I have searched
diligently, but I can find no expression as to her nature and office, or
as to our feelings and conduct towards Mary, in which, as a {322}
Catholic of the Anglican Church, I should not heartily acquiesce. I can
find no sentiment implying invocation, or religious worship of any kind,
or in any degree; I find no allusion to her Assumption.
Pope Leo, who is frequently in these documents [Vol. v. p. 1418.] called
Archbishop of Rome, in a letter to Julianus, Bishop of Cos, speaks of
Christ as born of "A Virgin," "The blessed Virgin," "The pure, undefiled
Virgin;" and in a letter to the empress Pulcheria, he calls Mary simply
"The Virgin Mary." In his celebrated letter to Flavianus, not one iota
of which (according to the decree of the Roman council under Pope
Gelasius) was to be questioned by any man on pain of incurring an
anathema, Pope Leo says that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost in
the womb of the Virgin Mary his mother, who brought him forth with the
same virgin purity as she had conceived him. Flavianus, Archbishop of
Constantinople, in his Declaration of faith to the Emperor Theodosius,
affirms, that Christ was born "of Mary, the Virgin--of the same
substance with the Father according to his Godhead--of the same
substance with his mother according to his manhood." [Vol. vi. p. 539.]
He speaks of her afterwards as "The holy Virgin.
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