'Consecrated to be a temple of the divinity in a singular manner': Bishop Bull on reverence of the Blessed Virgin

Continuing with extracts from a sermon by Bishop Bull (d.1710) entitled 'The Blessed Virgin's low and exalted condition', on the text Luke 1:48-49, having noted last week Bull's inherently Protestant understanding of the reverence due to the Blessed Virgin, today we see how he further articulates the grounds for this reverence in the grace and truth of the Incarnation:

What was the singular grace and favour bestowed on the blessed Virgin. A most transcendent favour it was. For ... She was of all the women, of all the virgins in Israel, elected and chosen by God, to be the instrument of bringing into the world the long-desired Messias. All the virtuous daughters of Jacob, a good while before the revelation of our Saviour, but especially in the age when He appeared, (the time wherein they saw the more punctual and remarkable prophecies concerning the coming of the Messias fulfilled,) desired, and were not without hopes each of them, that they might have had this honour done unto them. But it was granted to none of all those holy women and virgins, but to the Virgin Mary. And therefore, "all generations shall call her blessed" ...

The blessed Virgin was consecrated to be a temple of the divinity in a singular manner. For the eternal Son of God, by an ineffable conjunction, united Himself to that human nature, which was miraculously conceived and formed in her, even whilst it was within her; and so He that was born of her, at the very time that He was born of her, was ... God and Man. O astonishing condescension of the Son of God! O wonderful advancement of the blessed Virgin! And therefore we daily sing in our Te Deum, "Thou art the King of glory, O Christ; Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man, Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb." Upon which account, the Fathers of the third General Council at Ephesus, convened against Nestorius, approved the title of Θεοτόκος, "the mother of God," given to the blessed Virgin.

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laudable Practice

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