Portal:Council of Trent

“ What is the Church, but the assemblage of the sons of God, remaining in her bosom, adopted in Christ, subsisting in his person, redeemed with his blood, living in his spirit, acting through his grace, and awaiting the grace of the time to come? ”

“ Laws, although they be the best, are yet a dumb thing. What availed the Hebrew people the laws given by the mouth of God himself? What advantage did the laws of Lycurgus bring to the Lacedæmonians, of Solon to the Athenians, in retaining the liberty on account of which they were written? But wherefore do I call to mind foreign and too ancient things? What instructions or precepts for living well and happily can or ought we to lack, besides the life and teaching of Christ our Lord alone? What, moreover, was omitted by our ancestors, appertaining both to thinking rightly or doing gloriously? ”

“ For if they suffer them to be of evil and corrupt manners, how shall they reprove the laity for their vices, who can themselves be by one word silenced by them, in that they suffer clerks to be worse than they? And with what freedom shall priests be able to rebuke laymen, when they have to answer silently to themselves, that they have committed those very same things which they rebuke? Bishops shall therefore charge their clerks, of what rank soever they be, that they be a guide unto the people of God committed to them, in discourse, conservation, and knowledge ”

“ Whereas, by the testimony of Scripture, by apostolic tradition, and the unanimous consent of the fathers, it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no one ought to doubt that Orders is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the holy Church. For the apostle says, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of sobriety. ”

“ Little does it become the holy to dissent from the holy council—the innocent and blameless from the precepts of integrity and innocence—the firm and constant in faith from the established doctrine of our faith. ”

“ All knowledge of God, even natural, even among Pagan philosophers, cannot come, save from God, and without grace it produceth nought save presumption, vanity, and opposition to God himself, instead of the affections of adoration, gratitude, and love. Rom. i. 19. The grace of Christ alone renders man fit for the sacrifice of faith; without this is nothing but impurity; nothing but unworthiness. Acts xi. 9. The first effect of baptismal grace is to cause that we be so dead unto sin, that our spirit, heart, senses have no more of life for sin than a dead man has for the things of the world. ”

“ XV. The doctrine which holds forth, "that the Church is to be considered as one mystical body, composed of Christ as head, and of the faithful, who are its members by an infallible union, by which we become in a wonderful maimer with him one sole priest, one sole victim, one sole perfect adorer of God the Father in spirit and truth,"—understood in this sense, that to the body of the Church there belong only the faithful, who are perfect adorers in spirit and truth ”

“ And what men! If we consider their learning, most erudite; if their experience, most skilled; if their intellects, most penetrating; if their piety, most religious; if their life, most innocent. Such also was the number, that, if the present straits of the Christian world be considered, this synod appears to be more numerous than any of those which have been held heretofore. ”

“ The Sword of Excommunication is not to be rashly used. When an Execution can be made on Property or Person, Censures are to be abstained from. It shall be a Crime for the Civil Magistrate to interfere therein. Although the sword of excommunication is the very sinews of ecclesiastical discipline, and very salutary for keeping the people in their duty, yet is it to be used with sobriety and great circumspection; seeing that experience teaches, that if it be rashly or for slight causes wielded, it is more despised than feared, and produces destruction rather than safety. ”

“ THE HUNDRED AND ONE CONDEMNED PROPOSITIONS ARE AS FOLLOW:
What else remaineth unto the soul which has lost God and his grace, save only sin, and the consequences of sin, proud poverty and lazy indigence, that is a general incapacity for labour, for prayer, and for every good work. This proposition is found in the moral observations of Quesnell, on Luke xvi. 3. The grace of Jesus Christ, the efficient beginning of good of every kind soever, is necessary for every good work; without it not only nothing is done, but likewise nothing can be done. ”

“ Whereas ecclesiastical order is perverted when one clerk fills the offices of several, it has been holily provided by the sacred canons that no one ought to be enrolled in two churches. But insomuch as many, through the passion of wicked covetousness, deceiving themselves, not God, blush not to elude, by various artifices, those things which have been so excellently ordained, and to hold several benefices at the same time ”

“ To be held and treated by the ministers of religion as impious, and unworthy all commerce with God, as a rotten member, capable of corrupting all in the society of the holy, is, for pious men, a death more terrible than the death of the body. ”

“ Wherefore the light of the Holy Ghost being implored with the continual prayers both of ourselves and of the pious followers of Christ, all things being fully and maturely considered, we have given it as our opinion that several propositions, doctrines, sentences, whether given expressly, or insinuated ambiguously, from the acts and decrees of the above-mentioned synod, with their marks and censures, as has been premised, affixed to each, are to be condemned and reprobated, as by this our constitution, which is to hold good for ever, we condemn and reprobate them. ”

“ The grace of Adam, by sanctifying him in himself, was proportioned to him; the Christian grace, by sanctifying us in Jesus Christ, is omnipotent, and worthy the Son of God. Eph. i. 6. A sinner is not free, save unto evil, without the grace of him that freeth. Luke viii. 9. The will, which grace preventeth not, hath no light, save to lead astray; no warmth, save to hurry itself headlong; no strength, save to wound itself; is capable of every evil, and incapable of any good. Matth. xx. 3, 4. Without grace we can love nothing, save unto our condemnation. ”

“ And to that imperfect contrition, which is called attrition, because it is commonly conceived either from the consideration of the turpitude of sin, or from the fear of hell and of punishments, it declares that if, with the hope of pardon, it exclude the will to sin, it not only does not make a man a hypocrite, and a greater sinner, but that it is even a gift of God, and an impulse of the Holy Ghost, who does not indeed as yet dwell in the penitent, but only moves him, whereby the penitent being assisted, prepares a way for himself unto justice. ”

“ We all thus believe; we all think the very same; we all, consenting and embracing them, subscribe. This is the faith of blessed Peter, and of the apostles: this is the faith of the fathers: this is the faith of the orthodox. ”

“ If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that he lost for himself alone, and not for us also, the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost; or that he, defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema; inasmuch as he contradicts the apostle, who says: By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. ”

“ Contrition, which possesses the first place amongst the aforesaid acts of the penitent, is a sorrow of mind, and a detestation for the sin committed, with the purpose of not sinning for the future. Now this movement of contrition was at every time necessary for obtaining the pardon of sins; and, in a man who has fallen after baptism, it thus at length prepares for the remission of sins, if it be united with confidence in the divine mercy, and with the desire of performing the other things which are required for rightly receiving this sacrament. ”

“ Let us, dearest [brethren] , for the first time be drunken with this cup of salvation, and let us be living and speaking laws, and, as it were, a rule and canon to which the actions and studies of others may be directed; and let each man so persuade himself, that nothing will turn out to the advantage and dignity of the Christian republic, except he earnestly contribute all in his own power. ”

“ No one shall Preach in opposition to the Will of the Bishop. The holy synod desirous that the office of preaching, which peculiarly appertains to bishops, may more frequently be exercised for the welfare of the faithful, in accommodating more aptly to the use of the present times the canons elsewhere set forth on this subject, under Paul III., of happy memory, ordains, that the bishops shall themselves in person, each in his own church, announce the sacred Scriptures and the divine law, or, if they shall be lawfully hindered, by those whom they shall appoint to the office of preaching ”

“ He laboured greatly to draw forth men from the most misty darkness in which they were dwelling, and to lead them to behold the most brilliant light of this holy synod. Yet further, the especially pious goodwill of the Christian kings and princes in adorning this council with their most important embassies, and in submitting their insignia of state [4] to your authority, is to be cherished by grateful remembrance on our part. But now who is there, most illustrious legates and cardinals, who does not confess that he is much indebted to you? ”

“ Insomuch as the holy synod is not ignorant how much splendour and utility accrue to the Church of God from monasteries piously instituted and rightly administered; it has,—to the end that the ancient and regular discipline may be the more easily and promptly restored, where it has fallen away, and may be the more firmly maintained, where it has been preserved,—thought it necessary to enjon, as by this decree it doth enjoin, that all regulars, as well men as women, shall order and form their lives agreeably to the requirements of the rule which they have professed ”

“ To the end, therefore, that the ministers of the Church may be recalled to that continency and integrity of life which becomes them; and that the people may hence the more learn to reverence them, the more pure of life they know them to be: the holy synod forbids all clerks soever to dare to keep concubines, or any other women of whom any suspicion can be entertained, either in or out of their own dwellings, or to presume to have any commerce with them: otherwise they shall be punished with the penalties imposed by the sacred canons, or by the statutes of the churches. ”

“ To deny that sin remains in a child after baptism is to trample down Paul and Christ together. 3. The leaven of sin, though no actual sin may be present, delays the soul departing from the body from entering heaven. 4. The imperfect charity of a dying man carries with it great fear as necessary, which of itself alone is enough to cause the punishment of purgatory, and hinders the entrance of heaven. 5. That there are three parts of penance,—contrition, confession, and satisfaction,—is not founded in the Sacred Scripture, nor in the ancient holy Christian doctors. ”

“ It is fitting that Prelates reside in their own Churches; if they shall do otherwise, the Penalties of the Ancient Law are renewed against them, and new ones decreed.
The same sacred and holy synod,—the same legates of the Apostolic See presiding, wishing to gird itself unto the restoring of ecclesiastical discipline, which is exceedingly relaxed, and to amending the depraved manners of the Christian clergy and people, has thought fit to begin with those who preside over the greater churches; for the integrity of those in authority is the safety of those in subjection. ”

“ The Lord's day ought to be sanctified by Christians with the readings of piety, and above all, of the holy Scriptures. It is damnable to wish to restrain a Christian from such reading. Acts xv. 21. It is an illusion to persuade oneself that a knowledge of the mysteries of religion ought not to be communicated to females by the reading of the sacred books. The abuse of the Scriptures has arisen, and heresies have sprung up, not from the simplicity of women, but from the haughty knowledge of men. ”