Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/71

Rh Wake, truly or not, (for this is nothing to the purpose,) to agree with Bossuet in its exposition of doctrine. This tract was sent into the world with the approbation of the Suffragan Bishop of Cologne, of the Vicar-general, the Censure of Ghent, the Canons and Divines of Mechlin, the University of Louvain, and the Bishop of Tournay. Father Crasset's answer was printed at Paris, licensed by the Provincial, approved by three fathers of the Jesuits' body appointed to examine it, and authorized by the King. I mention these circumstances to show that this controversy was not conducted in a corner; to which I may add that, according to Crasset, learned men of various nations had also written against the Tract, that the Holy See had condemned the author, and that Spain had prohibited him and his work from its dominions. We have nothing to do with the doctrine of this Tract, good or bad, but let us see what this Crasset's doctrine is on the other hand, thus put forth by the Jesuits in a notorious controversy, and accepted on hearsay by Bossuet, with a studious abstinence from the sight of it after the matter of it had been brought before him.

"Whether a Christian that is devout towards the blessed Virgin can be damned? Answer. The servants of the blessed Virgin have an assurance, morally infallible, that they shall be saved.

"Whether God ever refuses anything to the blessed Virgin? Answer. 1. The Prayers of a Mother so humble and respectful are esteemed a command by a Son so sweet and so obedient. 2. Being truly our Saviour's mother, as well in heaven as she was on earth, she still retains a kind of natural authority over His person, over His goods, and over His omnipotence; so that, as Albertus Magnus says, she can not only entreat Him for the salvation of her servants, but by her motherly authority can command him; and as another expresses it, the power of the Mother and of the Son is all one, she being by her omnipotent Son made herself omnipotent.

"Whether the blessed Virgin has ever fetched any out of hell? Answer. 1. As to purgatory, it is certain that the Virgin has brought several souls from thence, as well as refreshed them whilst they were there. 2. It is certain she has fetched many out of hell: i.e. from a state of damnation before they were dead. 3. The Virgin can, and has fetched men that were dead in mortal sin out of hell, by restoring them to life again, that they might repent..........

"The practice of devotion towards her. 1. To wear her scapulary; which whoso does shall not be damned, but this habit shall be for them a mark of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, and a sign of peace and eternal alliance.