tant version, 'incomprehensible'). Bishop Bull, though defending the ante-Nicene Fathers, says that it is a marvel that nearly all of them have the appearance of being ignorant of the invisibility and immensity of the Son of God.' Do I for a moment think they were ignorant? No, but that they spoke inconsistently, because they were opposing other errors, and did not observe what they said. When the heretic Arius arose, and they saw the use which was made of their admissions, the Fathers retracted them.

(2) The great Fathers of the fourth century scem, most of them, to consider our Lord in His human nature ignorant, and to have grown in knowledge, as St. Luke seems to say. This doctrine was anathematized by the Church in the next century, when the Monophysites arose.

(3) In like manner, there are Fathers who seem to deny original sin, eternal punishment, &c.

(4) Further, the famous symbol 'Consubstantial,' as applied to the

Son, which is in the Nicene Creed, was condemned by a great Council of Antioch, with Saints in it, seventy years before. Why? Because that Council meant something else by the word.

Now, as to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, it was implied in early times, and never denied. In the Middle Ages it was denied by St. Thomas and by St. Bernard, but they took the phrase in a different sense from that in which the Church now takes it. They understood it with reference to our Lady's mother, and thought it contradicted the text, 'In sin hath my mother conceived me’—— whereas we do not speak of the Immaculate Conception except as relating to Mary; and the other doctrine (which St. Thomas and St. Bernard did oppose) is really heretical.

III

As to the primitive notion about our Blessed Lady, really, the frequent contrast of Mary with Eve seems very strong indeed. It is

found in St. Justin, St. Irenæus, and Tertullian, three of the earliest Fathers, and in three distinct continents-Gaul, Africa, and Syria. For instance, 'the knot formed by Eve's disobedience was untied by the obedience of Mary; that what the Virgin Eve tied through unbelief, that the Virgin Mary unties through faith.' Again, 'The Virgin Mary becomes the Advocate (Paraclete) of the Virgin Eve, that as mankind has been bound to death through a Virgin, through a Virgin it may be saved, the balance being preserved, a Virgin's disobedience by a Virgin's obedience' (St. Irenæus, Hær. v. 19). Again,

As Eve, becoming disobedient, became the cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary, too, bearing the predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became the CAUSE OF SALVATION both to herself and to all mankind.' Again, 'Eve being a Virgin, and incorrupt, bore disobedience and death, but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel the Angel evangelised her,

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answered, "Be it unto me," &c. Again, 'What Eve failed in believing, Mary by believing hath blotted out.'

I. Now, can we refuse to see that, according to these Fathers, who are earliest of the early, Mary was a typical woman like Eve, that both were endued with special gifts of grace, and that Mary succeeded where Eve failed?

2. Moreover, what light they cast upon St. Alfonso's doctrine, of which a talk is sometimes made, of the two ladders. You see according to these most early Fathers, Mary undoes what Eve had done; mankind is saved through a Virgin; the obedience of Mary becomes the cause of salvation to all mankind. Moreover, the distinct way in which Mary does this is pointed out when she is called by the early Fathers an Advocate. The word is used of our Lord and the Holy Ghost-of our Lord, as interceding for us in His own Person; of the Holy Ghost, as interceding in the Saints.

This is the white way, as our Lord's own special way is the red way, viz. of atoning Sacrifice.

3. Further still, what light these passages cast on two texts of Scripture. Our reading is, 'She shall bruise thy head.' Now, this fact alone of our reading, 'She shall bruise,' has some weight, for why should not, perhaps, our reading be the right one? But take the comparison of Scripture with Scripture, and see how the whole hangs together as we interpret it. A war between a woman and the serpent is spoken of in Genesis. Who is the serpent? Scripture nowhere says till the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. There at last, for the first time, the Serpent' is interpreted to mean the Evil Spirit. Now, how is he introduced? Why, by the vision again of a Woman, his enemy and just as, in the first vision in Genesis, the Woman has a 'seed,' so here a 'Child.' Can we help saying, then, that the Woman is Mary in the third of Genesis? And if so, and our reading is right the first prophecy ever given con