Another writer says,
"The blessed Virgin, for the salvation of her supplicants, can not only supplicate her Son, as other saints do, but also by her maternal authority command her Son. Therefore the Church prays, "Monstra te esse Matrem;" as if saying to the Virgin, Supplicate for us after the manner of a command, and with a mother's authority."
After these instances the article from which I cite asks, not unreasonably, " Upon whom does the anathema of Gother fall?"
Another instance of this unsteady, and (if it may so be called) untrustworthy conduct of the Roman Church, occurs in respect to their doctrine of Repentance; which is well pointed out by a recent writer in the British Magazine. His account is as follows.
"The Romish tenet most pregnant with moral mischief is, probably, that which promises salvation to mere Attrition, [i.e. sorrow for sin arising from a view of its turpitude, or fear of punishment].....Now it should be generally known that a Romish divine pressed in argument is very likely to pronounce salvability from Attrition only, as nothing more than a Scholastic doctrine, to which his Church does not stand committed. He might be reminded of the Trentine Catechism, which declares real Contrition, [i.e. hearty sorrow for sin proceeding immediately from the love of God above all things, and joined with a firm purpose of amendment,] to be found in very few; and hence deduces the necessity of an easier way for the salvation of men in general. His answer would be, that the Catechism is not a decree of the Council, and, therefore, not like one binding as an article of faith. It is indeed true, that the Council here has spoken more vaguely and guardedly than the Catechism. Pallavicino represents the Trentine Fathers accordingly as intending merely to condemn an opinion of their adversaries, which branded the fear of punishment with baseness...... However a nice scrutiny may dispose of this doctrine, it is in fact broadly asserted in the manual drawn up for instructing ordinary clergymen, under authority of the Trentine Council, though not completed till that body was dissolved. This manual too was promulged under papal sanction, expressly conferred upon the Roman see for that very purpose by the Council. The Catechismus ad Parochos has been accordingly ever since, what it was intended to be, a text book for the Romish clergy .... Nor is it doubtful that it speaks the feeling and intention of this council upon the question of Attrition; only the Trentine fathers here knew themselves to be upon treacherous ground, and therefore they discreetly left a vague outline which might be filled up by better, because less responsible hands[1]."
- ↑ British Mag. Feb. 1836.
