However direct and
immediate the prayers of the suppliants may be to the Virgin for her
protection and defence from all dangers, spiritual and bodily, and for
the guidance of the inmost thoughts in the right way, (blessings which
we of the Anglican Catholic Church, following the footsteps of the
primitive flock of Christ, have always looked for at the hand of God
Almighty only, to be granted by Him for the sake of his blessed Son,)
such petitioners to Mary would be sanctioned to the utmost by the
principles and example of the present Roman Pontiff.
We have already, when examining the records of {383} the Council of
Chalcedon, compared the closing words of this encyclical letter with the
more holy and primitive aspirations of the Bishops of Rome and
Constantinople in those earlier days; and the comparison is striking
between the sentiments now expressed in the opening parts of the same
letter, and the spirit of the collects which were adopted for the use of
the faithful, before the invocation of saints and of the Virgin had
gained its present strong hold in the Church of Rome. For example, a
collect at Vespers teaches us to pray to God as the source from whom all
holy desires and all good counsels proceed [Hiem. 149.]; and on the
fifth Sunday after Easter this prayer is offered: "O God, from whom all
good things do come, grant, we pray Thee, that by thy inspiration we may
think those things that be good; and by thy guidance may perform the
same;" whilst on the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, in a collect, the
spirit of which is strongly contrasted with the sentiments in both parts
of this encyclical letter, God is thus addressed: "We beseech thee, O
Lord, with thy continual pity, guard thy family, that, leaning on the
sole hope of heavenly grace, it may ever be defended by thy protection.
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