[Footnote 135:  Tubingen, 1499.  Gabriel Biel, born at Spires about A.D. 1425, was in A.D. 1484 appointed the first Professor of Theology in the then newly founded University of Tubingen.  He afterwards retired to a monastery, and died A.D. 1495.]

    [Footnote 136:  This is a very favourite argument in the present
    day, often heard in the pulpits on the Continent.]

In his 80th lecture, the same author comments on this prayer, which is still offered in the service of the Mass: 

“Deliver us, we beseech thee, O Lord, from all evils past, present, and future; and by the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever-virgin mother of God, Mary, with thy blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and Andrew, and all saints, mercifully grant peace in our days, that, aided by the help of thy mercy, we may be both ever {371} free from sin, and free from all disquietude.  Through the same our Lord, &c.”

On this prayer Biel observes, “Again we ask, in this prayer, the defence of peace; and since we cannot, nor do we presume to obtain this by our own merit, ... therefore, in order to obtain this, we have recourse, in the second part of this prayer, to the suffrages of all his saints, whom He hath constituted, in the court of his kingdom, as our mediators, most acceptable to himself, whose prayers his love does not reject.  But, of them, we fly, in the first place, to the most blessed Virgin, the Queen of Heaven, to whom the King of kings, the heavenly Father, has given the half of his kingdom; which was signified in Hester, the queen, to whom, when she approached to appease king Asuerus, the king said to her, Even if thou shalt ask the half of my kingdom, it shall be given thee.  So the heavenly Father, inasmuch as He has justice and mercy as the more valued possessions of his kingdom, RETAINING JUSTICE TO HIMSELF, GRANTED MERCY to the Virgin Mother.  We, therefore, ask for peace, by the intercession of the blessed and glorious Virgin.” [Cum habeat justitiam et misericordiam tanquam potiora regni sui bona, justitia sibi retenta, misericordiam Matri Virgini concessit.]

The very same partition of the kingdom of heaven, is declared to have been made between God himself and the Virgin by one who was dignified by the name of the “venerable and most Christian Doctor,” John Gerson[137], who died in 1429; excepting that, instead of justice and mercy, Gerson mentions power and mercy as the two parts of which God’s kingdom consists, and that, whilst power remained with the Lord, the part of mercy ceded “to the mother of Christ, and the reigning {372} spouse; hence, by the whole Church, she is saluted as Queen of Mercy.”

    [Footnote 137:  Paris, 1606.  Tract iv.  Super “Magnificat,” part
    iii. p. 754.  See Fabricius, vol. iii. p. 49.  Patav. 1754.]