as you perhaps may have imagined, as well as wished. I speak of the history and mystery of the Rosary, the practices connected with it, the morality deduced from it, and the miracles with which its use is said to have been introduced and repeatedly rewarded. When or by whom this implement of devotion was invented, is a question concerning which antiquaries are divided. Some of that class Marias in satisfaction for their sins, and to make at least as frequent applications to Mary, as to Jesus himself, for deliverance from sins and dangers: when not one word, not one intimation of any thing, like to any thing of all this is left upon record in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, from whom those men pretend to derive their religion, whose books are large enough for this so famous a service, to have been at least mentioned somewhere or other; and who without all doubt would have more than mentioned it, if it had been the religion of those times. This is that we must always wonder at, and so much the more, because the constant tenor of the Holy Scriptures bears against such practices as these, agreeably to that precept of both Testaments, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."-Preservative against Popery, vol. i. p. 181. who will hazard anything, say it is as old as the apostolic age, and that Bede was the person who restored its use: for the latter assertion they have a plausible argument, drawn from its English name (which has, however, a direct and obvious etymology in our old language); and they have a pretext in the undoubted fact that Bede at his death distributed certain oraria among his friends, to which this interpretation might well be applied.* But the opinion is not thought tenable. Peter the Hermit is said to have re-introduced it. It is certain, however, that no such implement was in general use before the twelfth century, when the Dominicans, according to their own statement, brought it into notice. They claim the credit of the invention for their Patriarch St. Dominic, ever-memorable, and in their language, ever-glorious, as the great founder of the Inquisition. It seems indeed likely that it should have come from Spain, for just such a prayer-string the Mahommedans adopted from the Hindoos,† and the Spaniards * See note, p. 87. Perhaps it may favour this supposition that the fragments or rather joints of the Encrinus, or Stone Lily, which are found on the coast of Northumberland, are still called St. Cuthbert's beads. + Major Moore in his Hindu Pantheon, (p. 21) supposes it to have originated there. It is used also in Tartary. Ysbrant's |