*

CHAPTER II.--EVIDENCE OF PRIMITIVE WRITERS.

Closing the inspired volume, and seeking at the fountain-head for the
evidence of Christian antiquity, what do we find? For upwards of three
centuries and a half (the limit put to our present inquiry) we discover
in no author, Christian or heathen, any trace whatever of the invocation
of the Virgin Mary by Catholic Christians. I have examined every passage
which I have found adduced by writers of the Church of Rome, and have
searched for any other passages which might appear to deserve
consideration as bearing favourably on their view of the subject; and
the worship of the Virgin, such as is now insisted upon by the Council
of Trent, prescribed by the Roman ritual, and practised in the Church of
Rome, is proved by such an examination to have had neither name, nor
place, nor existence among the early Christians. Forgive my importunity
if I again and again urge you to join us in weighing these facts well;
and to take your view of them from no advocate on the one side or the
other. Search the Scriptures for yourselves, search the earliest writers
for yourselves, and for yourselves search with all diligence into the
authentic and authorized liturgies of your own Church, your missals, and
breviaries, and formularies. Hearsay evidence, testimony {288} taken at
second or third hand, vague rumours and surmises will probably expose
us, on either side, to error. Let well-sifted genuine evidence be
brought by an upright and an enlightened mind to bear on the point at
issue, and let the issue joined be this, Is the practice of praying to
the Virgin, and praising her, in the language of the prayers and praises
now used in the prescribed formularies of the Roman Church, primitive.
Catholic, Apostolical?

I am aware that among those who adhere to the Tridentine Confession of
faith, there are many on whom this investigation will not be allowed to
exercise any influence.

The sentiments of Huet, wherever they are adopted, would operate to the
total rejection of such inquiries as we are instituting in this work.
His words on the immaculate conception of the Virgin are of far wider
application than the immediate occasion on which he used them, "That the
blessed Mary never conceived any sin in herself is in the present day an
established principle of the Church, and confirmed by the Council of
Trent. In which it is our duty to acquiesce, rather than in the dicta of
the anci