The only other passage in which reference appears to be made in the Old Testament to the Mother of our Lord, contains that celebrated prophecy in the seventh chapter of Isaiah, about which I am not aware that any difference exists between the Anglican and the Roman Churches. "A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel." [Isaiah vii. 4.]
I find no passage in the Old Testament which can by any inferential application be brought to bear on the question of Mary's being a proper object of invocation.
In the New Testament, mention by name is made of the Virgin Mary by St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, and by St. John in his Gospel, as the Mother of our Lord, but not by name; and by no other writer. Neither St. Paul in any one of his many Epistles, though he mentions the names of many of our Lord's disciples, nor St. James, nor St. Peter, who must often have seen her during our Lord's ministry, nor St. Jude, nor St. John in any of his three Epistles, or in the { 274} Revelation (though, as we learn from his own Gospel, she had of especial trust been committed to his care)--no one of these either mentions her as living, or alludes to her memory as dead.
The first occasion on which any reference is made in the New Testament to the Virgin Mary is the salutation of the Angel, as recorded by St. Luke in the opening chapter of his Gospel. The last occasion is when she is mentioned by the same Evangelist, as "Mary the Mother of Jesus," in conjunction with his brethren and with the Apostles and the women all continuing in prayer and supplication, immediately after the ascension of our blessed Lord. Between these two occasions the name of Mary occurs under a variety of circumstances, on every one of which we shall do well to reflect.
The first occasion, we have already said, is the salutation of Mary by the angel, announcing to her that she should be the Mother of the Son of God. Surely no daughter of Eve was ever so distinguished among women; and well does it become us to cherish her memory with affectionate reverence. The words addressed to her when on earth by the angel in that announcement, with a little variation of expression, are daily addressed to her by the Roman Catholic Church, now that she is no longer seen, but is removed to the invisible world. "Hail, thou that art highly favoured!" (or as the Vulgate reads it, "full of grace") "the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women." [Luke i. 28.] On the substitution of the expression, "full of grace," for "highly favoured," or, as our margin suggests, "graciously accepted, or much graced," I am not desirous { 275} of troubling you with any lengthened remark. I could have wished that since the Greek is different in this passage, and in the first chapter of St. John, where the words "full of grace" are applied to our Saviour, a similar distinction had been observed in the Roman translation. But the variation is unessential. The other expression, "Blessed art thou among women," is precisely and identically the same with the ascription of blessedness made by an inspired tongue, under the elder covenant, to another daughter of Eve. "Blessed above women," or (as both the Septuagint and the Vulgate render the word) "Blessed among women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be." [Judges v. 24.] We can see no ground in such ascription of blessedness for any posthumous adoration of the Virgin Mary.