Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
I was disappointed to read the following comment by William Hetherington just now:
One title very generally given to her [Mary] was, “Mother of God,"—a title which, to every enlightened Protestant, must appear equally impious and absurd.
William M. Hetherington, ‘The Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. Part IV.’, Christian Miscellany, 1, no. 6 (5 February 1842), p. 41.
While I get the impropriety of using "Mother of God" as a liturgical or devotional term, it does nevertheless represent an important Christological truth and should not be surrendered as an accurate statement of systematic theology in opposition to Nestorianism. I recall Hetherington's fellow Disruption Worthy, Dr John "Rabbi" Duncan, warning of the dangers of such ultra-Protestantism to orthodox Christology, which seems like a good reason for retaining the term.
One title very generally given to her [Mary] was, “Mother of God,"—a title which, to every enlightened Protestant, must appear equally impious and absurd.
William M. Hetherington, ‘The Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. Part IV.’, Christian Miscellany, 1, no. 6 (5 February 1842), p. 41.
While I get the impropriety of using "Mother of God" as a liturgical or devotional term, it does nevertheless represent an important Christological truth and should not be surrendered as an accurate statement of systematic theology in opposition to Nestorianism. I recall Hetherington's fellow Disruption Worthy, Dr John "Rabbi" Duncan, warning of the dangers of such ultra-Protestantism to orthodox Christology, which seems like a good reason for retaining the term.