Posted on 05/14/2008 10:16:49 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
by C. H. Spurgeon
From the January 1866 "Sword and Trowel Spurgeon"
According to promise, we have summarized the detailed account of the idolatrous worship of Mary by the Papists as exposed in full by Dr. Pusey in his new work. As his statements are not made at random, but are supported by quotations from Romish writers of recognised authority, they will be valuable to those who are met by the crafty denials of Romanists whenever they expose the genuine doctrines of Popish faith. Amid all the mischief which Pusey has done, it is well to note and acknowledge whatever service he may in this case render to truth. The headings of the paragraphs are ours; the quotations are given as they stand.
Blessings said to be obtained through Mary.
—"So, then, it is taught in authorized books, that 'it is morally impossible for those to be saved who neglect the devotion to the Blessed Virgin;' that 'it is the will of God that all graces should pass through her hands;' that 'no creature obtained any grace from God, save according to the dispensation of His holy Mother;' that Jesus has, in fact, said, 'no one shall be partaker of My Blood, unless through the intercession of My Mother;' that 'we can only hope to obtain perseverance through her;' that 'God granted all the pardons in the Old Testament absolutely for the reverence and love of this Blessed Virgin;' that 'our salvation is in her hand;' that 'it is impossible for any to be saved, who turns away from her, or is disregarded by her; or to be lost, who turns to her, or is regarded by her;' that 'whom the justice of God saves not, the infinite mercy of Mary saves by her intercession;' that God is 'subject to the command of Mary;' that 'God has resigned into her hands (if one might say so) His omnipotence in the sphere of grace;' that 'it is safer to seek salvation through her than directly from Jesus.'"
Mary worship held up as a cure for trouble.
—"F. Faber, in his popular books, is always bringing in the devotion to the Blessed Virgin.. He believes that the shortcomings of English Roman Catholics are owing to the inadequacy of their devotion to her. After instancing people's failures in overcoming their faults, want of devotion, unsubmission to God's special Providence for them, feeling domestic troubles almost-incompatible with salvation, and that 'for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy,' he asks, 'What is the remedy that is wanted? what is the remedy indicated by God himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady, but remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here, in England, Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary, that Protestants may feel at ease about her. Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is, that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish, because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights; these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother.'"
The Pope's whole reliance on the Virgin.
—In his Encyclical Letter of 1849, Pius IX wrote: "On this hope we chiefly rely, that the most Blessed Virgin—who raised the height of merits above all the choirs of Angels to the throne of the Deity, and by the foot of Virtue 'bruised the serpent's head,' and who, being constituted between Christ and His Church, and, being wholly sweet and full of graces, hath ever delivered the Christian people from calamities of all sorts and from the snares and assaults of all enemies and hath rescued them from destruction, and, commiserating our most sad and most sorrowful vicissitudes and our most severe straits, toils, necessities with that most large feeling of her motherly mind—will, by her most present and most powerful patronage with God, both turn away the scourges of Divine wrath wherewith we are afflicted for our sins, and will allay, dissipate the most turbulent storms of ills, wherewith, to the incredible sorrow of our mind, the Church everywhere is tossed, and will turn our sorrow into joy. For ye know very well, Ven. Brethren, that the whole of our confidence is placed in the most Holy Virgin, since God has placed in Mary the fullness of all good, that accordingly we may know that if there is any hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, it redounds to us from her, because such is His will Who hath willed that we should have everything through Mary."
Mary blasphemously called Co-Redemptress with our Lord.
—"We had heard before, repeatedly, that she was the Mediatrix with the Redeemer; some of us, who do not read Marian books, have heard now for the first time, that she was ever our 'Co-Redemptress.' The evidence lies, not in any insulated passage of a devotional writer (which was alleged in plea for the language of M. Olier), but in formal answers from Archbishops and Bishops to the Pope as to what they desired in regard to the declaration of the Immaculate Conception as an Article of Faith. Thus the Archbishop of Syracuse wrote, 'Since we know certainly that she, in the fulness of time, was Co-redemptress of the human race, together with her Son Jesus Christ our Lord.' From North Italy the Bishop of Asti wrote of 'the dogma of the singular privilege granted by the Divine Redeemer to His pure mother, the Co-redemptress of the world.' In South Italy the Bishop of Gallipoli wrote, 'the human race, whom the Son of God, from her, redeemed; whom, together with Him, she herself co-redeemed.' The Bishop of Cariati prayed the Pope to 'command all the sons of Holy Mother Church and thy own, that no one of them should dare at any time hereafter to suspect as to the Immaculate Conception of their Co-redeemer.' From Sardinia, the Bishop of Alghero wrote, 'It is the common consent of all the faithful, and the common wish and desire of all, that our so beneficent Parent and Co-redeemer should be presented by the Apostolic See with the honour of this most illustrious mystery.' Spain, the Bishop of Almeria justified the attribute by appeal to the service of the Conception. The Church, adapting to the Mother of God in the Office of the Conception that text, 'Let Us make a help like unto Him,' assures us of it. and confirms those most ancient traditions, 'Companion of the Redeemer,' 'Co-Redemptress,' 'Authoress of everlasting salvation.' The Bishops refer to. these as ancient, well-known, traditionary titles, at least in their Churches in North and South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain."
A Parallel infamously drawn between Jesus and Mary.
—"As our Redemption gained its sufficiency and might from Jesus, so, they say, did it gain its beauty and loveliness from the aid of Mary. As we are clothed with the merits of Christ, so also, they say, with the merits of Mary. As Jesus rose again the third day without seeing corruption, so they speak of her Resurrection so as to anticipate corruption, in some three days;' as He was the first-fruits of them that slept, so is she; as He was taken up into heaven in the body so, they say, was she; as He sits at the Right Hand of God, so she at His Right Hand; as He is there our perpetual Intercessor with the Father, so she with Him; as 'no man cometh to the Father.' Jesus saith, 'but by Me;' so 'no man cometh to Jesus', they say, 'but by her;' as He is our High Priest, so she, they say, a Priestess; He, our High Priest, gave us the sacrament of His Body and Blood; so, they say, did she, 'her will conspiring with the will of her Son to the making of the Eucharist, and assenting to her Son so giving and offering Himself for food and drink, since we confess that the sacrifice and gifts, given, to us under the form of bread and wine, are truly hers and appertain unto her. As in the Eucharist He is present and we receive Him, so she, they say, is present an received in that same sacrament. The priest is 'minister of Christ,' and 'minister of Mary.' They seem to assign to her an office, like that of God the Holy Ghost, in dwelling in the soul. They speak of 'souls born not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God and Mary;' that 'the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady to bring His fruitfulness into action by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members;' that 'according to that word, 'the kingdom of God is within you,' in like manner the kingdom of our Blessed Lady is principally in the interior of a man, his soul; that 'when Mary has struck her roots in the soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce, because she alone is the fruitful Virgin, who never has had, and never will have, her equal in purity and fruitfulness.'"
Shameless declaration that Mary is in the Eucharist.
—(Oswald.) "'We maintain a (co-)presence of Mary in the Eucharist. This is a necessary inference from our Marian theory, and we shrink back from no consequence.' 'We are much inclined,' he says afterwards, 'to believe an essential co-presence of Mary in her whole person, with body and soul, under the sacred species. Certainly to such a presence in the Eucharist, 1. there is required a glorious mode of being of the Virgin body of the Holy Mother. We are not only justified in holding this as to Mary, but we have well-nigh proved it. 2. The assumption of a bodily presence of Mary in the Eucharist compels self-evidently the assumption of a multi-location (i.e. a contemporaneous presence in different portions of space) of Mary, according to her flesh too. 3. One who would receive this must be ready to admit a compenetration of the Body of Christ and of that of the Virgin in the same portion of space, i.e. under the sacred species.' The writer subsequently explains that 'the "lac virginale" must be looked upon as that of Mary, which is primarily present in the Eucharist, whereto, in further consequence, the whole Christ the Head, the Blessed Virgin is, as also her soul, would be joined.' 'The Blood of the Lord, and the lac of His Virgin Mother, are both present in the sacrament.'"
Mariolotry to swallow up all other devotion.
—"'Assuming that, in and under Christ the Head, the Blessed Virgin is, after her Assumption, as it were, the neck of the Church, so that all grace whatever flows to the Body through her, that is, through her prayers, it might be argued, that, for such as have this belief to ask anything of or through her, is identical in sense, but in point of form better, than to ask it directly of Christ, in like manner as to ask anything of or through Christ, is identical in sense, but clearer and fuller in point of form, than to ask it directly of the Father. And hence, it might seem that it would bean improvement, if, reserving only the use of the appointed forms for the making of the Sacraments, and an occasional use of the Lord's Prayer (and this rather from respect to the letter of their outward institution than from any inward.199 necessity or propriety), every prayer, both of individuals and of the Church, were addressed to or through Blessed Mary, a form beginning, 'Our Lady, which art in heaven,' etc., being preferred for general use to the original letter of the Lord's Prayer; and the Psalter, the Te Deum, and all the daily Offices, being used in preference with similar accommodation.'" Horrid ravings of Faber, whose writings are very popular among Papists.—"'There is some portion of the Precious Blood which once was Mary's own blood, and which remains still in our Blessed Lord, incredibly exalted by its union with His Divine Person, yet still the same. This portion of Himself, it is piously believed, has not been allowed to undergo the usual changes of human substance. At this moment, in heaven, He retains something which was once His Mother's, and which is, possibly, visible, as such, to the saints and angels. He vouchsafed at mass to show to S. Ignatius the very part of the Host which had once belonged to the substance of Mary. It may have a distinct and singular beauty in heaven, where, by His compassion, it may one day be our blessed lot to see it and adore it. But with the exception of this portion of it, the Precious Blood was a growing thing,' "&c.
Enough! enough! every one of our readers will cry out, and therefore we stay our hand. Surely "for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
Well I would reply to your beliefs with sequiturs if only you would state them.
“Well I guess they ‘all’ ought to if that’s what they are being taught...”
The problem is in definition, what you think it means and the referential point of the definition which is Mary, and what it truly means from our referential point, again, Mary.
We view Mary as our Mother. You do not.
It is the same as some views of Calvinsim which point to Calvin’s embrace of Karma.
It’s all in the viewpoint and definition.
I think I would accept that you and Calvin do not believe in karma if you said it was not a tenet although on the face of it, it does appear to me that election is the same thing as karma.
Similarly, I think if we say that we do not worship Mary and that Adoration is God’s and God’s alone, you would accept our tenet.
Otherwise, I am defining what you believe as you define what I believe and neither of us has an understanding of the other’s religion.
"Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength and with thy whole mind" -- an all-consuming love! But, wait -- "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Do you think God should have said, "Forget the neighbor -- all your love is to be toward Me!" As we love our neighbor (even the unlovable) for the sake of God, that does not diminish the love we have for God -- quite the contrary, any more than "honoring" our father and mother detracts from the much greater -- and different in kind, not only degree -- honor we give to God, though in Hebrew it's the same word.
Re the thesaurus, there is no such thing as an exact synonym, else the economy of language would drop one of them as useless. If you've ever taught English at the college level (or advanced high school, I guess), you can always tell a student who depends on a thesaurus rather than knowing the language from the way he will use a really "classy" word that is entirely inappropriate in context. I used to warn my students that a thesaurus is valuable only as a reminder of words you really know in all their connotation and denotations, not as a handy source to plug something in.
I'm not so sure. I think what they are saying is that even though individual Catholics may THINK they are not worshipping Mary, they really are, due to the insidious manipulations of Church authority.
So you see, merely asserting you don't worship Mary is insufficient, inasmuch as you are blinded by a false consciousness.
Either that, or they are saying you're a liar.
Reading some of these posts is just like reading this....
“Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 1:34:28 PM by seanmerc
The American people have heard President George W. Bush and his spokespersons say many times that the U.S. government does not engage in torture.
Whether Bush was believed or not is another story — especially in light of the photographic evidence of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the prison near Baghdad. It’s understood that many of the photos are too sadistically graphic to be made public.
Still, the official U.S. denials of torture continued until earlier this month when Bush acknowledged in an interview with ABC-TV that he knew about and approved “enhanced interrogation” of detainees, including “waterboarding” or simulated drowning.
“As a matter of fact,” Bush added, “I told the country we did that. And I told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it.” The president added, “I didn’t have any problems at all trying to find out what Khalid Sheik Mohammed knew.”
“He was the person who ordered the suicide attack — I mean, the 9-11 attacks,” Bush said. “And back then, there was all kind of concern about people saying, ‘Well, the administration is not connecting the dots.’ You might remember those — that period.” Bush said.
Bush also said in the interview that he had been aware of several meetings his national security advisers held to discuss “enhanced interrogation” methods.
Surely this president is also aware of the U.S. commitment to international treaties barring “cruel and inhumane” treatment of prisoners.
What is startling is that he feels no remorse about the cruel image he has created for America — and the damage done to its credibility and probity.
In referring to the legality of torture, Bush apparently was thinking of a 2002-2003 memo written by John Yoo, a Justice Department official, who argued that military interrogators could subject detainees to harsh treatment as long as it didn’t cause “death, organ failure or permanent damage.”
The memo was later rescinded.
Bush who has insisted “we do not torture” also recently vetoed legislation that explicitly banned torture. And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose whole political persona has been defined by the fact that he had been tortured while a prisoner of war during the Vietnam era, supported Bush’s veto.
For both Bush and McCain, I recall the words of Joseph Welch, the special counselor for the Army during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings when Welch asked Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis.: “Sir, have you no sense of decency?”
We expected the usual cast of characters including Vice President Dick Cheney to be in on the sinister torture-planning sessions.
But it came as a shock that Gen. Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, sat in on the meetings and went along with the planning. Powell had been on record warning against U.S. torture policies on the basis that if we mistreat our prisoners, foreign countries will feel no qualms about abusing American captives in wartime.
Once revered for his integrity, Powell has lost his halo.
Now we have this week’s testimony of Air Force Col. Morris Davis, a former chief prosecutor, who took the witness stand at Guantanamo Bay on behalf of a prisoner. Davis told how top Pentagon officials had pressured him on sensitive prosecutorial decisions for political reasons. He said he was told that the charges against well-known detainees “could have real strategic value” and that there could be no acquittals.
Davis also testified that Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann reversed a decision he had made and insisted that prosecutors proceed with evidence they had obtained through waterboarding and other methods of torture.
Davis also testified he was told to speed up the cases to give the system legitimacy before a new president takes over in January.
Is Congress so cowed that it accepts the statements of a president who has little regard for the truth?
Is there no lawmaker who is appalled about the tarnishing of our image in world opinion? And where are the voices of the other presidential candidates who will inherit the Bush legacy of torture? Why the silence?
I count on the American people to refuse to be shamed any more.
Helen Thomas can be reached at hthomas@hearstdc.com.”
May I ask, then, is Mary equated with “Jerusalem which is above” (Galatians 4:26) in Catholic dogma? Would that be one of her other names?
Oops! I only pinged you and Petronski because you were involved in this strand of discussion and I wanted to draw you attention to the post, expecting (I hoped!) back-up from fellow Catholics! I do see how you could have misunderstood, though — sorry! :(
There is no belief in reincarnation amongst all but a few fringe groups such as the neo Christian Gnostics. None of the Reformers advocated such belief and no Catholics have - we do have record of Origen advancing such a belief in his heretical period and the Church condemning it.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/MEDIATRI.HTM
ewtn wouldn't be lying, would it????
***It is fair to take issue with Catholics concerning beliefs we actually hold but not to attribute something to us that we strenuously deny. This is slander, pure and simple.***
RIIIIGHT!!!
And, the attribution that what drives the “anti-Catholic polemic” here at FR is hatred and bigotry is what, exactly?
BTW, has it also occured to Catholics here that the reason many Protestants continue to maintain that Catholics worship Mary OVER Catholic protestations to the contrary is that Protestants believe that Catholics are self-deceived and don’t even realize that they do it? IOW, some actually do hope that eventually the lightbulb will come on and someone will figure out that they really were doing what they said they weren’t. We all get off track. Accusing some people trying to help Catholics of hatred and bigotry doesn’t help.
The heart is deceitful above all things; who can know it?
>>http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/MEDIATRI.HTM
ewtn wouldn’t be lying, would it???? <<
Lying about what? That “some” Catholics want to make Mary a Co-redemer? Nope not at all.
See that EWTN/library? That means that it’s not always the word of EWTN but from another source.
Has it occurred to Catholics that you think we're too stupid to know what we're doing?
Yes, it has, at least to me.
I would imagine the same impulse that drove "Reformers & Calvist saints" to pursue, persecute, and slaughter countless numbers of Catholics . . . misguided on both sides in my opinion, but "different times, different customs."
>>BTW, has it also occured to Catholics here that the reason many Protestants continue to maintain that Catholics worship Mary OVER Catholic protestations to the contrary is that Protestants believe that Catholics are self-deceived and don’t even realize that they do it?<<
And the libs think that we are crazy for being Pro-choice and supporting the second amendment.
Is that the conservative’s problem? We are right, and nothing they say is going to convince us otherwise.
>>Has it occurred to Catholics that you think we’re too stupid to know what we’re doing?
Yes, it has, at least to me. <<
Has it occured to you that most Catholics don’t care what you are doing as long as you have a good relationship with Our Lord?
I married a Protestant, have tons in my family. Some of the most righteous family members are non-Catholic. Why do you assume that I think you are stupid when all I think is that you have a different way than I do?
Why do you believe that God only grants us a finite amount of love to express?
Since the point was missed I'll say it again. To love Mary to the point of handing her the position of Christ is not Christian love. It's worship.
Not interested in reading your mind.
“...“Jerusalem which is above” (Galatians 4:26) in Catholic dogma?”
The Church.
The Ecclesiology Of The Constitution On The Church, Vatican II, ‘Lumen Gentium’
By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
“The Marian vision of the Church and the ecclesial, salvation-historical vision of Mary take us back ultimately to Christ and to the Trinitarian God, because it is here that we find revealed what holiness means, what is God’s dwelling in man and in the world, what we should understand by the “eschatological” tension of the Church. Thus it is only the chapter on Mary that leads conciliar ecclesiology to its fulfillment and brings us back to its Christological and Trinitarian starting point.”
http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?id=3920
The mystical aspects of the church take a lot of time and reading.
Mary carried Christ. She was prepared by God and singularly set apart in humanity to carry Jesus.
Again, there is that referential point. You do not believe Mary is anything but a walking womb. Chosen, yes, but another could have done as well if necessary.
There is where we again part company.
I think you misread my post.
When you make a statement like this...
>>I know that the RC attempt to redefine worship as something only toward God, which conveniently make idolatry impossible, doesn’t fly. <<
I am a Roman Catholic and you are telling me that I am redefining worship. It’s telling me what I am doing and against the rules here.
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