you

judged by comparison with unsullied purity. Feeling this, and living as if felt it, you will not have confessed in vain the great truths contained in the second article of the Apostles' Creed, concerning JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, THE ONLY SON OF GOD.

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SERMON VI.

WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST; BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

LUKE i. 35.-The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

WHATEVER we have hitherto delivered, in the exposition of the Apostles' Creed, concerning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, has had respect rather to his divine than to his human nature; yet, not so that his becoming flesh was forgotten: henceforward, the most prominent place will be given to his humanity; yet, not so that we shall forget that he is perfect God. And if the veil of his manhood has sometimes enabled us to fix a steadier gaze on the brightness of his divinity, not less will his godhead surround, with a radiance of glory, that which is most proper to his humanity.

In her confession of the origination of Christ's humanity, in the Apostles' Creed, so simply scriptural are

the Church's expressions, that they need no support but that which is afforded by the text, without comment or amplification. Jesus Christ, says the Church, WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, born of THE VIRGIN MARY. The Angel, says the text, said unto Mary, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God."

The church's doctrine is thus fully supported by the words of the angel; but, like those words, it requires some explanation, and affords opportunity for some remarks and applications.

Of the Holy Ghost, we shall have to deliver the catholic doctrine, when we speak on that article of the creed of which he is the sole subject of the Holy Child by his agency conceived by the Virgin, we shall speak more at large in this and many ensuing discourses: but it would be far from consonant with the feelings of those who love the Lord Jesus; and hold, therefore, by the very necessity of our nature, in some sort of regard, whatever is intimately connected with him; to pass, meanwhile, entirely unnoticed, and without a pious memorial and benediction, that ever blessed and holy Virgin, who became the mother of Jesus after the illapse of the Holy Ghost, and the overshadowing of the power of the Highest.

And, surely, it is not right, because some have blasphemously attributed more honour to Mary than is consistent with his honour, from whom she derives

all her consideration, that she should be defrauded of her due regards. Surely it is not to be bold, as those should be bold who are conscious of the ground on which they stand, to hesitate in expressing that respect which is hers of right; lest we should be hurried by the violence of excited feeling, or enticed by the gradual force of sentiment, into an idolatrous homage. Surely it is not to hold and maintain our part with true Christian firmness, to check our reasonable sentiments of reverence for the Virgin; lest the timid should start as at the precursive shadow of idolatry; or lest the prejudiced and ignorant should call out upon us, as if we had already passed the bounds of her lawful homage. It was but human nature, to dash into the opposite extreme, starting aghast from the most astounding instances of idolatry, towards her who was impiously called the Queen of Heaven, and the Mother of the whole Trinity ;* but we have now no more excuse for this weakness, than the Romanist himself has for his idolatry. We should scarce sympathize with one who could walk over the ruins of the Holy City; and stand in the garden of Gethsemane, or on the mount of Calvary; or descend into the tomb of Joseph; and regard all these memorials of our Lord with no greater emotions than any other city or garden, or mount or sepulchre and we should laugh at his weakness, if he avowed his efforts to repress every excitement of a reverential emotion at the sight of

* Missal. Polon. quoted by Dean Comber, in his Friendly and Seasonable Advice to the Roman Catholics of England.

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these objects, because they had been the occasions of idolatry to others, of whose number he is not, and the impiety and folly of whose error he well knows. But wherein are we wiser than such an one, if we refuse to the ever Virgin mother, that respect which we cannot but feel to be her due, lest we should advance beyond, to that which it were impious to entertain ? This is not surely the part of wisdom, unless it be the wisdom of conscious weakness: not of those who feel themselves firmly grounded on the principles of a right faith; but of those who know not with how delicate an equiponderance their principles vibrate on the concurrent limits of truth and error.

Her, then, who was the theme of a prophet's prediction; her, to whom the angel, and Elizabeth full of the Holy Ghost, said, "Blessed art thou among women;" her, who said of herself in her prophetical hymn, "All generations shall call me Blessed;" we do and we will call Blessed: not fearing idolatry in the reiteration of an angel's benediction; not fearing idolatry in that which the Holy Ghost declares to be the duty of all generations. And if Christ himself said of a woman who had been a sinner, and out of whom went seven devils, when she afterwards anointed him with precious ointment," Verily I say to you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her;" surely we may ascribe honour to her of whose sins we read nothing; who shines nowhere, indeed, with a supereminency of