r authorized version, or to the male child, the
descendant of the woman, as the Septuagint renders it, or to the word
"woman" itself; and if the latter, whether it refer to Eve, the mother
of every child of a mortal parent, or to Mary, the immediate mother of
our Saviour: whatever view of that Hebrew word be taken, no Christian
can doubt, that before the foundations of the world were laid, it was
foreordained in the counsels of the Eternal Godhead, that the future
Messiah, the Redeemer of Mankind, should be of the seed of Eve, and in
the fulness of time be born of a Virgin of the name of Mary, and that in
the mystery of that incarnation should the serpent's head be bruised. I
wish not to dwell on this, because it bears but remotely and
incidentally on the question at issue. I will, therefore, pass on,
quoting {273} only the words of one of the most laborious among Roman
Catholic commentators, De Sacy. "The sense is the same in the one and in
the other, though the expression varies. The sense of the Hebrew is, The
Son of the Woman, Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Son of a Virgin, shall
bruise thy head, and by establishing the kingdom of God on earth,
destroy thine. The sense of the Vulgate is, The woman, by whom thou hast
conquered man, shall bruise thy head, not by herself, but by Jesus
Christ." [Vol. i. p. 132.]

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 t