cate, so it also as frequently signifies a comforter, and so ought to have been rendered here. But, you will say, how did Eve receive comfort from the blessed Virgin Mary? I answer, in that gracious promise delivered by God himself in the sentence passed on the serpent, after Eve's seduction by him, Gen. iii. 15. where it is said, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. Every man now knows, that the seed there spoken of is Christ ; and consequently, that the individual woman, whose immediate seed he was to be, is the blessed Virgin Mary. The holy Virgin was the happy instrument of the saving incarnation of the Son of God, who hath effectually crushed the old serpent the Devil, and destroyed his power over all those that believe on himself; and thereby she became the instrument of comfort to Eve, and all other sinners. This is certainly all the good Father intended by that expression.

For

3. The blessed Virgin was consecrated to be a temple of the divinity in a singular manner. the eternal Son of God, by an ineffable conjunction, united himself to that human nature, which was miraculously conceived and formed in her, even whilst it was within her; and so he that was born of her, at the very time that he was born of her, was θεάνθρωπος, God and man. O astonishing condescension of the Son of God! O wonderful advancement of the blessed Virgin! And therefore we daily sing in our Te Deum, "Thou art the King of glory, O Christ; "thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. When "thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst "not abhor the Virgin's womb." Upon which account the Fathers of the third general council at Ephesus, convened against Nestorius, approved the

title of Beoтókos, the mother of God, given to the blessed Virgin.

They approved it, I say; they did not first invent it, as some have ignorantly affirmed. And therefore they themselves in their synodical epistle say, that the holy Fathers before them doubted not to call the blessed Virgin beoтókov, deiparam," the mother "of God." Indeed an whole age before that council, we find Eusebius expressly giving that title to the sacred Virgin in his third book of the Life of Constantine, chap. 43. And Socrates, a most credible witness in this matter, in the seventh book of his Eccl. Hist. chap. 32. assures us that Origen, long before Eusebius, largely explained and asserted that title, as applied to the blessed Virgin. And to go yet higher, we have heard Irenæus, who was a scholar to a scholar m of the apostles, magnifying the Virgin upon this account, that she did portare Deum, bear God within her. If she did portare Deum, she did parere Deum; if she bore God, she brought him forth too, and so was becтókos, the mother of God, that is, of him that was God. Nay the blessed martyr and disciple of the apostles, Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Ephesians", edit. Voss. p. 27. feared not to say, "Our God Jesus Christ was conceived of Mary "." But what need we search after human authorities, when the inspired Elizabeth, in her divine rapture a little before my text, ver. 43, plainly gives the blessed Virgin the m [Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna.]

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[C. 18. p. 15. ed. Coteler.]

· Ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς ἐκυοφορήθη ὑπὸ Μαρίας. [It was used by Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Theonas, Alexander bishop of Alexandria, Eusebius, &c.]

same title? And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me? Where μýτnρ Tou Kupiov, the mother of our Lord, is doubtless of the same import with OcOTÓKOS, the mother of God: for the title of our Lord belongs to Christ chiefly as he is our God. And we are to conceive Elizabeth, being filled with the Spirit, to have given this title of her Lord to the babe in the blessed Virgin's womb, not according to the poor narrow vulgar sense of the degenerate Jews, but according to the most august and highest sense of the word, viz. that he is so our Lord, as to be our God also. Now the necessary consequence of this dignity of the blessed Virgin is, that she remained for ever a virgin, as the catholic church hath always held and maintained P. For it cannot with decency be imagined, that the most holy vessel, which was thus once consecrated to be a receptacle of the Deity, should afterwards be desecrated and profaned by human use. And so much of the singular grace and favour vouchsafed to the blessed Virgin.

II. We are next to explain, What is that respect which is due to her from us upon that account. She herself in the text saith, all generations shall call me blessed. Where the Romanists fancy, they have found a plain warrant for all that extravagant honour which they give the blessed Virgin; and that this is an express prediction of hers, that that should be done unto her, which they now do in the church of Rome. Hence one of their celebrated commentators, that so understands the text, could

P [Jer. Taylor also maintained her perpetual virginity. Life of Christ, §. 3. and Pearson in his Exposition of the Creed.]

not forbear thereupon to break out into this amazing acclamation to the Virgin Mary: Vivat tuum decus, tua laus, tua gloria, quamdiu vivent angeli, quamdiu vivent homines, quamdiu vivet Christus, quamdiu Deus erit Deus, in omnia sæculorum sæcula¶. Which words, not without a kind of tremor, I thus English: "Let thy honour, thy praise, thy glory live, as long as angels live, as long as men shall

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live, as long as Christ shall live, as long as God "shall be God, even for ever and ever." But how vain are these men! The expression of the blessed Virgin doubtless signifies but the same thing, though in a wider extent, with that of Leah upon the birth of her son Asher, Gen. xxx. 13. where the LXX. hath it, Happy am I, for the daughters shall call me blessed. No man can be so foolish as to imagine she meant, that the daughters should pray to her and worship her; but only that they should think and acknowledge her to be a happy woman. So here, when the holy Virgin saith, all generations shall call me blessed; she means no more, than that all generations should, upon the account of her bringing into the world the common Saviour, esteem and proclaim her the most blessed woman. And this we most willingly and gladly do.

We think and speak most respectfully of her, and do not ordinarily mention her name without a preface or epithet of honour, as the holy, the blessed Virgin, and the like. We do, by the appointment of our church, sing or rehearse in our daily service her excellent magnificat; and thereby we testify

our assent to, and complacence in, those singular favours that God is therein said to have bestowed on her; and together with her, we finally return the praise and glory of all to God alone. We celebrate two annual festivals in her memorial, the feasts of her annunciation and purification. And if we could think of any other honour that we could do her, without dishonouring God the Father and his eternal Son, we would most willingly yield it to her. Wherefore the papists are themselves egregious calumniators, when they charge us protestants, that we are beatæ Virginis conviciatores," reproachers of the blessed Virgin." We defy their charge; we honour the blessed Virgin as a most singular elect vessel of God; as one in the highest degree of all mere mortals honoured by God: but therefore we will not yield her any of that honour that is peculiar to God; for God himself hath told us, that he will not give his glory to another, Isai. xlii. 8. She saith indeed, that all generations should call her blessed; but not that any generation should call upon her to bless them. This had been a most arrogant sacrilegious speech, altogether unbeseeming the most humble, as well as holy Virgin.

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We have carefully read the holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and cannot find any one iota in them, that makes in the least for the invocation and adoration of the Virgin Mary. Nay we find the stream of holy writ carrying and directing all our prayers and supplications to God alone, through Jesus Christ the only Mediator. And for the blessed Virgin, we cannot be so stupid as not to remark and

s Maldonat in loc.