The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-10-07
Bishop Montgomery breaches at
st. Vincent's College Chapel
THE REVELATION TO MOSES
The Sermon by the Rev. J. S. Thomson
At Unity
Lecture Of Abbott B. Clark Before Che The
oscphical Scciety-Rev. A. Rice at
the First universsllst Church

on the Incarnation and the Blessed
Virgin, taxing for his text Luke j., 4S:
''Behold from henceforth all generations
snail call me blessed
No one who does not accept or does
not understand the dogma of the incar-
nation can, of course, either accept or
understand that devotion which Catho-
lies pay to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But
it is difficult to understand how any bod v
who does accept the incarnation with
all the force OF its dogmatic character,
with all its surrounding circumstances,
which in the providence of God calls for
the divine maternity, which demands
that the Blessed Virgin shall be accepted
as the true and real Mother of Jesus
Christ, the real and true Mother of God.
say 1t is difficult to understand how any
one accepting this dogma is not i'm
pressed with the fact that this devotion
il Q natural and necessary coroliary of
the dogma itself; and if one does not &C.
cept the incarnation in that sense, he
does not accept it in the true Christian
sen 90.
The doctrine of the incarnation Is such,
and the catechetical instruction OF the
church is of such nature, that no intel
ligent Catholic can ever think of the
Blessed Virgin, much less ask her pray
ers, without at least implicitly calling to
mind Jesus Oh rist. and of calling Him
to mind as the Savior OF all men, and as
her Saw ior as we'll as of others.
In Gods providence they are correla-
tive terms. Separate them and we de-
stroy the idea of the incarnation.
We know there are many good souls
NH oil 70 fol
and who yet are unable to grasp the
truth and ueauty of devotion to His
Mother. But making allowance for all
those in good faith, and whom God alone
knows. it too often happens that error in
either case generates error in the othsr
also: that the want of devotion to His
Blessed Mother comes from want of fully
understanding the real dogma of the in
carnatiOn, or from only partial accept
ance OF Jesus Christ in His character OF
God incarnate.
But whatever else they may be, those
who do look up to our Blessed Lord as
their Savior, and upon the name of..Jesus
as the only name under heaven given to
men whereby we must be saved all
such owe the old church a debt of ever
lasting gratitude for having maintal ned.
in her devotion to the Blessed Virgin,
the divinity and the true character OF
the incarnation.
There is a law governing both truth
and error. That is to say, any one truth
is related by sort of kinship to every
other truth, as there is a sort OF kinship
between any one error and every other er-
rOr.
This is beautifully exemplifed in this
very connection-the divinity of the in
carnation and the divine maternity and
the failure to keep these truths as essen
tally correlative.
Ali truth even in the order of nature
,kavc INF N1d 70 N % n
head.
Therefore it is that these truths must
not only harmoniZe and fit in with one
another, but they mist harmonic also
with that other class of facts called su-
pernatural, because the same God is their
sourGe and reason of being.
Those who make careful study of the
physical universe tell US of the marvellous
laws by which all nature seems AKIN.
That the laws IF light. of sound. of heat
and motion, and the many ether interest
ing phenome na are kindred to one anoth-
or, revealing to the student the sublime
arrangement of the universe teeming
with life and animation.
As he reverently pushes his investiga-
tions farther and farther, more beautiful
and perfect seems that harmony until he
reaches back through it to God himself,
the all good, the all true, the all peauti-
full; and if such study does not lead him
to God, then he has failed somewhere in
his analysis, and has confused truth and
error.
By the same process we discover that
error like truth has kinship or connec-
ton with error.
Start with an error as Your basis of
argument, start with false principle as
q premise, and all the logic possible will
never lead you back TO truth. In fact,
the more rigid the logic the farther it
leads from truth, because in logic. or the
nf In
starting point granted. A truth must be
given or fact assumed as true for
premise. Reason, or logic, like Archi-
mides' lever, must nave fulcrum, a
resting place or starting point, and that
fulcrum is the assumed truth as pre-
mise.
If that something granted as true be
true in fact, and the reasoning process
BIZ rigidly logical, the conclusion reached
must be infsllibly true.
In precisely the same way, if the as
sumed truth be not true, and the laws of
reason or logic be observed, the conclu-
sion will be just as certainly untrue.
The reason of all opposition to Christian
faith IS traceable to just such false as
sum ption.
Nearly all the doctrinal discussions the
church has ever had have been directly
or indirectly around and in defense of
the incarnation, and some of the mos t
insiduous attacks ever made against it
were those made by i'm pugning the ma
ture and character of the divine matern-
ity of the Blessed Virgin.
The incarnation of Jesus Christ is Just
rs essentially connected with the divine
maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary as
Il IL in the trinity OF persons in God.
And whenever that divine maternity
IL not asserted with all its consequences,
and when any one hesitates to call her
not simply the Mother of Jesus, but tho
Mother of God. that moment there is an
implicit attack made upon the divinity
of the Savior.
And let one follow out that false pre-
mise and if consistent he will be led to
the negation of Christ and the whole
scheme of redemption, because error Is
akin to error.
The old church, not merely in her
dom este declaration, but in her cere-
monial, in her ritual, in her devotion tu
tho Mother of God, has EN- ba lined in the
hearts of her children the knowledge and
love OF Jesus Christ, the only Savior Of
man. For this she deserves we'll of some
Who forget their debt to her.
By that answering loyalty to the in.
oaynation that calls for the divine ma
tsrnity she proves herself to BIZ the
church of the living God, the church O.
the New Testament. Before the Bible
Christian can successfully assail this posi-
ion he must expunge from its sacred
paRes the visit of the Angel Gabriel, To,
msenificat, the prayer of Simeon in tn,
temple and the life Of Christ, both privat,
and public, led in company with Hi
Blessed Mother.