" [Heb. iv. 16.]
How entirely opposed to such passages as these, breathing the spirit
that pervades the whole Bible, are those doctrines which represent the
Virgin Mary as the Mediatrix by whom we must sue for the divine
clemency; as the dispenser of all God's mercies and graces; as the
sharer of God's kingdom, as the fountain of pity, as the moderator of
God's justice, and the appeaser of his wrath. "Show thyself a mother."
"Compel thy Son to have pity." "By thy right of mother command thy Son."
"God is a God of vengeance; but thou, Mary, dost incline to mercy;" such
expressions convey sentiments and associations shocking to our feelings,
and from which our reason turns away, when we think of God's
perfections, and the full atonement and omnipotent intercession of his
Son Christ our Redeemer. But it must not be disguised, that these are
the very sentiments in which the most celebrated defenders of the
worship of the Virgin, in the Church of Rome, teach their disciples to
acquiesce, and in which they must have themselves fully acquiesced, if
they practised what they taught. It is very painful to make such
extracts as leave us no alternative in forming our opinions on this
point; but it is necessary to do so, otherwise we may injure the cause
of truth by suppressing the reality; a reality over which there seems to
be a strong disposition, in the present day, in part at least, to draw a
veil; an expedient which can only increase the danger.
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