"Son, why
hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee
sorrowing." [Luke ii. 48.] "How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not
that I must be about my Father's business?"--[or in my Father's house,
as some render it.] He lifts up their minds from earth to heaven, from
his human to his eternal origin. He makes no distinction here,--"Wist YE
not." Again, I would appeal to any dispassionate person to pronounce,
whether this reproof, couched in these words, countenances the idea that
our blessed Lord intended his human mother to receive such divine honour
from his followers to the end of time as the Church of Rome now pays?
and whether St. Luke, whose pen wrote this account, could have been made
cognizant of any such right invested in the Virgin?

The next passage calling for our consideration is that which records the
first miracle: "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of
Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus was called
and his disciples to the marriage. And when they wanted wine (when the
wine failed), the mother of {279} Jesus saith unto him, They have no
wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine
hour is not yet come." [John ii. 1.]

I have carefully read the comments on this passage, which different
writers of the Roman Catholic communion have recommended for the
adoption of the faithful, and I desire not to make any remarks upon
them. Let the passage be interpreted in any way which enlightened
criticism and the analogy of Scripture will sanction, and I would ask,
after a careful weighing of this incident, the facts, and the words in
all their bearings, would any unprejudiced mind expect that the holy and
beloved person, towards whom the meek and tender and loving Jesus
employed this address, was destined by that omniscient and omnipotent
Saviour to be an object of those religious acts with which, as we shall
soon be reminded, the Church of Rome now daily approaches her?

It is pain and grief to me thus to extract and to comment upon these
passages of Holy Writ. The feelings of affection and of reverence
approaching awe, with which I hold the memory of that blessed Virgin
Mother of my Lord, raise in me a sincere repugnance against dwelling on
this branch of our subject, beyond what the cause of the truth as it is
in Jesus absolutely requires; and very little more of the same irksome
task awaits us. You will of course expect me to refer