APPENDIX

OF CERTAIN OTHER DOCUMENTS WHICH SEEM TO BE USEFUL TO CANDIDATES IN THEOLOGY

CONDEMNATION OF THE ERRORS OF WICKLIFF, HUS, AND LUTHER

THE sacred and holy Synod of Constance, holding a general council, and representing the Catholic Church, &c.

For the perpetual memory thereof.

The Catholic Faith, &c. The following are the articles of John Wickliff. 1. The substance of the material bread, and in like manner the substance of the material wine, remain in the sacrament of the altar. 2. The accidents of bread do not remain without a subject in the same sacrament. 3. Christ is not in the same sacrament, identically and really in his own corporal presence. 4. If a bishop or priest be in mortal sin, he does not ordain, he does not consecrate, he does not effectually celebrate [the Lord’s Supper], he does not baptize. 5. It is not founded in the gospel that Christ ordained the mass, 6. God ought to obey the devil. 7. If man were duly contrite, all exterior confession is superfluous and useless. 8. If the Pope is a reprobate and evil, and consequently a member of the devil, he has not power given him by any one over the faithful, unless perhaps by Cæsar. 9. After Urban VI. no man is to be admitted as Pope, but we must live after the manner of the Greeks under our own laws. 10. It is contrary to holy Scripture, that ecclesiastical persons should have possessions. 11. No prelate ought to excommunicate any person, unless he first knows that he has been excommunicated by God; and let him who so excommunicates be thereby a heretic, and excommunicated. 12. A prelate excommunicating a clerk, who has appealed to the king or the council of the kingdom, is by that very fact a traitor to the king and kingdom. 13. They who discontinue to preach or hear the word of God on account of the excommunication of men, are excommunicated, and in the judgment of God will be deemed traitors to Christ. 14. It is lawful for any deacon or priest to preach the word of God without the authority of the Apostolic See or Catholic bishop. 15. There is no civil master, no prelate, no bishop, whilst one is in mortal sin. 16. Temporal masters can take away at pleasure temporal goods from the Church, those in possession habitually offending, i. e. offending from habit, not from act merely. 17. Subjects can, according to their pleasure, correct their masters when offending. 18. Tithes are pure alms, and parishioners can take them away at pleasure, on account of the sins of their prelates. 19. Special prayers applied to one person by prelates or religious persons are not more profitable to the same than general prayers, cæteris paribus. 20. He who confers alms on brethren is excommunicated by that very fact. 21. If any one enter any private religious order soever, as well of persons possessing property as of mendicants, he is rendered the more unfit and inapt for observing the commands of God. 22. The saints founding private religions sinned in so founding. 23. Religious persons living in private religions are not of the Christian religion. 24. Brethren are bound to acquire a livelihood by the labour of the hands, and not by mendicancy. 25. All are simonists who bind themselves to pray for others who relieve them in temporals. 26. The prayer of a reprobate avails no one. 27. All things happen from absolute necessity. 28. The confirmation of the young, the ordination of the clergy, the consecration of places, are reserved for the Pope and bishops, through the desire of temporal lucre and honour. 29. Universities, studies, colleges, graduations, masteries in the same, are introduced by vain gentility; they only profit the Church as the devil does. 30. The excommunication of the Pope, or of any prelate soever, is not to be dreaded, because it is the censure of antichrist. 31. Those founding cloisters sin, and those entering are diabolical men. 32. To enrich the clergy is contrary to the rule of Christ. 33. Pope Silvester and the Emperor Constantine erred in endowing the Church. 34. All of the order of mendicants are heretics, and those giving them alms are excommunicated. 35. Those entering religion, or any order, are by the very fact unfit to observe the divine precepts, and consequently to reach the kingdom of heaven, unless they shall have apostatized from the same. 36. The Pope with all his clergy holding possessions are heretics in this, that they hold possessions, as also are those consenting to them, all secular princes forsooth, and the rest of the laity. 37. The Roman Church is the synagogue of Satan; nor is the Pope the next and immediate vicar of Christ and of the apostles. 38. The decretals of the Church are apocryphal, and seduce from the faith of Christ; and the clergy are fools who study them. 39. The emperor and secular princes were seduced by the devil to endow the Church with temporal goods. 40. The election of the Pope by the cardinals was introduced by the devil. 41. It is not necessary to salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme amongst other churches. 42. It is silly to put confidence in the indulgences of the Pope and of bishops. 43. Oaths are unlawful which are intended to strengthen human contracts and civil intercourse. 44. Augustin, Benedict, and Bernard, were damned if they did not repent of their having had possessions, and of having instituted and entered religions; and thus, from the Pope to the last religious, all are heretics. 45. All religions were introduced indifferently by the devil. End of the Articles of Wickliff.

And the same John Wickliff composed books, named a Dialogue and Trialogue, by himself, and several other tracts, volumes, and minor works, in which he inserted, and dogmatically set down, certain proscribed articles, and several other damnable ones, &c. These again having been brought to the knowledge of the Apostolic See, and of the general council, the Roman Pontiff (Johannes XXIII. in obedience to it), in the last Roman Council held, condemned the aforesaid books, tracts, and minor works. But this sacred synod caused the forty-five articles aforesaid to be examined, and frequently to be reviewed by several most reverend fathers of the Roman Church, cardinals, bishops, abbots, masters in theology, doctors of both laws, and several deserving of notice in a numerous multitude; which articles having been examined, it was discovered, as it is in truth, that some and several of them had been and were notoriously heretical, and long since reprobated by the holy fathers; that others were not catholic, but erroneous; others scandalous and blasphemous; some offensive to pious ears; some of them rash and seditious. It has even been ascertained, that his book contains several other articles of similar qualities, and that they introduced in the Church of God a doctrine that was frantic, and inimical to faith and morals. On this account, this sacred synod, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ratifying and approving the sentences of the above-mentioned archbishops and of the Roman Council, by this perpetual decree reprobates and condemns the aforesaid articles, and each and every one of them, the books of the same, named by the same John Wickliff Dialogue and Trialogue, and other books of the same author, volumes, tracts, and minor works, by what name soever they may pass, which it here wishes to be held as being sufficiently expressed.

But, because the aforesaid books having been carefully examined by the doctors and masters of the University of Oxford, beyond the forty-five articles above mentioned, they have collected two hundred and sixty articles exclusive of them, some of which coincide in sentiment with the above-mentioned, though not in the same form of words, and as has been above said of others, some of them were and are heretical, some seditious, some erroneous, some rash, some scandalous, others insane, and also almost all contrary to good morals and Catholic truth, were for that reason reprobated scholastically and duly by the aforesaid university. This sacred synod accordingly, with the deliberation above mentioned, reprobates and condemns the aforesaid articles, and each and every one of them, prohibiting, commanding, enjoining, and decreeing, as regarding the forty-five others. The tenor of the same two hundred and sixty articles we considered should be inserted below. The series, however, of these articles does not appear in the collection of the councils.

The sacred and holy General Synod of Constance, representing the Catholic Church, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit, for the perpetual memory thereof.

Quia teste veritate, etc. Wherefore plenary information having been first had regarding the preceding matters, and by a careful deliberation of the most reverend Lords Fathers in Christ, or Cardinals of the Roman Church, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and other prelates, and doctors of the sacred page, and of both laws, in a numerous crowd, this sacred Synod of Constance declares and defines, that the articles below written,—which, a collation being made by several masters in the sacred page, were found to be contained in his books and works written with his own hand, and which also the same John Hus, in a public audience before the fathers and prelates of this sacred council, confessed to be contained in his books and works,—are not catholic, nor to be set down as such, but that several of them are erroneous, others scandalous, some offensive to pious ears, and several of them rash and seditious, and some of the same to be notoriously heretical, and long since reprobated and condemned by the holy fathers and general councils …

But whereas the articles written beneath are expressly contained in his books or tracts, viz., in the book which he entitles “on the Church,” and in other works of his, for this reason the above-mentioned books, and doctrine, and each of the other tracts and works published by him in the Latin or common Bohemian dialects, this sacred synod reprobates and condemns, decides and defines that they be burned publicly and solemnly in the presence of the clergy and people in the state of Constance and elsewhere … peremptorily commands, that diligent inquiry be made through the ordinary of the place, after such tracts and works with ecclesiastical censure, also, if it shall be necessary, with the addition of a penalty, and of a leaning to heresy, and that when found they be burned publicly in the flames.

Considering the measures adopted in the case of heresy against the aforesaid John Hus … the sacred and holy synod pronounces, decrees, and declares, that the aforesaid John Hus had been and is a real and manifested heretic …

CONDEMNED ARTICLES OF JOHN HUS, OF WHICH MENTION IS MADE ABOVE

1. There is one holy Universal Church, which is the whole body of the predestined. 2. Paul never was a member of the devil, though he may have done some acts similar to the acts of the malignants of the Church. 3. The prescite are not parts of the Church, since no part of it will finally fall off from it, because the charity of predestination, which binds it, will not fall off. 4. Two natures, divinity and humanity, are one Christ. 5. The prescitus, though he is sometimes in grace according to present justice, yet is never part of the Church, and the predestined always remains a member of the Church, although he may sometimes fall away from adventitious grace, but not from the grace of predestination. 6. Taking the Church for the convocation of the predestined, whether they be in grace or not according to present righteousness, in that way the Church is an article of faith. 7. Peter is not nor was he head of the holy Catholic Church. 8. Priests living criminally in any way soever pollute the power of the priesthood, and so as unfaithful sons think unfaithfully of the seven sacraments of the Church, of the keys, offices, censures, morals, ceremonies, and sacred things of the Church, veneration of relics, indulgences, and orders. 9. The papal dignity derived its strength from Cæsar, and the full establishment and institution of the Pope emanated from the power of Cæsar. 10. No one without a revelation could assert reasonably of himself, or of another, that he was head of a particular church. 11. It would not be fitting to believe that he, whoever is Roman pontiff, is the head of any particular holy church soever, unless God predestined him. 12. No one acts as vicar to Christ or Peter, unless he follows him in morals, since no other appendage is more pertinent, nor can he otherwise receive from God the vice-gerent power, because for that office a vicarship and conformity of morals is required, and the authority of an instituent. 13. The Pope is not the true and manifest successor of Peter, prince of the apostles … if he lives with morals contrary to Peter, and if he seek avarice, he is then vicar of Judas Scariot. And with equal evidence the cardinals are not the true and manifest successors of the college of the other apostles of Christ, unless they have lived after the manner of the apostles, keeping the commandments and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ. 14. Doctors laying down that any one to be corrected by ecclesiastical censure, if he be unwilling to be set aright, is to be delivered over to secular judgment, certainly follow in this the priests and scribes and Pharisees, who, when saying it is not lawful for us to put any one to death, delivered over Christ himself, when not wishing to obey them in all things, to the secular power, and that they are real homicides, more grievous than Pilate. 15. Ecclesiastical obedience is obedience according to the invention of priests of the Church, exclusive of the express written authority. 16. The immediate division of human works is, that they are either virtuous or vicious: because if man is vicious and does anything, he then acts viciously; and if he is virtuous, and does anything, he then acts virtuously; because as vice, which is called crime, or deadly sin, infects universally the acts of a vicious man, so virtue enliveneth all the acts of a virtuous man. 17. Priests of Christ living according to his law, and possessing an acquaintance with the Scripture and a desire to edify the people, ought to preach, notwithstanding a pretended excommunication. But if the Pope or any other prelate commands a priest so disposed not to preach, he ought not submissively to obey. 18. Any one receives the office of a preacher by mandate, who attains the priesthood, and that mandate he ought to execute, notwithstanding the pretended excommunication. 19. By ecclesiastical censures of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, the clergy get under their feet the lay people for their own exaltation, multiply avarice, protect wickedness, and prepare the way for antichrist. It is an evident sign that such censures proceed from antichrist, which in their processes they call fulminations, by which the clergy chiefly proceed against those who lay bare the wickedness of antichrist, who will use the clergy chiefly for himself. 20. If the Pope is evil, and especially if he is a reprobate, then as Judas he is an apostle of the devil, a thief, and the son of perdition, and is not the head of the holy Church militant, since he is not even a member of it. 21. The grace of predestination is a bond by which the body of the Church, and every member of it, is indissolubly joined to Christ the head. 22. Pope or prelate, evil and a reprobate, is equivocally pastor, and truly thief and robber. 23. The Pope ought not to be called most holy, even according to his office, because otherwise the king would have a right also to be called most holy as to his office, and torturers and criers should be called holy, nay the devil even would have a right to be called holy, as being an officer of God. 24. If the Pope live in a manner contrary to Christ, although he should ascend through the right and lawful election according to the common human ordinance, yet he would ascend by another way than through Christ, granting even that he should enter by an election principally made by God: for Judas Scariot was elected rightfully and lawfully by the Lord Jesus Christ to the episcopacy, and yet he ascended by another way to the sheep-fold. 25. The condemnation of the 45 articles of J. Wickliff, by the doctors, was an unreasonable one, and unjust, and wickedly done, and the cause alleged by them was feigned; viz., from this circumstance, that none of them was catholic: but any one of them is either heretical, or erroneous, or scandalous. 26. Not for this very reason because the electors, or the majority of them, consent vivâ voce, according to the usages of men, to some person, such person is not for that very reason lawfully elected; not for that very reason the true and manifest successor, or vicar of the apostle Peter, or of another apostle, in ecclesiastical office: whence, whether the electors have elected him rightly or otherwise, we ought to trust to the works of the elect; for in proportion as any one works more abundantly in a manner meritorious unto the proficiency of the Church, in greater. abundance has he from God the means for this. 27. There is not a spark of appearance, that there should be one head governing the Church in spirituals, which may ever be conversant and preserved with the Church militant itself. 28. Christ without such monstrous heads would regulate the Church better by means of his true disciples scattered throughout the world. 29. The apostles and faithful priests of the Lord strenuously regulated the Church in things necessary unto salvation, before the office of pope was introduced; so would they do, even were a pope wanting to the day of judgment. 30. No one is a civil prince, no one is a prelate, no one a bishop, whilst he is in deadly sin.

For the Bull of Martin V., dated at Constance, on the 8th of the calends of March, 1418, which contains the articles of Wickliff and Hus inserted, and condemns the same, with the approbation of the Sacred Council of Constance,—see vol. iii. Concil. Harduin. p. 905, et seq.

The Bull of Leo X. against Luther, 18th of the calends of July, 1520, Leo episcopus, &c. Exsurge Domine, &c. But of these errors (of Luther) we thought that some ought to be inserted among the present, the tenor of which is here given, and is as follows:

1. It is an heretical, but common opinion, that the sacraments of the new law confer justifying grace on those who do not place a barrier. 2. 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. 6. Contrition, which is prepared by discussion, collation, and detestation of sins, by which any man considers his years in the bitterness of his soul, weighing the enormity of his sins, their multitude, foulness, the loss of eternal happiness, and the incurring of eternal damnation, this contrition makes a hypocrite, nay, rather a sinner. 7. The truest proverb, and one surpassing all the doctrine hitherto given regarding contrition, that hereafter the highest penance will not suffice, the best penance is a new life. 8. By no means presume to confess venial sins, nor even all deadly sins, because it is impossible that you should know all deadly sins: whence in the early church they only confessed manifest deadly sins. 9. Whilst we desire to confess all things purely, we do nothing else, than that we wish to leave nothing to the mercy of God to pardon. 10. Sins are not remitted to any one, unless he should believe them remitted: for the remission of sin and granting of grace suffices not, but it is necessary also to believe that it is remitted. 11. By no means trust that you are acquitted on account of your contrition, but for the word of Christ: Whatsoever thou shalt loose, &c. Here, I say, trust, if you have obtained the absolution of a priest, and believe firmly that you are acquitted, and you will be truly acquitted, however it may be with contrition. 12. If through an impossibility, he who has confessed were not contrite, or if the priest absolved not seriously but in jest, if, nevertheless, he believe that he is absolved, he is most truly absolved. 13. In the sacrament of penance, and in the remission of guilt, the Pope or bishop does not more than the lowest priest; nay, to you he is not a priest; just as much would any Christian be, even though it were a woman or a boy. 14. No one ought to answer to a priest, that he is contrite, nor should a priest require it. 15. Great is the error of those, who approach the sacrament of the Eucharist, depending on this, that they are not conscious to themselves of any deadly sin, that they premised their prayers and preparatory (duties); all those persons eat and drink judgment to themselves. But if they believe and hope that they shall there obtain grace, this faith alone makes them pure and worthy. 16. It seems a thing advised that the Church should determine in common council that the laity should communicate under both species; nor are the Bohemians when communicating under both species heretics, but schismatics. 17. The treasures of the Church, whence the Pope grants indulgences, are not the merits of Christ and of the saints. 18. Indulgences are the pious frauds on the faithful, and remissions of good works, and are of the number of those things which are lawful, and not of the number of those which are expedient. 19. Indulgences avail not those who truly obtain them for the remission of the punishment due to divine justice for actual sins. 20. Those are led astray who believe that indulgences are salutary, and useful for spiritual fruits. 21. Indulgences are necessary only for public crimes, but are properly granted to the obdurate only and to the impatient. 22. To six classes of men indulgences are neither necessary nor useful: viz. to the dead or to those about to die, to the infirm, to those lawfully hindered, to those who have not committed crimes; to those who have committed crimes, but not public ones; to those who do better works. 23. Excommunications are only external penalties, nor do they deprive a man of the common, spiritual prayers of the Church. 24. Christians are to be taught to love excommunication more than to fear it. 25. The Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter, is not vicar of Christ instituted over all churches of the entire world by Christ himself in Saint Peter. 26. The word of Christ to Peter: Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, &c. extends only to things bound by Peter himself. 27. It is certain that it is not at all in the power of the Church or of the Pope to determine articles of faith, nay neither the laws of morals nor of good works. 28. If the Pope thought so or so with a great part of the Church, and even did not err, still it is not a sin or heresy to think the contrary, especially in a matter not necessary unto salvation, until the one has been reprobated, the other approved by a universal council. 29. The way has been opened for us of breaking down the authority of councils, and of freely contradicting their transactions, and of judging their decrees, and of confidently confessing whatever seems true, whether it be approved or reprobated, by any council soever. 30. Some articles of John Hus, condemned in the Council of Constance, are most Christian, true, and evangelical, which neither the universal Church could condemn. 31. In every good work the just man sins. 32. A good work done after the best manner is a venial sin. 33. That heretics should be burned is contrary to the will of the Spirit. 34. To contend against the Turks is to resist God, visiting our iniquities through them. 35. No one is certain that he is not always sinning mortally, by reason of the most secret vice of pride. 36. Free will after sin is a thing of a mere name, and whilst it does that which is in it, it sins mortally. 37. Purgatory cannot be proved from Holy Scripture, which is in the canon. 38. Souls in purgatory are not secure of their salvation, at least all, nor is it proved by any, either reason or Scripture, that they are without the state of meriting or increasing charity. 39. Souls in purgatory sin without intermission, so long as they seek rest, and have a dread of punishments. 40. Souls freed from purgatory by the suffrages of the living are less beatified than if they had given satisfaction by themselves. 41. Ecclesiastical prelates and secular princes would not do ill if they all did away with all the sacks of mendicancy.

All and each of the aforesaid articles, or errors, as being, as is premised, respectively heretical or scandalous, or false, or offensive to pious ears, or suited to lead astray simple minds, or contrary to Catholic truth, we condemn, reprobate, and entirely reject, &c.

II.—CONDEMNATION OF THE BAIAN ERRORS, ETC.

(Bull of S. Pius V. an. 1567.)

Pius, bishop, servant of the servants, &c. Of all the afflictions which we, established in this place by the Lord, endure at so melancholy a time, this sorrow chiefly tortures our soul, that the Christian religion, long since agitated by so many whirlwinds, has to struggle daily with new opinions started, and the people of Christ, cut in pieces at the suggestion of the old enemy, is carried away indiscriminately and promiscuously into one error after the other. But as far as regards ourselves, we strive with all our might, that these, as soon as they bound forth, should be entirely put down; for we are affected with great sorrow, that most persons of otherwise tried probity and learning, burst forth into various sentiments full of offence and danger, both by word and by writing, and concerning them they dispute with each other, even in the schools, of which kind are the following:

1. Neither the merits of an angel or of the first man still undefiled are rightly called grace. 2. As a bad work is of its nature deserving of eternal death, so a good work is of its nature deserving of eternal life. 3. Both to good angels and to primitive man, if he had persevered in that state, even to the last period of life, happiness would be reward, and not grace. 4. Life eternal was promised to man yet pure, and to the angel, in regard of good works; and good works by the law of nature are sufficient of themselves to attain it. 5. In the promise made to the angel and to the first man are contained the natural constitution of justice, by which for good works, without any other respect, life eternal is promised to the just. 6. By the natural law it was ordained for man that, if he persevered in obedience, he should pass on to life eternal, in which he could not die. 7. The merits of the first man intact were the gifts of the first creation; but, according to the mode of speaking the Sacred Scriptures are not rightly called grace; whence it comes, that they ought only to be named merits, not grace. 8. In those redeemed by the grace of Christ, no good merit can be found, which is not conferred gratuitously on an unworthy object. 9. Gifts granted to man in a state of purity, and perhaps to an angel, may be called grace, for a reason not to be disapproved; but because, according to the use of Sacred Scripture, those gifts only are understood by the name of grace, which are conferred through Jesus Christ on those ill-deserving and unworthy; for this reason, neither merits, nor the reward which is rendered to them, ought to be called grace. 10. The payment of the temporal penalty, which often remains after the sin is remitted, and the resurrection of the body, is to be ascribed properly to the merits of Christalone. 11. That we attain eternal life, in this mortal life, being preserved piously and justly even to the end, is to be set down not properly to the grace of God, but also to the natural ordinance established at the commencement of creation, by the just judgment of God; nor in this retribution of the good is respect had to the merit of Christ, but only to the first institution of mankind, in which it has been established by the natural law, that by the just judgment of God, life eternal be rendered to obedience to his commands. 12. The opinion of Pelagius is, a good work done without the grace of adoption, is not deserving of the kingdom of heaven. 13. Good works done by the sons of adoption receive not the account of merit from this, that they are done by the spirit of adoption inhabiting the hearts of the sons of God; but only from this, that they are conformable to the law, and because by them obedience to the law is shown. 14. The good works of the just do not receive on the day of the last judgment a more ample reward, than they deserve to receive from the just judgment of God. 15. The notion of merit consists not in this, that he who does well has grace, and the Holy Spirit in-dwelling; but in this only, that he obeys the divine law. 16. That is not true obedience to the law, which is without charity. 17. Those think with Pelagius, who say, that it is necessary to the notion of merit, that man should be raised through the grace of adoption to a deific state. 18. The works of catechumens, as faith and penance done before the remission of sins, are deserving of eternal life, which life they shall not themselves attain, unless the impediments of preceding transgressions be first taken away. 19. The works of justice and of temperance, which Christ did, derived not greater value from the worthiness of the person operating. 20. There is no sin venial in its nature, but every sin merits eternal punishment. 21. The elevation and exaltation of human nature to a participation of the divine nature due to the integrity of the first state, and therefore is to be called natural, and not supernatural. 22. They think with Pelagius, who understand the apostle’s text to the Romans II. The gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things which are of the law, of those nations not having the grace of faith. 23. The opinion of those is absurd, who say, that by a certain supernatural and gratuitous gift, man has been exalted from the beginning above the condition of his nature, that by faith, and hope, and charity, he might worship God supernaturally. 24. By vain and idle men, according to the folly of philosophers, was devised the opinion, which is to be referred to Pelagianism, that man was so constituted from the beginning, that through the gifts superadded to nature he was exalted by the bounty of his Maker, and adopted as the son of God. 25. All the works of the unbelieving are sins, and the virtues of philosophers are vices. 26. The integrity of the first creation was not an exaltation undue to human nature, but its natural condition. 27. Free-will, without the aid of God’s grace, avails only to commit sin. 28. It is a Pelagian error to say that free-will availeth to avoid any sin. 29. Not only are those thieves and robbers who deny Christ to be the way and the door of the truth and of life, but those also whosoever teach that it is possible to ascend by any other means than through him, to the path of righteousness (that is, any righteousness). 30. Or [who teach] that man can resist any temptation without the aid of His grace itself, so that he may not be led into it, or may not be overcome by it. 31. Perfect and sincere charity, which is from a pure heart and a good conscience, and from faith unfeigned, as well in catechumens as in penitents, may be without the remission of sins. 32. That charity, which is the fulfilment of the law, is not always combined with the remission of sins. 33. The catechumen lives justly, righteously, and in a holy manner, and observes the commands of God, and fulfils the law through charity, before he has obtained remission of sins, which is at length received in the fount of baptism. 34. That distinction of twofold love, to wit, the natural, with which God is loved as the author of nature, and of gratuitous love, with which God is loved as the beatifier, is idle and fictitious, and devised to mock the sacred writings, and very many testimonies of the ancients. 35. Everything soever which a sinner does, or a slave of sin, is a sin. 36. Natural love, which springs from the powers of nature, from philosophy alone, to the upraising of human presumption with injury to the cross of Christ, is defended by some doctors. 37. He thinks with Pelagius who recognizes any natural good, that is, any which derives its origin from the sole powers of nature. 38. Every love of the creature is a rational or vicious desire with which the world is loved, which is prohibited by John, or that praiseworthy charity, with which, diffused in the heart by the Holy Spirit, God is loved. 39. What is done voluntarily, even though it be done necessarily, still is done freely. 40. In all his acts the sinner is subservient to a predominant desire. 41. That measure of liberty which is from necessity, is not found in the Scriptures under the name of liberty, but only the name of liberty from sin. 42. Justice, by which the wicked man is justified by faith, consists formally in obedience to the commands, which is the justice of works, but not in any grace infused into the soul, by which man is adopted as the son of God, and is renewed according to the interior man, and is rendered a sharer in the Divine nature, that, so renewed by the Divine Spirit, he may afterwards live well, and obey the commands of God. 43. In penitent men before the sacrament of absolution, and in catechumens before baptism, there is true justification; separate, however, from the remission of sins. 44. By most of the works which are done by the faithful merely that they may obey the commands of God, such as to obey parents, to return a deposit, to abstain from homicide, theft, fornication, men are indeed justified, because they are obedience to the law, and true justice of the law; by these, however, they do not obtain increase of virtues. 45. The sacrifice of the mass is a sacrifice in no other way than in that general way by which every work is so, which is done that man may cling unto God by a holy alliance. 46. Voluntary appertains not to the notion and definition of sin; nor is it a question of definition, but of cause and origin, whether every sin ought to be voluntary. 47. Whence the sin of origin has truly in it regard to sin, without any regard and respect to the will, from which it had its origin. 48. The sin of origin is voluntary by the habitual will of the child, and habitually prevails in that child, because a contrary choice of the will is not maintained. 49. And from the habitual will prevailing, it happens that the child departing without the sacrament of regeneration, when he shall have attained the use of reason, actually holds God as an object of hatred, blasphemes God, and resists the law of God. 50. Evil desires, to which reason does not consent, and to which man is reluctantly subject, are prohibited by the commandment, Thou shalt not covet. 51. Concupiscence, or the law of the members, and its wicked desires which men unwillingly feel, are true disobedience to the law. 52. Every wickedness is of that condition, that it may infect its author and all posterity in that manner in which the first transgression infected. 53. As far as it depends on the force of transgression, so much of bad deserts do they contract from the parent who are born with lesser vices, as those who are born with greater. 54. This decisive sentence, that God commanded nothing impossible to man, is falsely attributed to Augustin, whilst it belongs to Pelagius. 55. God could not from the beginning create man such as he is now born. 56. In sin there are two things, act and guilt; but the act passing away, nothing remains but the guilt, or the obligation to punishment. 57. Whence in the sacrament of baptism or the absolution of the priest, the guilt of sin only is taken away, and the ministry of the priests alone frees from sin. 58. The penitent sinner is not enlivened by the ministering of the priest absolving, but by God alone, who, suggesting and inspiring penitence, quickeneth and resuscitates him, but by the ministry of the priest the guilt is only taken away. 59. When by almsgivings and other works of penitence, we satisfy God for temporal punishments, we do not offer to God a condign price for our sins, as some erring persons think (for otherwise we should be, at least in some measure, redeemers), but we do something in regard of which the satisfaction of Christ is applied and communicated to us. 60. Through the sufferings of the saints, communicated in indulgences, our transgressions are strictly redeemed, but by the communion of charity their sufferings are imparted to us, that we may be worthy to be free from the punishments due for sins by the price of Christ’s blood. 61. That distinction of doctors, that the commands of the divine law are fulfilled in two ways,—in one way with respect merely to the substance of the works enjoined; in the other, in reference to a certain manner, according to which they may be conducive to lead the person performing them to the eternal kingdom (that is, after the maner of merits), is fictitious and to be exploded. 62. That distinction, also, by which a work is said to be good in two ways, either because from the object and all the circumstances it is directly good (which they used to call morally good), or because it is deserving of the eternal kingdom for this reason, because it is from a living member of Christ through the spirit of charity, is to be rejected. 63. But that distinction also of double justice—of the one, which takes place through the in-dwelling spirit of charity; of the other, which is formed from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit exciting the heart to repentance, but not yet dwelling in the heart, and diffusing charity in it, by which the justification of the divine law may be fulfilled, is in like manner rejected. 64. In like manner, also, that distinction of a twofold quickening,—the one, by which the sinner is quickened, whilst repentance and the purpose and commencement of a new life is inspired into him by the grace of God; of the other, by which he who is truly justified is quickened, and rendered a shoot in the vine by Christ, is equally fictitious, and not at all agreeable to the Scriptures. 65. Any good or not bad use of a free will can be admitted only by a Pelagian error, and he who so thinks and teaches commits an outrage against the grace of Christ. 66. Violence alone is incompatible with the natural liberty of man. 67. Man sins even to his own damnation in that which he does through necessity. 68. Infidelity purely negative in those in whom Christ is not preached is a sin. 69. The justification of the ungodly is made formally by obedience to the law, but not by the secret communication and inspiration of grace, which may cause those justified through it to fulfil the law. 70. Man being in mortal sin, or in the guilt of eternal damnation, may have true charity, and even perfect charity may be compatible with the guilt of eternal damnation. 71. By contrition, even joined with perfect charity, and with a desire to receive the sacrament, crime is not remitted, exclusive of the case of necessity or martyrdom, without the actual receiving of the sacrament. 72. All the afflictions of the just are entirely revenge for their sins; whence Job and the martyrs suffered what they did suffer for their sins. 73. No one but Christ is without original sin; hence the Blessed Virgin died on account of the sin contracted from Adam, and all her afflictions in this life, as of the other just also, were revenge for actual or original sin. 74. Concupiscence in those born again who relapsed into mortal sin, in whom it is now predominant, is a sin, as are also other evil habits. 75. The evil emotions of concupiscence are, for the state of man corrupted, prohibited by the commandment, Thou shalt not covet; whence man feeling them, and not consenting, transgresses the commandment, Thou shalt not covet, although the transgression may not be set down as sin. 76. As long as anything of carnal concupiscence is in one loving, he does not perform the commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart. 77. The laboured satisfactions of the justified avail not condignly to expiate the temporal punishment which remains after guilt is pardoned. 78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace, but a natural condition. 79. The opinion of doctors is false, that the first man could be created by God, and instituted without natural justice.

Which opinions, indeed, having been strictly examined before us, although some of them might be sustained by some means, in the strict and proper sense of the words intended by the assertors, we condemn, circumscribe, and abolish, by the authority of these presents, as heretical, erroneous, suspicious, rash, scandalous, and as giving offence to pious ears respectively, and all things soever that may be published regarding them by word and by writing; and we interdict to all persons soever the power of hereafter speaking, writing, and disputing in any manner soever regarding the same and such like. Whosoever shall act in the contrary way, etc.

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1567, on the calends of October, on the second year of our pontificate.

CONDEMNATION OF THE ERRORS OF JANSENIUS

Bull of Innocentius X. against the Five Propositions

Innocentius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful in Christ, health and apostolical benediction. When, on the occasion of the printing of a book entitled, The Augustinus of Cornelius Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, among other opinions of his, a controversy arose, especially in Gaul, regarding five of them: several bishops of Gaul urged upon us, that we should duly consider the same propositions presented to us, and that we should deliver a defined and clear judgment concerning each one of them. But the tenor of the above-named propositions is as follows:—

1. Some commands of God are impossible to just men, though willing and endeavouring (to fulfil them), according to the strength they possess at present; the grace also is deficient, by which they may become possible.

2. Inward grace in the state of fallen nature is never resisted.

3. To merit and to demerit in a state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from compulsion is sufficient.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of preventing inward grace for single acts, even for the beginning of faith, and in this they were heretics, that they would have it that that grace was such, as human will might resist or comply with.

5. It is semipelagian to say, that Christ died or shed his blood for all men entirely.

We, who, amid the manifold cares which constantly harass our mind, were especially anxious that the church of God committed to us from on high, the errors of depraved opinions being removed, might proceed in safety, and as a ship in a calm sea, the waves and storms of all tempests being appeased, might sail on in security, and gain the wished-for haven of salvation, considering the importance of the thing, in the presence of some cardinals of the holy Roman Church, specially and frequently assembled for the purpose, and in the presence of several masters in sacred theology, caused the same five propositions presented to us as above to be carefully examined one by one, and we maturely considered their suffrages, taken as well vivâ voce as in writing, and heard the same masters, various assemblies having been held in our presence, descanting at full length on the same, and on each one of them.

But when from the commencement of such discussions, we both privately and also publicly indicted the prayers of the many faithful in Christ to implore the divine aid, the same being afterwards repeated with still greater fervour, and the presence of the Holy Ghost being anxiously implored by us; at length, by favour of the Divine Being, we came to the declaration and definition below written.

The first of the aforesaid propositions: Some commandments of God are impossible to just men, though willing and endeavouring, according to the present strength which they possess; they even want the grace by which they may become possible: we declare to be rash, impious, blasphemous, condemned with anathema and heretical, and as such we condemn it.

The second: Inward grace in a state of fallen nature is never resisted: we declare to be heretical, and as such condemn it.

The third: To merit and to demerit in a state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from compulsion suffices: we declare to be heretical, and as such we condemn it.

The fourth: The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of preventive interior grace for every single act, even for the beginning of faith, and in this they were heretics, because they would have that grace to be such, as that human will could resist or comply with it: we declare to be false and heretical, and as such condemn it.

The fifth: It is semipelagian to say, that Christ died or shed his blood for all men: we declare to be false, rash, scandalous, and understood in that sense, that Christ died for the salvation only of the predestined, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, derogating from divine goodness, and heretical, and as such we condemn it.

We command, therefore, all the faithful in Christ, of both sexes, that they presume not to think of the aforesaid propositions, to teach, to preach otherwise than is contained in this our present declaration and definition, under the censures and penalties expressed in the law against heretics and their abettors.

We equally instruct all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and other ordinaries of places, as also all inquisitors into heretical perverseness, by all means to restrain and keep in check all contradictory and rebellious persons whatsoever by censures and the penalties aforesaid, and the other convenient remedies of law and fact, the aid of the secular arm being called in for this purpose, if it should be necessary.

Not intending, however, by this declaration and definition, made on the five aforesaid propositions, to approve in any degree other opinions, which are contained in the aforesaid book of Cornelius Jansenius.

Given at Rome, at Saint Mary Major’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1653, the day before the calends of June, the ninth year of our pontificate.

CONDEMNATION OF THE ERRORS OF PASCHASIUS QUESNELL

Bull of Clement X.

Clement, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful in Christ, health and apostolical benediction.

The only-begotten Son of God, for our salvation and that of the whole world, having become the son of man, whilst he was instructing his disciples in the doctrine of truth, and educating his whole Church in the apostles, arranging the present and providing for the future, by a splendid and most wholesome lesson admonished us, that we should take heed from false prophets, who come to us in sheep’s clothing, in whose name chiefly are pointed out those lying masters, and dealers in deception, who lurkingly insinuating their perverse dogmas under the splendid garb of piety, introduce sects of perdition under the show of sanctity, and that they may steal the more easily on the incautions, as if laying aside the wolf’s skin, and wrapping themselves up in the sentences of the divine law, as in the fleeces of sheep, wickedly abuse the words of the holy Scriptures, and accordingly those of the New Testament itself, which they wrest in many ways to their own destruction and that of others; taught forsooth by the example and tutorage of the old father of lies, from whom they are descended, that there is no shorter or readier way to deceive, than that where the fraud of nefarious error is surreptitiously introduced, there the authority of the divine word should be held out as a pretext.

Instructed by these truly divine admonitions, as soon as we heard, not without the innermost bitterness of our heart, that a certain book some time since printed in the French language, and distributed into several volumes, entitled, “Le Nouveau Testament en François, avec des reflexions morales sur chaque vers, etc., à Paris, 1699:” otherwise: “Abrégé de la morale de l’Evangile, des Actes des Apôtres, des Epîtres de S. Paul, des Epîtres canoniques et de l’Apocalypse; ou Pensées chrétiennes sur le texte de ces livres sacres, etc., à Paris, 1693 et 1694,” though previously condemned by us, and blending in many ways the lies of perverse doctrines with Catholic truths, was still considered by many as free from any error, was in every direction forced into the hands of the faithful of Christ, and was disseminated everywhere with too much avidity by the contrivance and exertions of some always striving for innovation, having been even rendered into Latin, in order that the contagion of the pernicious instruction may if possible pass from nation to nation, and from kingdom to kingdom, we felt the greatest concern that the flock of the Lord intrusted to our charge should be imperceptibly led away into the road of perdition by wily seductions and fraud of this kind, and excited not less by the incentives of our pastoral solicitude, than by the frequent complaints of orthodox believers, but especially by the letters and entreaties of several of our venerable brethren, particularly of the bishops of Gaul, we have determined to oppose by some more effectual remedy the spreading disease, which might even at some future time induce still worse consequences.

And on directing our careful attention to the consideration of the very cause of the evil, we clearly discovered that the chief ruin from this book progressed and gained strength mainly because it lay concealed within, and like foul corruption cannot obtain vent except by cutting down on the ulcer, as the book itself at its first appearance entices its readers by a certain show of piety; for its words are rendered as it were emollient with oil, whilst they are in reality arrows, and coming from a well-strung bow, so prepared for mischief, that they transfix in secret those straight of heart. Accordingly we thought that nothing more opportune or more conducive to health could be done by us than if we were to present a more distinct and clear exposition of the fallacious doctrine of the book, which hitherto has been merely alluded to in a general way by us, by selecting from it several propositions one by one, and by uprooting from the middle of the wheat with which they were covered, and placing before the eyes of all the faithful of Christ the noxious seeds of the tares. Thus, forsooth, the errors being laid bare and openly exposed, not indeed one or two of them, but a great many of them, and those of the most serious import, both those which were formerly condemned, and also those newly devised, we plainly trust that with God’s blessing all will at length be forced to yield to the open and manifest truth.

That this same measure would contribute very much to the Catholic interest, and that it would be of singular efficacy in quieting the dissensions which have arisen, more especially in the flourishing kingdom of Gaul, from the varying bent of different minds which seemed inclined to proceed to still more serious lengths—that it would prove extremely useful, and in a manner necessary for effecting the peace of conscience, we have been repeatedly assured not only by the bishops above mentioned, but also by our particularly dear son in Christ, Lewis the most Christian king of the French, whose extraordinary zeal in defending the purity of the Catholic faith, and in extirpating errors, we cannot sufficiently commend, he having repeatedly evinced acts of duty truly pious and highly becoming a most Christian prince, and having most earnestly called on us, that we should consult for the urgent necessity of souls by promulgating with all speed the censure of our apostolical judgment.

Hence confiding in the favour of the Lord, and in his heavenly aid, we have set about the salutary work with that sedulous and diligent care which the importance of the task demands, and having faithfully extracted very many propositions from the aforesaid book according to the editions above recounted respectively, propositions expressed both in the Latin and French idiom, we have commanded them to be discussed carefully by several masters in sacred theology, first indeed in presence of two of our venerable brethren, cardinals of the holy Roman Church, but then in presence of ourselves, the counsel of several other cardinals being also invited, with the greatest care and maturity; a collation moreover of each and every one of the propositions being most scrupulously made with the text of the book itself, and several to be well weighed and examined in different and repeated congregations.

THE HUNDRED AND ONE CONDEMNED PROPOSITIONS ARE AS FOLLOW:

1. 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 16:3.

2. 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. On John 15:5. Ed. 1693.

3. In vain, O Lord, dost thou command, if thou thyself givest not what thou commandest. Acts 16:10.

4. Thus, O Lord, are all things possible to him, to whom thou makest all things possible, by working the same things in him. Mark 9:22.

5. When God softeneth not the heart by the inward anointing of his grace, exhortations and outward graces serve not, save to harden it the more. Rom. 9:18. Ed. 1693.

6. The difference between the Jewish and Christian covenant is, that in the former God requireth the shunning of sin, and the fulfilment of the law from the sinner, by leaving him in his own incapability; but in the latter, God giveth unto the sinner that which he commandeth, by purifying him with his own grace. Rom. 11:27.

7. What advantage for men is there in the old covenant, in which God left him to his own infirmities, imposing upon him his own law? But what happiness is it not to be admitted into a covenant, in which God doth bestow on us that which he seeketh from us? Hebr. 8:7.

8. We appertain not unto the new covenant, save in as far as we are partakers of the new grace thereof, which worketh within us that which God doth enjoin unto us. Hebr. 8:10.

9. The grace of Christ is the supreme grace, without which we are never able to confess Christ, and with which we never can deny him. 1 Cor. 12:3. 1693.

10. Grace is the operation of the hand of Almighty God, which nothing can hinder or retard. Matt. 20:34.

11. Grace is nothing else than the will of Almighty God, ordering, and doing that which he doth order. Mark 2:11.

12. When God willeth to save a soul, at what time and in what place soever, the effect unhesitatingly followeth the will of God. Ibid.

13. When God willeth to save a soul, and toucheth it with the inward hand of his grace, no human will can resist him. Luke 5:13. 1693.

14. How far soever an obstinate sinner be removed from salvation, when Jesus presenteth himself to be beheld by him in the salutary light of his grace, it must be that he give himself up, run forward, humble himself, and adore his Saviour. Mark 5. 1693.

15. When God accompanieth his command, and his outward speaking, by the anointing of his spirit and the inward force of his grace, he worketh in him that obedience which he seeketh. Luke 9:60.

16. There are no delights which yield not to the delights of grace, seeing that nothing resisteth the Almighty. Acts 8:12.

17. Grace is that voice of the Father, which inwardly teacheth men, and maketh them come unto Jesus Christ; and whosoever cometh not unto him after he hath heard the outward voice of the Son, is in no wise instructed of the Father. John 6:45.

18. The seed of the word, which the hand of God watereth, ever bringeth forth its fruit. Acts 11:21.

19. The grace of God is nothing else but his almighty will: this is the idea which God himself hath handed down to us in all his scriptures. Rom. 14:4. 1693.

20. The true idea of grace is, that God wills that he be obeyed by us, and is obeyed; commandeth, and all things are done; the Lord but speaketh, and all things are subjected unto him. Mark 4:39.

21. The grace of Jesus Christ is a strong, powerful, supreme, invincible grace, inasmuch as it is the operation of the Almighty will, the following and imitation of the operation of God, incarnating and raising again his son. 2 Cor. 5:21. 1693.

22. The agreement of the almighty will of God in the heart of man with the free consent of his own will, is straightway proved unto us in the incarnation, as a fount and archetype of all other operations of mercy and grace, all which are gratuitous, and so depending upon God, as the original operation itself. Luke 1:48.

23. God himself hath delivered unto us the idea of the almighty operation of his grace, signifying it by that which Produceth creatures out of nothing, and restoreth life to the dead. Rom. 4:17.

24. The just idea which the centurion has of the omnipotence of God and Jesus Christ in healing bodies by the sole motion of his will, is the image of the idea which ought to be held touching the omnipotence of his grace in healing souls from avarice. Luke 7:7.

25. God illuminates the soul, and healeth it as well as the body, by his will alone; he commandeth, and he is obeyed. Luke 18:42.

26. No graces are given, save through faith. Luke 8:48.

27. Faith is the first grace, and the fountain of all others. 2 Pet. 1:3.

28. The first grace which God grants to a sinner, is the remission of sins. Mark 11:25.

29. Beyond the Church no grace is granted. Luke 10:35–6.

30. All whom God willeth to save through Christ, are infallibly saved. John 6:40.

31. The desires of Christ always have their effect; he bringeth peace into the inwardest parts of [men’s] hearts, when he wisheth it for them. John 20:19.

32. Jesus Christ delivered himself unto death, to liberate for ever by his blood the first born, that is, the elect, from the hand of the destroying angel. Gal. 4:4, 5, 6, 7.

33. Alas! How doth it behove a man to have renounced earthly goods, and even himself, that he may, so to speak, have confidence to appropriate Christ unto himself, his love, death, and mysteries, as doth holy Paul, when he saith: who loved me, and gave himself for me. Gal. 2:20.

34. The grace of Adam only produced human merits: 2 Cor. 5:21. 1693.

35. The grace of Adam is the sequel of creation, and was due to a healthy and intact nature. 2 Cor. 5:21.

36. The essential difference between the grace of Adam and a state of innocence, and Christian grace, is, that every one soever would have received the first in his own person; but the other is not received, save in the person of Jesus Christ raised from the dead, to whom we are united. Rom. 7:4.

37. 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.1:6.

38. A sinner is not free, save unto evil, without the grace of him that freeth. Luke 8:9.

39. 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. 20:3, 4.

40. Without grace we can love nothing, save unto our condemnation. 2 Thess. 3:18. 1693.

41. 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. 1:19.

42. The grace of Christ alone renders man fit for the sacrifice of faith; without this is nothing but impurity; nothing but unworthiness. Acts 11:9.

43. 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. Rom. 6:2. 1693.

44. There are but two loves, from whence all our wills and actions spring: the love of God, which does all things for the sake of God, and which God rewards; and the love by which we love ourselves and the world, which refers not to God what should be referred to God, and on this very account is evil. John 5:29.

45. The love of God no longer reigning in the heart of sinners, it is necessary that carnal desire reign in it, and corrupt all his actions. Luke 15:13. 1693.

46. Avarice or charity renders the use of the senses good or bad. Matth. 5:28.

47. Obedience to the law ought to proceed from a fountain, and this fountain is charity. When the love of God is its inward beginning, and the glory of God its end, then that is pure which appeareth outwardly: otherwise it is nought but hypocrisy or false righteousness. Matt. 25:26. 1693.

48. What else can we be, but darkness, but wandering, and sin, without the light of faith, without Christ, and without charity. Eph. 5:8.

49. As no sin is without our own self-love, so is no good work without the love of God. Mark 7:22, 23.

50. In vain do we cry unto God, “my father,” if that which crieth be not the spirit of charity. Rom. 8:15.

51. Faith justifieth, when it operates; but it does not itself operate, save through charity. Acts 8:39.

52. All other means of salvation are contained in faith, is in its own proper germ and seed; but this faith is not apart from love and confidence. Acts 10:43.

53. Charity alone in Christian wise maketh [actions Christian] through relation to God and Jesus Christ. Coloss. 3:14.

54. It is charity alone which speaketh unto God; God heareth his alone. 1 Cor. 8:1.

55. God crowneth nought but charity; he that runneth from another impulse or motive runneth in vain. 1 Cor. 9:24.

56. God rewardeth only charity, because charity alone honoureth God. Matth. 25:36.

57. Everything is wanting to the sinner, when hope is wanting to him; and there is no hope in God, where there is not the love of God. Matth. 27:5.

58. Neither God, nor religion, is there, where charity is not. 1 John 4:8.

59. The prayer of the ungodly is a new sin, and what God [thereupon] doth grant to them, is a new judgment against them. John 10:25. 1693.

60. If the fear of punishment alone excites penitence, the more violent it (penitence) is, so much the more doth it lead to desperation. Matth. 27:5.

61. Fear restraineth but the hand, but the heart is devoted to sin so long as it is not led by the love of justice. Luke 20:19.

62. He who abstains not from evil, save through the fear of punishment, commits that [evil] in his heart, and is already guilty before God. Matth. 21:46.

63. The baptized is still under the law, as the Jew, if he fulfil not the law, or fulfil it from fear only. Rom. 6:14.

64. Under the malediction of the law, good never happens, because sin is committed either by doing evil, or by avoiding it only through fear. Gal. 5:26.

65. Moses, the prophets, the priests, and doctors of the law, are dead, save in that they have given any son unto God, seeing they have not effected, save only slaves unto fear. Mark 7:19.

66. He who will fain approach God, must neither come unto him with brutish passions, nor be led by natural instinct, or by fear, like beasts, but by faith and love, as sons. Hebr. 7:26. 1693.

67. Slavish fear does not represent God unto itself, but as a hard, imperious, unjust, untractable master. Luke 19:21. 1693.

68. The goodness of God hath shortened the way unto salvation, by closing up the whole [matter] in faith and in prayers. Acts 2:21.

69. Faith, the use, increase, and reward of faith, is all the gift of the pure liberality of God. Mark 9:22.

70. God never afflicts the innocent, and afflictions always serve either to punish sin, or to purify the sinner. John 9:3.

71. Man for his own preservation may give himself a dispensation from that law which God founded for his advantage. Mark 2:28.

72. The mark of the Christian Church is, that it is catholic, comprehending both all the angels of heaven, and all the elect, and the just of the earth and of all ages. Hebr. 12:22, 23, 24.

73. 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? 2 Thess. 1:1, 2. 1693.

74. The Church, or the entire Christ, hath the incarnate Word as the head, but all the holy as members. 1 Tim. 3:16.

75. The Church is one sole man, made up of many members, whereof Christ is the head, life, subsistence, and person; one sole Christ made up of many holy, whereof he is the sanctifier. Eph. 2:14, 15, 16.

76. Nothing is more spacious than the Church of God, seeing that all the elect and just of all ages compose it. Eph. 2:22.

77. He who leads not a life worthy a son of God and a member of Christ, ceases meanwhile to hold God as his father, and Christ as his head. 1 John 2:24. 1693.

78. A man is separated from the elect people, of which the Jewish people was a type, and Jesus Christ is the head, as well by not living according to the Gospel, as by not believing the Gospel. Acts 3:23.

79. It is useful and necessary at every time, in every place, and for every kind of persons, to study and know the spirit, piety, and mysteries of sacred Scripture. 1 Cor. 14:5.

80. The reading of sacred Scripture is for all. Acts 8:28.

81. The obscurity of the holy word of God is not a reason for the laity to excuse themselves from the reading thereof. Acts 8:31.

82. 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 15:21.

83. 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. John 4:26.

84. To snatch the New Testament out of the hands of Christians, or to keep it closed to them, by taking from them that method of understanding it, is to shut the mouth of Christ against them. Matt. 5:2.

85. To interdict to Christians the reading of sacred Scripture, especially of the Gospel, is to interdict the use of light to the sons of light, and to cause them to suffer a certain kind of excommunication. Luke 11:33. 1693.

86. To snatch from the simple people this consolation, of joining their voice to the voice of the whole Church, is a custom contrary to the apostolic practice, and to the intention of God. 1 Cor. 14:16.

87. The manner full of wisdom, light, and charity, is, to give souls time to bear and feel a state of sin with humility, to seek a spirit of penitence and contrition, and to begin, at least, to satisfy the justice of God, before they are reconciled. Acts 8:9.

88. We know not what is sin and true penitence, when we wish to be straightway restored to the possession of those goods of which sin hath despoiled us, and shun to endure the confusion of that separation. Luke 17:11, 12.

89. The fourteenth step to the conversion of a sinner is, that when he is already reconciled, he has the right of assisting at the sacrifice of the Church. Luke 15:23. 1693.

90. The Church hath authority to excommunicate, so that it may exercise the same through its chief pastors, with the consent, at least, first obtained, of the whole body. Matt. 18:17.

91. The fear of unjust excommunication ought never to hinder us from fulfilling our duty; we are never [effectually] removed from the Church, even when we seem expelled from it by the wickedness of men, seeing we are by charity affixed to God, Jesus Christ, and the Church itself. John 9:22, 23.

92. Rather to suffer excommunication and unjust anathema in peace, than to betray the truth, is to imitate the holy Paul; so far is it from being [so] to upraise oneself against authority, or to sever unity. Rom. 9:3.

93. Jesus doth sometimes heal wounds, which the headlong haste of the chief pastors inflicts without his command. Jesus restoreth what they themselves have severed through inconsiderate zeal. John 18:11.

94. Nothing excites a worse opinion of the Church among its enemies, than to see dominion exercised therein over the faith of the faithful, and that divisions should be cherished on account of matters which harm neither faith nor manners. Rom. 14:16.

95. To such a pass have truths come, that they are, as it were, a foreign tongue unto most Christians, and the manner of preaching them is as an unknown dialect, so removed is it from the simplicity of the apostles, and so beyond the common understanding of the faithful; nor is it sufficiently perceived, that this falling off is one of the most sensible signs of the old age of the Church, and of the anger of God against his sons. 1 Cor. 14:21. 1699.

96. God permits that all powers be opposed to the preachers of the truth, to the end that his victory may be attributed only to the Divine grace. Acts 17:8.

97. It too often happens, that those members which are more holily and more strictly united to the Church, are looked upon and treated as unworthy, so that they should be in the Church, even as separated from it; but the just lives by faith, and not from the opinion of men. Acts 4:11.

98. The state of persecution and punishments, which any one endures, as if a wicked and impious heretic, is, for the most part, the last and most meritorious probation, as being the one which renders a man most like unto Jesus Christ. Luke 22:37.

99. Pertinacity, prevention, obstinacy in being unwilling either to examine anything, or to perceive that one has been deceived, do daily, in the case of many, change into the odour of death that which God placed in his Church to be therein the odour of life, to wit, good books, instructions, holy examples, &c. 2 Cor. 2:16.

100. The deplorable season, in which it is believed that God is honoured by persecuting truth and its disciples, this time hath arrived.… 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. In vain does any one flatter himself respecting the purity of his intentions, and a certain zeal for religion, by persecuting good men with fire and sword, if he is blinded by his own passion, or carried away by another’s, because he is unwilling to examine anything. We frequently believe we sacrifice the impious one to God, and sacrifice the servant of God to the devil. John 16:2.

101. Nothing is more opposed to the Spirit of God, and the teaching of Jesus Christ, than to make common oaths in the Church, seeing this is to multiply the opportunities for perjury, to stretch out snares for the weak and uneducated, and to cause that the name and truth of God some time serve the counsel of the wicked. Matt. 5:37.

Having heard, therefore, the suffrages of the above-mentioned cardinals and other theologians exhibited to us both by word of mouth as well as in writing, and having invoked the protection of the divine light by proclaiming private and public prayers to that end, we by this our constitution, destined to be in effect for ever, declare, condemn, and reprobate all and each of the previously inserted propositions as false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and her practice, and contumelious not only to the Church, but also to the secular powers; seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy, and savouring of heresy itself, and also as abetting heretics and heresies, and also schism, erroneous, near akin to heresy, several times condemned, and finally heretical, and manifestly renewing respectively various heresies, and those particularly which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansenius, taken, however, in that sense in which they have been condemned.

We command all the faithful in Christ of both sexes not to presume to think of the aforesaid propositions, to teach them, to preach them otherwise than is contained in this same our constitution; so that whosoever shall teach, defend, publish them or any of them, conjointly or separately, or shall treat of them publicly or privately, even by way of disputing, unless perhaps for the purpose of impugning them, let him by the very fact, without other declaration, lie under ecclesiastical censures, and other penalties enacted by law against those perpetrating such acts.

But by the express reprobation of the aforesaid propositions, we do not by any means intend to approve of other things contained in the same book, especially since in the course of examination we detected in it several other propositions similar and near akin to those which have been condemned as above, and imbued with the same errors, and indeed not a few encouraging disobedience and obstinacy under a certain imaginary pretext of persecution, which is as it were spreading at the present day, and crying those up under the false name of Christian forbearance; which therefore to recount individually we considered to be both too tedious and by no means necessary, and finally, a thing which is still more intolerable, the sacred text of the New Testament itself corrupted in a manner deserving of condemnation, and conformable in many respects to the other Gallican version (Montensi) long since reprobated; but in many ways differing and wandering from the Vulgate edition, which has been approved in the Church by the experience of so many ages, and which ought to be accounted by all the orthodox as authentic, and in many ways wrested into strange, exotic, and oftentimes injurious senses, not without the greatest perversity.

The same book, therefore, as being one which by its sweet words and benedictions, as the apostle says, that is, which, under the false semblance of pious instruction, is well calculated for leading astray the hearts of the innocent, whether bearing the preceding title, or any other title whatsoever, wheresoever, or in what other language soever, or in what edition soever, or version hitherto printed, or hereafter to be printed (which Heaven forbid), by apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents we once more prohibit and in like manner condemn, as also all other books, and every such book published in its defence, whether in manuscript or in print, or perhaps (which God avert) books or pamphlets to be published, and the reading, copying, the retaining and use of such we prohibit in like manner, and interdict to all and every one of the faithful in Christ, under pain of excommunication, to be by the very fact incurred by those acting in a contrary way.

We command, moreover, our venerable brethren the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, and other ordinaries of places, as also the inquisitors of heretical depravity, that they by all means coerce and keep in check all contradictory and refractory persons whatsoever by the above-mentioned censures and penalties, and by the other remedies of law and fact, the aid of the secular arm being appealed to, if it should be necessary.

But we desire, &c. But let it be lawful for no one, &c. In the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1713, 6th of the ides of September, in the 8th year of our pontificate.

Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful in Christ, health and apostolical benediction.

The apostle commands us, beholding Jesus, the author and consummator of our faith, sedulously to consider what and how great contradiction he sustained from sinners against himself, lest, wearied out by hardships and dangers, we may at length fail in our spirits, and in a manner sink. That we be fortified and strengthened by this most wholesome reflection is then most necessary, when against the body itself of Christ, which is the Church, the tide of that dread conspiracy which is never to cease rages more intensely, that comforted by the Lord, and in the power of his might, protected by the shield of faith, we may be able to resist in the evil day, and to extinguish all the fiery weapons of the most unjust. In this commotion of the times, in this most perturbed overturning of all things, all good men have to undergo a serious struggle against all the enemies of the Christian name, of what kind soever; we a still more serious one, on whom, in consideration of the care and management of the entire flock committed to our pastoral solicitude, a greater zeal for the Christian religion is incumbent than upon all others. But in this very weight of the burden which has been placed on our shoulders, that of bearing the burdens of all who are oppressed, the more we are conscious to ourselves of our own weakness, into so much the firmer hope does the divinely established principle of the apostolic duty instituted in the person of Saint Peter, raise and exalt us, that he who was never to abandon the government of the Church once delivered to him by Christ, should not cease to carry the burdens of apostolic government among those whom God had given to him to be protected by perpetual succession, and to be guarded as his heirs.

And amid these miseries which surround us on all hands, it has been added as an accumulation of all our other troubles, that from that quarter whence we should rejoice, from thence we should derive greater sorrow; inasmuch as when any governor in the sacred Church of God under the name of priest turns away the very people of Christ from the path of truth into the precipice of a devious persuasion, and this a most noble city, then is our lamentation to be redoubled, and greater anxiety to be felt.

It was not truly in distant lands, but in the very central light of Italy, under the eyes of the city, and nigh the threshold of the apostles; it was a bishop distinguished by the honour of a double see (Scipio de Ricini, formerly bishop of Pistoria and Prato), whom, when he came to us for the purpose of taking on him his pastoral function, we embraced with paternal charity, who in turn sealed the attachment and obedience due to us and to this Apostolic See, at the very rite of his sacred ordination, by the sacredness of a solemn oath.

And that same person, not long after that, being dismissed from our embrace with the kiss a of peace, he came to the people committed to his care, circumvented by the wiles of the masters of a perverse philosophy assembled around him, began to apply his mind to this, not to defend, cultivate, and perfect, as he ought to do, that praiseworthy and peaceful form of the Christian institution, which former prelates had, according to the ecclesiastical rule, long since introduced, and in a manner established, but on the contrary, under the mask of a feigned reformation, by introducing unseasonable novelties, he disturbed, convulsed, and tore it up from the foundation.

Nay more, when even by our exhortation he directed his attention to the diocesan synod, it was effected by his refractory pertinaciousness in his own way of thinking, that from that quarter whence some remedy of the wounds was to be sought, more disastrous ruin sprung forth. Indeed, after this Synod of Pestoria burst forth from its lurking-place, in which it lay concealed for a considerable time, there was no person entertaining a pious and wise sentiment concerning the interests of religion, who did not forthwith perceive that the intention of the authors was, that the seeds of perverse doctrines, which they had before scattered by pamphlets of various kinds, they should condense as it were into one body, should resuscitate errors long since proscribed, and take away credit and authority from the apostolic decrees in which they were proscribed.

When we saw that these things, in proportion as they are the more alarming in themselves, so much the more urgently demanded the aid of our solicitude, we hesitated not to turn our attention to the adoption of those measures which should seem to he more suited either to remedy or altogether to check the rising evil.

And first, mindful of the wise admonition of our predecessor Zosimus, that those matters which are important called for great weight of examination, we committed the synod first published by the bishop to be examined by four bishops, having attached other theologians also from the secular clergy; then we deputed a congregation also of several cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and of other bishops, who were carefully to examine the whole series of proceedings, to bring together passages separated from each other, to discuss sentences extracted. Whose suffrages we received, expressed before us by word of mouth and by writing, who gave it as their opinion both that the synod was to be universally reprobated, and very many opinions thence collected were deserving of being visited with more or less severe censures, some indeed in themselves, some by the attentive connection of the sentences; on hearing and duly considering their observations, we took care of this also, that certain leading heads of perverse doctrines selected from the entire synod, to which the censurable sentences scattered through the synod chiefly refer, directly or indirectly, might be afterwards reduced to a certain order, and that the censure peculiarly belonging to each should be affixed to the same.

But lest evil-minded persons might take occasion for cavilling from this, whether collation of places, or collection of suffrages, however accurately made, in order to meet this calumny which is perhaps already prepared, we determined on having recourse to the prudent measure which our most holy predecessors, as well as most wise prelates, and even general synods, have duly and cautiously adopted in checking the further progress of dangerous and mischievous innovations of this kind, and have left behind them testified and recommended by striking examples.

They were well aware of the wily and deceptive tricks of innovators, who, afraid of giving offence to Catholic ears, are oftentimes careful to wrap up the snares of their captious propositions in the subtle coverings of words, that the error lurking amid the difference of meaning may get more easy admission into the mind, and so that the truth of a proposition being upset by the slightest addition or change, the confession of it which was to effect salvation may, by a sort of wily transition, incline to death. And this involved and deceptive mode of arguing is faulty in every kind of discourse, but in a synod is not at all to be tolerated, whose characteristic merit is this, to adhere to that lucid style of speaking in the instruction which it gives, such as may leave behind no danger of offence. If, on such occasions, anything wrong should present itself, it cannot be defended by the artful excuse usually adduced, that any expressions of rather a harsh nature which may fall out anywhere, will be found in other passages more plainly explained, or even corrected, as though the pert flippancy of affirming and denying, and of contradicting themselves ad libitum, which has ever been the fraudulent resource of innovators to indirectly introduce error, might not tend rather to expose error than to palliate or excuse it; or as if illiterate persons more especially, who should fall in perchance with this or that part of the synod set forth to the public in the vernacular tongue, might always have at hand other scattered passages which might have to be inspected; or even after these were inspected, each person might have sufficient means to compare them one with the other, so that, as they idly pretend, they might be able to shun all risk of error. A most baneful trick no doubt for insinuating error, which was some time since wisely detected in the letter of Nestorius, a prelate of Constantinople, and most severely reproved by our predecessor, Celestinus; in which letter, that artful individual was tracked, caught, and held fast, weakening his case by his own verbosity, whilst mixing up that which was true with what are obscure, and again confounding both, he either confessed what had been denied, or endeavoured to deny what had been confessed. To ward off which stratagems, too often resorted to in every age, no better method has been adopted, than that by which, by exposing those passages, which, under the cover of ambiguity, involve a perilous and suspicious discrepance of meanings, their mischievous signification might be marked, under which lurked the error reprobated by the Catholic sense.

Which method, abounding in moderation, we too embraced so much the more willingly, as we foresaw that it would rather prove a great aid to reconcile the feelings, and to bring them to the unity of the spirit, in the bonds of peace (which, with the favour of God, we feel pleasure, has justly turned out successful in many cases), to see, first, that the perverse followers of the synod, if any shall remain, which God forbid, may not be able, for the purpose of exciting new disturbances, to attach as partners in their condemnation and associates in guilt the Catholic schools, which, absolutely in spite of them, and plainly resisting, they are endeavouring to draw over to their side by means of a forced similitude of kindred terms in expression, where they find there is any discrepancy in meaning. Then if any unthinking persons have been led astray by any more favourable opinion as yet preconceived regarding the synod, let such persons be deprived of all room for complaint, who, if they possess correct sense, as they wish to appear to do, let them no longer feel annoyed at the condemnation of doctrines so marked, which bear on their front errors from which they themselves profess to be altogether free.

Nor even still have we considered that we have gratified our spirit of lenity to our satisfaction, or to speak more truly, our spirit of charity, which urges us towards our brother, whom we would assist with all the means in our power, if it is still possible. For we are urged on by that charity, under the influence of which, our predecessor Celestinus did not refuse to wait for priests to be amended, even against right, or with still greater forbearance, than seemed to be consistent with right. For with Augustine and the fathers of Milevis, we are more willing and desirous that persons holding forth perverse doctrines should be healed by pastoral care in the Church, than that, despairing of salvation, they should be cut off from it, unless some necessity force it.

For which end, that no kind of attention may seem to have been neglected to gain over a brother, we deemed it meet that the aforesaid bishop, before we should proceed to ulterior measures, should be invited to come to us, by a most affectionate letter, directed to him by our orders, in which we promised that he should find a kind reception from us and that he should not be prevented from openly and freely expressing whatever might seem to tend to his advantage. Nor indeed had all hope forsaken us that it might happen that if he brought with him a docile mind, which, according to the apostle’s sense, Augustine chiefly required in a bishop, when all contention and asperity being kept aloof, the principal heads of his doctrines should be simply and candidly proposed to him to be reconsidered, such as might have appeared to have called for greater reprehension than he would readily collect himself, and would not hesitate to explain in a more sound sense whatever was put ambiguously, or openly to reject whatever should present the character of manifest perversenees, and thus, with great credit to his own character, as well as to the very great joy of all good persons, the tumults which had arisen in the Church might be put a stop to by the most wished for correction, in the most peaceable manner possible.

But now when he, under the pretext of bad health, thought it right not to avail himself of the favour thus offered to him, we can no longer delay the discharge of our apostolic duty. It is not the danger of one or two dioceses only that is in question; the whole church is shaken by any innovation soever. The decision of the supreme Apostolic See is this long time not only expected, but earnestly called for on all sides by repeated entreaties. Heaven forbid that the voice of Peter should ever be silent in that his seat, in which he, perpetually living and presiding, insures to those seeking it the truth of faith. In such cases longer connivance is not safe, because there is almost as much guilt in conniving in such cases as in preaching that which is so contrary to religion. Such a wound, therefore, must be cut away, by which not one limb only is affected, but the whole body of the Church is wounded, and by the aid of the divine goodness care must be taken, that all dissensions being cut off, the Catholic faith be kept inviolate, and those who defend that which is perverse, being reclaimed from error, those whose faith has been approved may be secured by our authority.

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.

They are as follows:—

ON THE OBSCURATION OF TRUTHS IN THE CHURCH

Ex decr. de grat. § 1.

I. The proposition, which asserts, “that in these latter ages a general obscuration has been spread over truths of graver moment, regarding religion, and which are the basis of faith, and of the moral doctrine of Jesus Christ:” is heretical.

ON THE POWER ATTRIBUTED TO THE COMMUNITY OF THE CHURCH TO BE COMMUNICATED THROUGH THIS TO THE PASTORS

Epist. convoc.

II. The proposition, which lays down, “that the power given by God to the Church, to be communicated to the pastors, who are his ministers, for the salvation of souls,” so understood that the power of the ecclesiastical ministry and government is derived from the community of the faithful to the pastors: heretical.

ON THE DENOMINATION OF MINISTERIAL HEAD ATTRIBUTED TO THE ROMAN PONTIFF

Decret. de fide, § 8.

III. Moreover, that which lays down, “that the Roman pontiff is ministerial head,” so explained as that the Roman pontiff receives the power of the ministry not from Christ in the person of Saint Peter, but from the Church, by which, as successor of Peter, true vicar of Christ, and head of the entire Church, he possesses sway in the universal Church: heretical.

ON THE POWER OF THE CHURCH AS TO CONSTITUTING AND ENFORCING EXTERNAL DISCIPLINE

Decret. de fide, §§ 13, 14.

IV. The proposition affirming, “that there would be an abuse of the authority of the Church, in transferring it beyond the limits of doctrine and morals, and extending it to externals, and in exacting by force that which depends on persuasion and the heart, and also that it appertains much less to it to exact by force external submission to its decrees,”—in as far as by those indefinite words extending to externals denotes as it were an abuse of the authority of the church, the use of that power received from God, which even the apostles themselves employed in establishing and enforcing external discipline: is heretical.

V. In which part it insinuates, that the Church has not the authority of exacting submission to her decrees otherwise than by means which depend on persuasion—in as much as it intends that the Church “has not the power conferred on her by God, not only directing by counsel and persuasion, but also of commanding by laws, and of coercing and compelling the stragglers and contumacious by external judgment and wholesome penalties” (ex Bened. XIV. in a brief ad Assiduas, ann. 1755. To the primate, archbishops, and bishops of the kingdom of Poland): leading to a system otherwise condemned as heretical.

RIGHTS GRANTED TO BISHOPS CONTRARY TO JUSTICE

Decr. de ord. § 25.

VI. The doctrine of the synod, in which it states, “that it is persuaded that the bishop has received from Christ all the rights necessary for the good government of his diocese”—as if to the good government of each diocese superior ordinances were not necessary, regarding whether faith and morals, or general discipline, the right of which is vested in the sovereign pontiffs and general counsels for the universal Church, is schismatical, at least erroneous.

VII. Likewise in that, that it exhorts the bishop “to follow up diligently the more perfect establishment of ecclesiastical discipline, and that against all contrary usages, exemptions, reservations, which are adverse to the good order of the diocese, the greater glory of God, and the greater edification of the faithful,”—by this, that it supposes it to be lawful for the bishop, by his own judgment and decision, to determine and decree contrary to usages, exemptions, reservations, whether those which take place in the universal Church, or even in each province, without the permission and interference of a superior hierarchical power, by which they have been introduced or approved, and obtain the force of a law: leading to schism and subversion of hierarchical government, erroneous.

VIII. Likewise in this, that it says that it is persuaded “that the rights of the bishop received from Jesus Christ for governing the Church can neither be altered nor impeded; and when it has happened that the exercise of these rights has for any cause been interrupted, that the bishop ever could and ought to revert to his original rights, as often as the greater good of his church requires it,” in as far as it intimates that the exercise of episcopal rights can be impeded or coerced by no superior power whensoever the bishop may by his own judgment think it less expedient for the greater good of his church: leading to schism and the subversion of hierarchical government, erroneous.

RIGHT INCORRECTLY GRANTED TO PRIESTS OF INFERIOR ORDERS IN DECREES OF FAITH AND DISCIPLINE

Epist. convoc.

IX. The doctrine, which determines, “that the reformation of abuses regarding ecclesiastical discipline in diocesan synods depends equally on the bishop and parish priests, and ought to be strengthened by them, and that without freedom of decision that submission to the suggestion and commands of the bishops:” false, rash, injurious to episcopal authority, subversive of hierarchical government, favouring the Arian heresy introduced anew by Calvin.

Ex ep. convoc. Ex ep. ad vic. for. Ex orat. ad syn. § 8. Ex sess. 3.

X. Likewise the doctrine, by which parish priests or other priests assembled in synod are pronounced together with the bishop to be judges of faith, and it is intimated at the same time that judgment in causes of faith belongs to them by a peculiar right, and by one indeed received through ordination: False, rash, subversive of hierarchical order, detracting from the strength of the definitions or dogmatic judgments of the Church, at least erroneous.

Orat. synod. §. 8.

XI. The proposition stating, that by an ancient institute of our ancestors, derived even from the apostolic times, observed through the better ages of the Church, it was received, “that decrees, or definitions, or propositions, even of greater sees, should not be admitted, unless they had been recognized and approved by the diocesan synod:” False, rash, derogating according to its generality from the obedience due to apostolic constitutions, as also from the propositions emanating from superior legitimate hierarchical power, cherishing schism and heresy.

CALUMNIES AGAINST SOME DECISIONS IN MATTER OF FAITH EMANATING FROM A CONSIDERALE NUMBER OF AGES

XII. The assertions of the synod, taken collectively, concerning decisions in matter of faith emanating from several ages back, which it represents as decrees originating from one particular church or a few pastors, supported by no sufficient authority, intended for spoiling the purity of faith, and for exciting, turbulence, obtruded by violence, and from wounds which, still too recent, have been inflicted: False, captious, rash, scandalous, injurious to the Roman pontiffs and Church, derogatory from the obedience due to apostolic constitutions, schismatic, pernicious, at least erroneous.

CONCERNING THE PEACE CALLED THAT OF CLEMENT IX

Or. synod. § 2, in nota.

XIII. A proposition stated among the acts of the synod, which intimates that Clement IX. restored peace to the Church, by the approbation of the distinction of law and fact, prescribed in the subscription of a formulary by Alexander VII.: False, rash, injurious to Clement IX.

XIV. But as far as it supports that distinction, by lauding the abettors of the same, and by vituperating their adversaries: Rash, pernicious, injurious to the sovereign pontiff’s, cherishing schism and heresy.

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BODY OF THE CHURCH

Append. n. 28.

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 manner 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; Heretical.

ON THE STATE OF INNOCENCE

De grat. §§ 4, 7; de sacr. in gen. § 1; de pœnit. § 4.

XVI. The doctrine of the synod on the state of happy innocence, such as it represents it in Adam before sin, embracing not only integrity, but also inward righteousness, with an impulse to God through the love of charity, and primeval sanctity by some means restored after the fall,—so far as, by implication, it intimates that that state was subsequent to creation, a favour due from the natural exigency and condition of human nature, not a gratuitous favour of God: False, otherwise condemned in the case of Baius, and in that of Quesnell, erroneous, favouring the Pelagian heresy.

ON IMMORTALITY VIEWED AS A NATURAL CONDITION OF MAN

De bapt. § 2.

XVII. The proposition stated in these words, “Taught by the apostle, we view death no longer as a natural condition of man, but in reality, as a just punishment of original sin,”—inasmuch as, under the name of the apostle, artfully adduced, it insinuates that death, which in the present state has been inflicted as a just punishment of sin, by the just withdrawal of immortality, had not been a natural condition of man, as if immortality had not been a gratuitous favour, but a natural condition: Captious, rash, injurious to the apostle, otherwise condemned.

ON THE CONDITION OF MAN IN A STATE OF NATURE

De grat. § 10.

XVIII. The doctrine of the synod, stating, “that after the fall of Adam, God announced the promise of a future redeemer, and wished to console mankind by the hope of salvation, which Jesus Christ was to bring, yet that God wished that mankind should pass through various states, before the fulness of time should come; and first, that in the state of nature, man left to his own lights should learn to distrust his own blind reason, and from his own aberrations should move himself to desire the aid of superior light,”—a doctrine, as it lies, captious, and understood of the desire of the aid of superior light promised in order to salvation through Christ, to conceive which, man, left to his own lights, may be supposed to have been able to move himself: Suspicious, favouring the semi-Pelagian heresy.

OF THE CONDITION OF MAN UNDER THE LAW

Ibid.

XIX. Likewise that which subjoins that man under the law, “when he was unable to observe it, had become a transgressor, not indeed through the fault of the law, which was most holy, but through fault of man, who under the law without grace became more and more a transgressor;” and superadds, “that the law, if it did not heal the heart of man, caused that he should know his own evils, and, convinced of his own weakness, he should feel the want of a mediator,”—in which part it intimates generally, that man had become a prevaricator through not observing the law, which he was unable to observe, as if he who is just would command anything which was impossible, or as if he who is merciful would condemn man for that which he could not avoid (ex S. Cæsario, serm. 73, in append. S. Augustini, serm. 273, edit. Maur. Ex S. Aug. de Nat. et Gr. c. 43; De Grat. et Lib. art. c. 16; Enarr. in Psal. 56, n. 1): False, scandalous, impious, condemned in the case of Baius.

XX. In which part it is given to be understood, that man under the law without grace could conceive a desire of the grace of a mediator ordained to salvation promised through Christ, as if grace itself did not cause that he be invoked by us (ex Concil. Araus. II., can. 3): A proposition, as it lies, captious, suspicious, favouring the semi-Pelagian heresy.

ON GRACE ENLIGHTENING AND EXCITING

De grat. § 11.

XXI. A proposition which asserts, “that the light of grace, when it is alone, tends only that we should know the unhappiness of our state, and the serious nature of our evil; that grace in such a case produces the same effect which light produced; therefore, that it is necessary that God should create in our heart a holy love, and inspire a holy delight contrary to the love predominating in us; that this holy love, this holy delight, is properly the grace of Jesus Christ, the inspiration of charity, which, being known, we may act with holy love; that this is that root from which shoot forth good works; that this is the grace of the New Testament, which emancipates us from the slavery of sin, and constitutes us sons of God,”—inasmuch as it intends, that it alone is properly the grace of Jesus Christ, which may create in the heart holy love, and which causes that we act, or also that by which man being freed from the slavery of sin, is constituted the son of God, and the grace of Christ is not properly that grace by which the heart of man is touched by the illumination of the Holy Spirit (Trid. sess. vi. cap. v.), nor does there really exist an interior grace of Christ, which men resist: False, captious, leading into an error condemned in the second proposition of Jansenius, and heretical; and introducing it anew.

OF FAITH AS THE FIRST GRACE

De fide, § 1.

XXII. The proposition which intimates “that faith, from which commences a series of graces, and by which, as the first voice, we are called to salvation and the Church, is itself an excellent virtue of faith, by which men are called faithful, and are so,”—just as if that grace were not prior, which, as it precedes the will, so also precedes faith (ex S. Aug. de Dono Persev. c. 16, n. 41): Suspected of heresy, and savouring of it, otherwise condemned in Quesnellius, erroneous.

OF TWOFOLD LOVE

De grat. § 8.

XXIII. The doctrine of the synod concerning the twofold love of predominant desire and predominant charity, stating that man without grace is under the slavery of sin, and that he in that state, by the general influx of predominant desire, infects and spoils all his actions,—in as far as it insinuates, that in man, whilst he is under slavery or in the state of sin, destitute of that grace by which he is freed from the slavery of sin, and constituted son of God, desire so predominates, that by the general influx of this, all his actions are in themselves infected and corrupted, or all the works which are done before justification, by what means soever they may be done, are sins, as if in all his acts the sinner is a slave to predominant desire: False, pernicious, leading into an error condemned as heretical by Trent, again condemned in the case of Baius, art. 40.

§ 12

XXIV. But in that part in which no intermediate affections are placed between predominant desire and predominant charity, implanted by nature herself, and in their own nature commendable, which, together with the love of beatitude, and the natural inclination to good, have remained as last lineaments, and the mere remains of the image of God (ex S. Aug. de Spir. et lit. c. 28),—just as if between the divine love which leads us to the kingdom, and illicit human love, which is condemned, there existed not lawful human love, which is not censured (ex S. Aug. serm. 349, de Carit. edit. Maur.): False, otherwise condemned.

OF SERVILE FEAR

De pœnit. § 3.

XXV. The doctrine, which represents that the fear of punishments, in general, can only not be called evil, if at least it tends to restrain the hand, as if the fear itself of hell, which faith teaches, is to be inflicted on sin, is not in itself good and useful, as a supernatural gift, and a motive inspired by God preparing for the love of justice: False, rash, pernicious, injurious to the divine gifts, otherwise condemned, contrary to the doctrine of the Council of Trent, and also to the common understanding of the fathers, that it was necessary, according to the usual order of preparation for justice, that fear may enter first, through which charity may come; fear the medicine, charity the health. (Ex. S. Aug. in Epist. Joan. c. 4, tract. 9, n. 4, 5; in Joan. Evang. tract. 41, n. 10; Enarratione in Psal. 127, n. 7; Sermone 157, de Verbis Apostoli, c. 13; Sermone 161, de Verbis Apostoli, n. 8; Sermone 349, de Caritate, n. 7.)

OF THE PUNISHMENT OF THOSE DYING WITH ORIGINAL SIN ALONE

XXVI. The doctrine, which explodes as a Pelagian fable, that place of the dead (which the faithful designate by the name of the limbo of children) in which the souls of those dying with original sin alone are punished by the punishment of loss, without the punishment of fire;—just as if by this, that those who remove the penalty of fire would introduce that place and middle state, void of guilt and punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as the Pelagians fabled: False, rash, injurious to Catholic schools.

OF THE SACRAMENTS, AND FIRST OF THE SACRAMENTAL FORM WITH THE CONDITION ANNEXED

De bapt. § 12.

XXVII. The deliberation of the synod, in which under the pretext of adhesion to the ancient canons in case of doubtful baptism, it declares its purpose of leaving out mention of the conditional form: Rash, contrary to the practice, law, authority of the Church.

OF PARTICIPATION OF THE VICTIM IN THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

De euch. § 6.

XXVIII. The proposition of the synod, in which, after it sets down that participation of the victim is an essential part of the mass, subjoins: “that it does not condemn as illicit those masses in which those present do not communicate sacramentally, for this reason, because they participate, though less perfectly, of the victim by receiving it in spirit,”—in as far as it insinuates that to the essence of the sacrifice, something is wanting in that sacrifice, which may be done whether no one being present, or those being present, who participate of the victim neither sacramentally nor spiritually, and as if those masses were to be condemned as illicit, in which the priest alone communicating, no one may be present, who communicates either sacramentally or spiritually: False, erroneous, suspected of heresy, and savouring of it.

OF THE EFFICACY OF THE RITE OF CONSECRATION

De euch. § 2.

XXIX. The doctrine of the synod, in that part where intending to deliver the doctrine of faith on the rite of consecration, those scholastic questions being kept out of view, regarding the manner in which Christ is in the eucharist, from which it exhorts parish priests discharging the office of teaching to abstain, these two points being proposed—1. That Christ, after consecration, is truly, really, and substantially under the species. 2. That then all the substance of bread and wine ceases, the species alone remaining,—entirely omits to make any mention of transubstantiation, or of the conversion of the entire substance of the bread into the body, and the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which, as an article of faith, the Council of Trent defined, and which is contained in the solemn profession of faith, inasmuch as by such unadvised and suspicious omission a knowledge is withdrawn as well of the article pertaining to faith, and also of the term consecrated by the Church to defend the profession of it against heresies, and tends consequently to induce a forgetfulness of it, as though a question merely scholastic were under consideration: Pernicious, derogating from the exposition of Catholic truth regarding the dogma of transubstantiation, favouring heretics.

OF THE APPLICATION OF THE FRUIT OF THE SACRIFICE

De euch. § 8.

XXX. The doctrine of the synod, in which, whilst it professes “to believe that the oblation of the sacrifice extends to all, so however, that in the liturgy, special commemoration may be made of some, as well living as dead, by praying to God peculiarly for them;” then immediately after it subjoins, “not however that we believe that it is at the option of the priest to apply the fruits of the sacrifice to whom he pleases: nay, we condemn this error, as greatly offending the rights of God, who alone distributes the fruits of the sacrifice to whomsoever he wishes, and according to the measure which is pleasing to him:” whence consequently he traduces it as “a false opinion, introduced among the people, that those who supply alms to the priest on condition that he celebrates one mass, derive a special fruit from it,”—so understood that beside the special commemoration and prayer, the special oblation itself; or application of the sacrifice, which is made by the priest, is not more available, ceteris paribus, to those for whom it is applied, than to any other persons whatsoever, as though no special fruit resulted from the special application, which the Church recommends to be made for certain persons, and orders of persons, and advises to be made specially by the pastors for their sheep; which, as if descending from the divine precept, has been plainly expressed by the sacred Synod of Trent (Sess. 23, cap. 1, de reform. Bened. XIV. Constit. Quum semper oblatas, § 2): False, rash, pernicious, injurious to the Church, leading into an error, otherwise condemned in Wickliff.

ON OBSERVING PROPER ORDER IN WORSHIP

De euch. § 5.

XXXI. The proposition of the synod, stating that it is befitting for the order of the divine offices, and for ancient usage, that in every temple there be only one altar, and consequently that it pleases them to restore that custom: Rash, injurious to the very ancient, pious custom, prevailing many ages since, especially in the Latin Church, and to the approved custom.

Ibid

XXXII. Likewise the prescription forbidding the cases of the sacred relics or flowers being placed on the altars: Rash, injurious to the pious and approved custom of the Church.

Ibid. § 6.

XXXIII. The proposition of the synod, in which it shows that it desires that the causes should be taken away, by which a forgetfulness of the principles relating to the order of the liturgy was introduced, by recalling it to greater simplicity of rites, by expounding it in the vulgar tongue, and uttering it in a loud voice, as if the prevailing order of the liturgy received by the Church, and in some measure approved, had emanated from a forgetfulness of the principles by which it ought to be regulated: Rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favouring the reproaches of heretics against it.

OF THE ORDER OF PENANCE

De pœnit. § 7.

XXXIV. The declaration of the synod, in which, after premising that the order of canonical penance was so determined by the Church after the example of the apostles, that it should be common to all, and not only for the punishment of guilt, but chiefly for disposing to grace, adds, “that it in that admirable and august order recognizes the entire dignity of a sacrament so necessary, free from the subtleties which in the course of time have been added to it,”—as if by the order in which, without completing the course of the canonical penance, this sacrament has been wont to be administered through the whole Church, its dignity had been impaired: Rash, scandalous, leading to a contempt of the dignity of the sacrament, as it has been wont to he administered by the whole Church, injurious to the Church itself.

De pœnit. § 10, n. 4.

XXXV. The proposition conceived in these words: “If charity in the beginning is always weak, from the ordinary way to obtain an increase of this charity, it is meet that the priest should cause those acts of humiliation and penance to precede, which were in every age recommended by the Church; to reduce those acts to a few prayers, or to some fact after absolution has been now conferred, seems rather the material desire of preserving to this sacrament the bare name of penance, than an enlightened means, and one suited to augment that fervour of charity which ought to precede absolution; we are indeed very averse to the practice, to be disapproved of, of imposing penances to be fulfilled even after absolution; if all our good works have our defects annexed to them, how much more ought we to dread, lest we incur very many imperfections in the very difficult and momentous work of our reconciliation,” in as far as it intimates that penances which are imposed after absolution, are to be considered rather as a supplement for defects incurred in the work of our reconciliation, than as penances truly sacramental and satisfactory for sins confessed: as if, that the true nature of a sacrament, not the bare name, be preserved, it were necessary, out of the ordinary way, that the acts of humiliation and penance, which are imposed by way of sacramental satisfaction, ought to precede absolution: False, rash, injurious to the common practice of the Church, leading into an error stamped with the brand of heresy in the case of Peter de Osma.

OF THE PREVIOUS NECESSARY DISPOSITION FOR ADMITTING PENITENTS TO RECONCILIATION

De grat. § 15.

XXXVI. The doctrine of the synod, after premising, “When unequivocal signs of the love of God prevailing in the heart of man shall be had, that he may be fairly indicated as worthy to be admitted to a participation of the blood of Jesus Christ, which takes place in the sacraments;” it adds, “that the suppositious conversions, which are done by attrition, are wont to be neither effectual nor permanent;” consequently, “that the pastor of souls ought to insist on unequivocal signs of prevailing charity, before he admits his penitents to sacraments,” which signs, as it then says (§ 17), “the pastor will be able to deduce from a steady cessation from sin and his fervour in good works;” which fervour of charity, moreover, it represents (de pœnit. § 10) as a disposition which ought to precede absolution; so understood, that not only imperfect contrition, which everywhere passes under the name of attrition, even that which is joined with love, by which man begins to love God as the fountain of all righteousness, and not only contrition formed by charity, but also the fervour of predominant charity, and that too, proved by long trial, by fervour in good works, may be generally and absolutely required, that a man may be admitted to sacraments, and in particular penitents may be admitted to the benefit of absolution: False, rash, calculated to disturb the quiet of souls, contrary to the practice, safe and approved, in the Church, detracting from and injurious to the efficacy of the sacrament.

OF THE AUTHORITY TO ABSOLVE

De pœnit. § 10, n. 6.

XXXVII. The doctrine of the synod, which regarding the authority to absolve, received by ordination, says, “After the establishment of dioceses and of parishes, that it was meet that each should exercise this judgment on persons subject to them, whether with respect to territory, or by any personal right, for this reason, that otherwise confusion and perturbation would be introduced,” inasmuch as after the establishment of dioceses and parishes it states it to be meet to guard against confusion, that the power of absolving may be exercised on subjects, so understood, as if for the valid use of this power, the ordinary or that subdelegated jurisdiction were not necessary, without which the Council of Trent declares that absolution given by a priest was of no moment: False, rash, pernicious, contrary and injurious to Trent, erroneous.

Ibid. § 11.

XXXVIII. Likewise the doctrine in which, after the synod declared that it could not but admire that so venerable discipline of antiquity, which, as it says, “did not so easily, and perhaps never admitted to penance him, who, after the first sin and the first reconciliation, had relapsed into crime,” subjoins, “that by the fear of perpetual exclusion from communion and peace, even in articulo mortis, a rein will be thrown on those who but little consider the evil of sin, and fear it still less:” Contrary to the 13 can. of the Council of Nice, to the decretal of Innocentius I., to Exuperius of Toulouse, and also to the decretal of Celestinus I. to the bishops of Vienne and the province of Narbonne, redolent of depravity, of which the holy Pontiff expresses a horror in that decretal.

OF THE CONFESSION OF VENIAL SINS

De pœnit. § 12.

XXXIX. The declaration of the synod concerning the confession of venial sins, which, it says, it wished was not so frequently practised, lest such confessions may be rendered too contemptible: Rash, pernicious, contrary to the practice of holy and pious persons, approved by the holy Council of Trent.

OF INDULGENCES

De pœnit. § 16.

XL. The proposition asserting, that “an indulgence, according to its precise notion, is nothing else than a remission of part of that penance, which, by the canons, was set to the sinning individual,”—as if an indulgence, besides the bare remission of the canonical punishment, does not also avail to the remission of the temporal punishment, due for actual sins before the divine justice: False, rash, injurious to the merits of Christ, some time since condemned in the 19th art. of Luther.

Ibid

XLI. Likewise in that which is added, “that the schoolmen, inflated with their subtleties, have introduced an ill-understood treasure of the merits of Christ and the saints, and for the clear notion of absolution from canonical punishment, have substituted a confused and a false one of the application of merits,”—as if the treasures of the Church, whence the Pope grants indulgences, are not the merits of Christ and of the saints: False, rash, injurious to the merits of Christ and of the saints, before now condemned in the 17th art. of Luther.

Ibid

XLII. Likewise in this which it superadds: “that it was still more lamentable, that that chimerical application used to be transferred to the dead:” False, rash, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Roman pontiffs, and to the practice and sense of the universal Church, leading into an error branded with the stamp of heresy in Peter de Osma, again condemned in the 22nd art. of Luther.

Ibid

XLIII. In this, also, that it inveighs most impudently against the tables of indulgences, privileged altars, &c.: Rash, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, contumelious to the sovereign pontiffs, and to the practice constantly resorted to by the whole Church.

OF THE RESERVATION OF CASES

De pœnit. § 19.

XLIV. A proposition of the synod, assuming that “the reservation of cases at the present time is nothing else than an improvident tie for inferior priests, and a sound void of sense for penitents accustomed not to care much for this reservation:” False, rash, sounding amiss, pernicious, contrary to the Council of Trent, detrimental to the superior hierarchical power.

Ibid

XLV. Likewise regarding the hope which it holds out, that it will come to pass “that the ritual and order of penance being reformed, such reservations will no longer have any place,”—as by a studied generality of words it intimates, that by the reformation of the ritual and of the order of penance, made by a bishop or synod, the cases can be done away with, which the Trent Synod (Sess. xiv. c. 7) declares, that the sovereign pontiffs could, by virtue of the supreme power committed to them in the universal Church, reserve for their own peculiar judgment: A proposition false, rash, derogating from the Council of Trent, and from the authority of the sovereign pontiffs, and injurious.

OF CENSURES

De pœnit. §§ 20, 22.

XLVI. A proposition asserting “that the effect of excommunication is only external, as if by its nature it only excludes from the external communication of the Church,”—as if excommunication were not a spiritual punishment, binding in heaven, obliging souls (ex S. Aug. Ep. 250. Auxilio Episcopo, tract. 50, in Joan. n. 12): False, pernicious, condemned in the 23rd art. of Luther, at least erroneous.

§§ 21, 23

XLVII. Likewise that which states that it is necessary, according to the natural and divine laws, that whether to excommunication or to suspension the personal examination ought to go before, and accordingly, that the sentences called ipso facto have no other force but that of serious threatening without any actual effect: False, rash, pernicious, injurious to the power of the Church, erroneous.

§ 22

XLVIII. Likewise that which pronounces “that the form introduced some ages ago is useless and unavailing, of absolving generally from excommunications, into which one of the faithful might have fallen:” False, rash, injurious to the practice of the Church.

§ 24

XLIX. Likewise that which condemns as null and void suspensions from acquaintance with the case which is not formal: False, pernicious, injurious to Trent.

Ibid

L. Likewise in this, that it insinuates that it is not lawful for the bishop alone to use the power which Trent confers on him, of legitimately inflicting suspension from acquaintance with the case which is not formal: Detrimental to the jurisdiction of the prelates of the Church.

OF ORDERS

De ordine, § 4.

LI. The doctrine of the synod, which represents that in promoting to orders, this method used to be observed by the custom and establishment of ancient discipline, “that, if any of the clerks was distinguished by sanctity of life, and was esteemed worthy to be raised to holy orders, he used to be promoted to the deaconship or priesthood, even though he may not have taken inferior orders, nor at that time was such ordination said to be per saltum, as was afterwards said.”

§ 5

LII. Likewise that which intimates, that there was not any other title of ordination than the deputation to some special ministry, such as is prescribed in the Council of Chalcedon, adding (§ 6) as long as the Church conformed to these principles in the selection of sacred ministers, that the ecclesiastical order flourished, but that those happy days had passed away, and that new principles were introduced from time to time, by which discipline was vitiated in the selection of the ministers of the sanctuary.

§ 7

LIII. Likewise that it reckons among these very beginnings of corruption, that a departure was made from the ancient usage, by which, as it says (§ 5), the Church, treading in the footsteps of the apostle, determined that no one should be admitted to the priesthood, unless he who had preserved his baptismal innocence,—inasmuch as it intimates that discipline had been corrupted by decrees and institutes, (1) whether those by which ordinations per saltum were forbidden, (2) or those by which, according to the necessity and convenience of the churches, ordinations were approved of without a title of special duty, as specially by the Council of Trent ordination to the title of a patrimony, saving the obedience by which those so ordained are obliged to attend to the necessities of the churches, by executing those offices to which they were attached by the bishop for the place and time, as was wont to be done in the primitive Church from the apostolic times, (3) or those by which a distinction of crimes was made by canon law, which render delinquents irregular—as if by this distinction the Church receded from the spirit of the apostle, not by excluding generally and promiscuously from the ecclesiastical ministry all persons whatsoever, who should not have retained their baptismal innocence: A doctrine in each of its parts false, rash, calculated to disturb the order introduced for the necessity and convenience of the churches, injurious to the discipline approved by the canons, and especially by the decrees of Trent.

§ 13

LIV. Likewise, that which marks as a shameful abuse ever to give alms for celebrating masses and administering sacraments, as also to receive any profit said to be that of the stole, and generally whatever stipend and fee, which might be offered on the occasion of suffrages, or of any parochial function,—as if the ministers of the Church were to be noted with the crime of shameful abuse, whilst according to the received and approved custom and usage of the Church, they use the right promulged by the apostle of receiving temporals from those to whom they minister spirituals: False, rash, detrimental to ecclesiastical and pastoral right, injurious to the Church and its ministers.

§ 14

LV. Likewise that in which it professes a desire that some measure might be found of removing the petty clergy (by which name he designates the clergy of the lower orders) from cathedral and collegiate churches, by providing otherwise, namely, by honest laymen of somewhat advanced age, by assigning a suitable stipend to the ministry of serving masses and other offices, as acolytes, &c., as used to be done formerly, it says, when such offices were not reduced to the mere show for receiving higher orders, in as much as it finds fault with the institution by which it is provided, that the functions of the lesser orders should be performed or exercised by those only who were appointed or assigned to them (Concil. prov. 4. Mediol.), and that according to the meaning of Trent (Sess. xxiii. c. 17), that the functions of holy orders, from the deaconship to the beadleship, laudably received in the Church from the apostolic times, and in many places for some time intermitted, may be revived according to the sacred canons, and may not be misrepresented by heretics as idle: A suggestion rash, offensive to pious ears, calculated to disturb the ecclesiastical ministry, and to impair the decency which should be observed, as far as is possible in celebrating the mysteries, injurious to the offices and functions of minor orders, and also injurious to discipline approved by the canons, and especially by Trent, favouring the reproaches and calumnies of heretics against it.

§ 18

LVI. The doctrine which lays down that it seems befitting in canonical impediments which result from misdemeanour, expressed in law, that no dispensation is to be admitted: Detrimental to equity and canonical moderation approved by the sacred Council of Trent, derogating from the authority and rights of the Church.

Ibid. § 22.

LVII. The prescription of the synod, which generally and indiscriminately rejects as an abuse any dispensation whatsoever, so that more than one residented benefice may be conferred on one and the same person, likewise in this which it adds, that it was satisfied than no one could enjoy more than one benefice, though a simple one, according to the spirit of the Church: Considering its generality, derogating from the moderation of Trent, Sess. vii. c. 5, and Sess. xxiv. c. 17.

OF SPONSALS AND MATRIMONY

Libell. memor. circa sponsalia, &c. § 2.

LVIII. The proposition, which lays down that sponsals, properly so called, contain merely a civil act, which disposes to celebrate marriage, and that the same is entirely subservient to the direction of the civil laws,—as if an act disposing to a sacrament were not in this way subservient to the law of the Church: False, detrimental to the right of the Church as to the effects also flowing from the sponsals by the force of canonical sanctions, derogating from the discipline established by the Church.

De matrim. §§ 7, 11, 12.

LIX. The doctrine of the synod, asserting that it belongs originally to the supreme power only to affix to the marriage contract such impediments which render it null, and are said to be diriment, because the original right, moreover, is said to be connected with the right of dispensing, adding, “supposing the assent or connivance of the chief persons, that the Church could justly establish impediments severing the marriage contract itself,”—as if the Church could not always and cannot establish impediments in the marriages of Christians by its own right, which impediments may not only impede matrimony, but also render it null as to the tie, by which Christians may also be held bound down in the countries of unbelievers, and dispense in the same: Subversive of the canon 3, 4, 9, 12, Sess. xxiv. of the Council of Trent, heretical.

Cet. lib. et memor. circa sponsal. § 10

LX. Likewise the request of the synod to the civil power, to take away from the number of impediments spiritual kindred, and that of public propriety, as it is called, the origin of which is found in the collection of Justinian, then, that “it would restrict the impediment of affinity and relationship arising from any licit or illicit conjunction whatsoever to the fourth degree according to the civil computation through the lateral and oblique line, so, however, that no hope be left of obtaining a dispensation,”—in as far as it attributes to the civil power the right either of abolishing or of restricting the impediments, or of restricting the impediments established or approved by the authority of the Church;—likewise in that part where it supposes that she may by the civil power be despoiled of her right of dispensing regarding impediments established or approved by it: Subversive of the liberty and power of the Church, contrary to Trent, emanating from the heretical principle above condemned.

OF THE OFFICES, EXERCISES, INSTITUTIONS RELATING TO RELIGIOUS WORSHIP—AND FIRST OF ADORING THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST

De fide, § 3.

LXI. The proposition, which asserts, “to adore directly the humanity of Christ, or rather any part of it, would always be divine honour given to the creature,”—in as far as by this word directly it intends to reprobate the worship of adoration, which the faithful direct to the humanity of Christ, just as if such adoration, by which the humanity and enlivening flesh itself of Christ is adored, not indeed for itself and as bare flesh, but as united to the divinity, divine honour were bestowed on the creature, and not rather one and the same adoration, by which the incarnate Word is adored together with his own flesh itself (for the council CP. V. gen. can. 9): False, captious, detracting from and injurious to the pious worship due to the humanity of Christ shown and to be shown by the faithful.

De orat. § 17.

LXII. The doctrine, which throws back and enumerates devotion towards the most sacred heart of Jesus among the devotions which it censures as new, erroneous, or at least dangerous—understood of this devotion such as it has been approved by the Apostolic See: False, rash, pernicious, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Apostolic See.

De orat. § 10, et append. n. 32.

LXIII. Likewise in this, that it reproves the worshippers of the heart of Jesus on this plea also, that they do not advert that the most holy flesh of Christ, or some part of it, or even the entire humanity with its separation or removal from the divinity, cannot be adored with the worship of latria,—as if the faithful adored the heart of Jesus with its separation or removal from the divinity, whilst they adore it, as it is the heart of Jesus, the heart forsooth of the person of the Word, to which it is inseparably united, after that manner, in which the lifeless body of Christ was adorable in the sepulchre in the three days of death, without separation or removal from the divinity: Captious, injurious to the faithful worshippers of the heart of Christ.

OF THE ORDER PRESCRIBED IN PERFORMING PIOUS EXERCISES

De orat. § 14, append. n. 34.

LXIV. The doctrine, which universally censures as superstitious “any efficacy whatsoever, which is placed in a definite number of prayers and pious salutations,”—as if the efficacy were to be set down as superstitious, which is taken not from the number considered in itself, but from the prescription of the Church, defining a certain number of prayers or external acts for obtaining indulgences, for fulfilling penances, and generally for performing sacred and religious worship duly and according to order: False, rash, scandalous, pernicious, injurious to the piety of the faithful, derogating from the authority of the Church, erroneous.

De pœnit. § 10.

LXV. The proposition, stating “that the irregular din of new institutions, which were called exercises or missions, perchance never, or at least very rarely, goes so far as to effect conversion, and that those external acts of commotion, which have appeared, were nothing else but passing flashes of natural concussion: Rash, ill-sounding, pernicious, injurious to pious usage, frequently adopted in a salutary manner by the Church, and founded in the word of God.

ON THE MODE OF COMBINING THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE WITH THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH IN PUBLIC PRAYERS

De orat. § 24.

LXVI. The proposition asserting “that it would be contrary to the apostolic practice and the counsels of God, unless more easy methods were prepared for the people of joining their voice with the voice of the whole Church”—understood of the use of the vulgar tongue to be introduced into the prayers of the liturgy: False, rare, calculated to disturb the quiet prescribed for the celebration of the mysteries, easily productive of several evils.

OF THE READING OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES

Ex nota in fine decr. de gratia

LXVII. The doctrine representing that nothing but real inability excuses from reading the Sacred Scripture, adding still further that they detect the obscurity which has arisen from the neglect of this precept over the primary truths of religion: False, rash, calculated to disturb the quiet of souls, otherwise condemned in Quesnell.

ON PUBLICLY READING PROSCRIBED BOOKS IN THE CHURCH

De orat. § 29.

LXVIII. The praise with which the synod very much recommends Quesnell’s commentaries on the New Testament, and other works favouring Quesnell’s errors, although proscribed, and proposes the same to parish priests, that they may read them over to the people after the other offices, as though replete with solid principles of religion, each in his respective parish: False, scandalous, rash, seditious, injurious to the Church, cherishing schism and heresy.

OF SACRED IMAGES

De orat. § 17.

LXIX. The prescription, which generally and without distinction marks among the images to be taken away from the Church, as affording a handle for error to the ignorant, the images of the incomprehensible Trinity: On account of its generality, rash and contrary to the pious custom frequently adopted by the Church, as though there were no images extant of the most holy Trinity, generally approved and safely to be permitted. (Ex brevi Solicitudini nostræ, Benedicti XIV. an. 1745.)

LXX. Likewise the doctrine and prescription generally reprobating all special worship, which the faithful are wont to pay to some image specially, and to have recourse to it rather than to another: Rash, pernicious, injurious to the pious usage frequently adopted by the Church, as well as to that order of providence according to which God willed not that those things should be done in all [churches] to the memory of the saints, he who distributes his own to each according as he wills. (Ex S. Aug. ep. 78. Clero, senioribus et universæ plebi ecclesiæ Hipponen.)

LXXI. Likewise that which forbids that the images, especially of the Blessed Virgin, be not distinguished by any titles, except by denominations, which may be analogous to the mysteries of which express mention is made in Sacred Scripture,—as if other pious denominations could not be affixed to images, which it approves and recommends, even in the very public prayers of the Church: Rash, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the veneration due more especially to the Blessed Virgin.

LXXII. Likewise that which wishes the custom to be extirpated as an abuse, by which certain images are kept veiled: Rash, contrary to the custom introduced to cherish the piety of the faithful.

ON FESTIVALS

Libell. memor. pro fest. reform. § 3.

LXXIII. The proposition stating that the institution of new festivals had originated from neglect in observing old ones, and from false notions of the nature and end of the same solemnities: False, rash, scandalous, injurious to the Church, favouring the reproaches of heretics on the festival days celebrated by the Church.

Ibid. § 8.

LXXIV. The deliberation of the synod on transferring to the Lord’s day festivals instituted annually, and that by the right, which it says it is convinced is in the bishop’s power regarding ecclesiastical discipline in order to things merely spiritual, and, therefore, that of abrogating the precept of hearing mass on days on which that precept still prevails according to an ancient law of the Church; and also in this, which it superadds, of transferring to Advent, by episcopal authority, fasts to be kept every year according to the precept of the Church,—inasmuch as it attaches to the bishop that it is lawful, by his own right, to transfer days prescribed by the Church for celebrating festivals or fasts, or to abrogate the precept once introduced of hearing mass: A proposition false, detrimental to the right of general councils and sovereign pontiffs, scandalous, and favouring schism.

ON OATHS

Libell. memor. pro juram. reform. § 4.

LXXV. The doctrine which states, that in the times of the Church, at its birth, oaths appeared so foreign to the teachings of the divine preceptor, and to the golden evangelical simplicity, that the very swearing, without extreme and inevitable necessity, was deemed an irreligious act, unworthy of a Christian man; moreover, that the continued series of the fathers demonstrated that oaths were considered as forbidden by the general feeling; and thence it proceeds to disapprove of the oaths, which the ecclesiastical court, following the standard, as it says, of feudal jurisprudence, has adopted in the investitures and in the very sacred ordinations of the bishops, and has laid it down that a law is therefore to be implored from the secular power for abolishing oaths, which are exacted even in ecclesiastical courts for undertaking duties and offices, and generally for every act relating to the court: False, injurious to the Church, detrimental to ecclesiastical right, subversive of the discipline introduced and approved by the canons.

ON ECCLESIASTICAL COLLATIONS

De collat. ecclesiast

LXXVI. The vituperation, with which the synod attacks the school, as that “which opened the way for introducing novel systems, disagreeing the one with the other, as to truths of greater value, and at length brought matters to probabilism and laxism”—in as far as it throws back upon the school the vices of private individuals, who may have the power to abuse it, or have abused it: False, rash, injurious with respect to the most holy men and doctors, who cultivated school learning, to the great advantage of the Catholic religion, favouring the bitter reproaches of heretics.

LXXVII. Likewise in what it adds, “that the change of form in the ecclesiastical government, by which it has come to pass, that the ministers of the Church came into a forgetfulness of their rights, which are their obligations, has brought the matter to such a pass, that it caused the primitive notions of the ecclesiastical ministry and of the pastoral solicitude to be obliterated,”—as if, through change of government corresponding to the discipline established in the Church and approved, the primitive notion of the ecclesiastical ministry, or pastoral solicitude could ever be obliterated and lost: A proposition false, rash, erroneous.

§ 4

LXXVIII. The prescription of the synod concerning the order of the things to be treated in collations, by which, after premising, “In any article whatever that is to be distinguished, which pertains to faith and to the essence of religion, from that which is appertaining to discipline,” it subjoins, “In this itself we must distinguish what is necessary or useful to retain the faithful in spirit from that which is useful or too burthensome for the liberty of the sons of the new covenant to brook, or rather from that which is dangerous or injurious, as leading to superstition or materialism,”—inasmuch as, considering the generality of the words it comprehends, and subjects to the prescribed examination even the discipline established and approved by the Church, as if the Church, which is ruled by the Spirit of God, could establish discipline, not only useless and too burthensome for Christian liberty to submit to, but also dangerous, hurtful, leading to superstition and materialism: False, rash, scandalous, pernicious, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Church and Spirit of God, by whom itself is ruled, at least erroneous.

REPROACHES AGAINST SOME PROPOSITIONS HITHERTO AGITATED IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

Orat. ad synd. § 1.

LXXIX. The assertion, which casts reproaches and contumelies on the propositions in the Catholic schools, and regarding which the Apostolic See has considered that nothing was as yet to be defined or pronounced: False, rash, injurious to the Catholic schools, derogating from the obedience due to apostolic constitutions.

ON THE THREE RULES LAID DOWN AS A FOUNDATION BY THE SYNOD FOR REFORM OF REGULARS

Libell. memorial. pro reform. regular. § 9.

LXXX. Rule 1, which determines universally and indiscriminately, “that the regular or monastic state cannot be consistent with the cure of souls, and with the functions of pastoral life, and consequently cannot come in for a share of ecclesiastical hierarchy, without being at direct variance with the principles of the monastic life itself: False, pernicious, injurious to the most holy fathers and prelates of the Church, who associated the institutes of the regular life with the offices of the clerical order, contrary to the pious, ancient, approved usage of the Church, and the sanctions of the Sovereign Pontiffs; as if monks, whom austerity of morals and holy training of life and faith recommends, could not be associated duly with the offices of clergymen, and not only without offence to religion, but also without great advantage to the Church. (Ex S. Siricio, Epist. decret. ad Hemerium Tarracon. c. 13.)

LXXXI. Likewise in this which it subjoins, that Saints Thomas and Bonaventura were engaged in such a manner in defending the institutes of mendicants against the greatest men, that in their defences less warmth, greater accuracy was to be wished for: Scandalous, injurious to the most holy doctors, favouring the impious contumelies of condemned authors.

LXXXII. Rule 2, “that the multiplication and diversity of orders introduced naturally perturbation and confusion;” likewise in that which it premises, § 4, “that the founders of the regulars, who came forth after the monastic institutions, superadding orders to orders, reformations to reformations, effected nothing else, but more and more to extend the primary cause of the evil,”—understood of the orders and institutes approved by the Holy See, as the distinct variety of pious offices, to which distinct orders were devoted, must by their nature create perturbation and confusion: False, calumniating to the holy founders and their faithful followers, and also injurious to the Sovereign Pontiffs themselves.

LXXXIII. Rule 3, in which, after premising, “that a small body living within a civil society, without being a part of the same, and establishing a little monarchy therein, is always dangerous,”—on this plea occasionally attacks private monasteries, associated by the tie of a common institute, especially under one head, as so many special monarchies, dangerous and mischievous to a civil republic: False, rash, injurious to regular institutes approved by the Holy See for the interest of religion, favouring the cavils and calumnies of heretics against the same institutes.

OF THE SYSTEM OR COMPLICATION OF ORDINATIONS DERIVED FROM THE RULES ADDUCED, AND INCLUDED IN THE EIGHT ARTICLES FOLLOWING FOR THE REFORMATION OF REGULARS

LXXXIV. Art. 1: “About retaining one order only in the Church, and selecting in preference to all others the rule of Saint Benedict, as well on account of its excellence, as for the distinguished merits of that order, so, however, that in those matters which shall perchance occur less suitable to the condition of the times, the mode of life established at Port Royal may hold out a light to try what it may be necessary to add, what to subtract.”

2. “That those who may have joined this order may not be made partakers in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, nor promoted to holy orders, except at most one or two, to be initiated as curates or capellani of the monastery, the others remaining in the simple order of laymen.”

3. “That one monastery only is to be admitted in each state, and that that should be placed outside the walls of the city, in rather sequestered and remote situations.”

4. “Among the occupations of monastic life, its own share must be reserved for manual labour inviolate, a suitable time, however, being left to be bestowed on psalmody, or even, if it shall please any one, on the study of literature. Psalmody should be moderate, because too great prolixity engenders precipitancy, trouble and straying. The more psalmody is increased, as also orisons and prayers, in just an equal proportion is the fervour and sanctity of regulars always diminished.”

5. “No distinction perhaps should be admitted between monks, or those devoted to the choir or to the ministries; that inequality has at all time excited the most serious contentions and discords, and has driven the spirit of charity from communities of regulars.”

6. “A vow of perpetual stability is never to be tolerated. The old monks were not aware of that, who still were the consolation of the Church, and the ornament of Christianity. The vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, are not to be admitted as a common and stable rule. If any one should be disposed to make those vows, either all or some, he will demand advice and leave from the bishop, who, however, will never permit that they should be perpetual, nor shall they exceed the limits of a year. Only the power shall be given to renew them on the same conditions.”

7. “The bishop shall have every care to examine into their life, studies, and progress in piety; to him it shall appertain to admit and expel monks; always, however, taking the advice of the associates.”

8. “The regulars of the orders, which still remain, may be admitted into this monastery as priests, provided they should desire to devote themselves in silence and solitude to their own sanctification, in which case an opportunity would be created for a dispensation in the general rule set down as number 2, so, however, that they follow not a mode of life different from others, so that not more than one or two masses at most be celebrated every day, and that one ought to be sufficient for the other priests to celebrate with the community.”

ALSO FOR THE REFORMATION OF NUNS

§ 11

“Perpetual vows not to be allowed up to the fortieth or forty-fifth year! Nuns are to be devoted to solid exercises, especially to labour; to be called away from carnal spirituality, by which most of them are distracted; it is to be considered whether, with respect to them, it would be better that the monastery should be left in the city:” a system subversive of discipline flourishing, and now from ancient times approved and received, pernicious, opposed, and injurious to the apostolic constitutions, as well as to the enactments of several even general councils, and especially that of Trent, abetting the reproaches and calumnies of heretics against monastic vows, and regular institutes addicted to the more stable profession of evangelical counsels.

ON CONVENING A NATIONAL COUNCIL

Libell. memor. pro convoc. concil. nation. § 1.

LXXXV. The proposition, stating that any ecclesiastical knowledge whatsoever of history is sufficient for any one to be obliged to acknowledge, that the convening of a national council is one of the canonical ways, by which controversies regarding religion may be terminated in the Church of the respective nations,—so understood, that controversies regarding faith and morals, in whatever church they may have arisen, can be terminated by an indisputable decision by a national council, as though exemption from error in questions of faith and morals were applicable to a national council: Schismatical, heretical.

We command, therefore, all the faithful in Christ of both sexes, that they presume not concerning the aforesaid propositions, to think, teach, or preach contrary to the declaration made in this our constitution; so that whoever either collectively or separately shall teach, defend, publish them, or any one of them, or shall treat of them by disputing on them, in public or in private, unless it may be by impugning them, subjects himself to ecclesiastical censures, and other penalties enacted by law against those perpetrating similar acts, by the very fact, without any other declaration.

But by this express reprobation of the aforesaid propositions and doctrines, we by no means intend to approve other things contained in the same book, especially since in it have been detected several propositions and doctrines, whether akin to those which were above condemned, or such as evince a rash contempt of the common and approved both doctrine and discipline, and most particularly a hostile feeling towards the Roman pontiffs and the Apostolic See.

But we consider two matters to be especially noted, which dropped from the synod, if not with an evil intention, at least rather imprudently, regarding the most august mystery of the most holy Trinity (§ 2, Decreti de Fide), which may readily drive into mischief, the ignorant more especially, and the incautious. First, whilst, after it duly premised that God in Himself is one and most simple, immediately after adding that God Himself is distinguished in three persons, erroneously abandons the common and approved formula in the institutions of the Christian doctrine, by which God is said to be one indeed in three distinct persons, not distinct in three persons; by the change of which formula, this danger of error creeps in by force of the words, that the divine essence is supposed distinct in persons, which Catholic faith confesses to be one in distinct persons, so that it professes it at the same time wholly indistinct in itself.

The other is that which it states regarding the three divine persons themselves, that they, according to their personal and incommunicable properties, more strictly speaking, are expressed or called the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, as though the appellation of Son, consecrated by so many passages of Scripture, would be less proper and exact, which by the very voice of the Father came down from the heavens and from the cloud, as well in the formula of baptism prescribed by Christ, as also in that illustrious confession in which Peter was pronounced blessed by Christ himself, and that should not rather be retained which the angelic preceptor, having been taught by Augustine, taught in his own turn, that “in the name of the Word the same property was conveyed, as in the name of the Son,” Augustine saying, for instance, “For the same thing is He called Word as Son.”

Nor is that signal temerity of the synod, full of fraud, to be passed over in silence, which dares not only to set off with the highest encomiums the declaration of 1682, some time since disapproved by the Apostolic See, but in order to establish for it greater weight, insidiously to include it in the decree inscribed de Fide, openly to adopt the articles contained in it, and to seal with a public and solemn profession of these articles matters which were stated in a scattered and detached way throughout this same decree. For which reason have we not only far graver cause for expostulating regarding the synod than our predecessors, with respect to that meeting (of the Gallican clergy), but further, no inconsiderable injury is inflicted on the Gallican Church itself, which the synod deemed worthy to have its authority called in to patronize the errors with which that decree was contaminated.

Wherefore, whatever acts of the Gallican Convention, on their coming forth soon after, our venerable predecessor, Innocentius XI., by a letter in the form of a brief, on the 2nd of April, 1682, but afterwards more expressly, Alexander VIII., in the constitution Inter multiplices, on the 4th of August, 1699, in virtue of their apostolic duty, disapproved, rescinded, and declared null and void; our pastoral solicitude more forcibly requires of us to condemn and reprobate the recent adoption of these same acts which took place in the synod, and which laboured under so many vices, such adoption being rash, scandalous, and especially as being extremely injurious to the Apostolic See, as we reprobate and condemn it by this our present constitution, and wish it to be considered reprobated and condemned. To that class of fraud it appertains, that the synod, comprising in this very decree several articles regarding faith, which the theologians of the faculty of Louvain laid before the judgment of Innocentius XI., as well as twelve others also presented by Cardinal de Noailles to Benedict XIII., hesitated not to awaken an idle and silly fiction from the Second Council of Utrecht, which was reprobated, and inconsiderately blazoned it among the multitude, that it was well known to all Europe that those articles were submitted to the most rigorous examination at Rome, and that they not only escaped free from any censure whatsoever, but that they were recommended by the aforesaid Roman pontiffs; of which asserted commendation, however, there is no authentic document extant; nay more, this same is contradicted by the proceedings of the examination, which are preserved in the tablets of our Supreme Inquisition, from which this only appears, that no judgment had been published regarding them.

For these causes, therefore, we prohibit and condemn, by apostolic authority, by the tenor or these presents, this same book, entitled “Atti e decreti del concilio diocesano di Pistoria, dell’ 1786. In Pistoria, per Atto Bracali, stampatore vescovile. Con approvazione,” inscribed either with the preceding or some other title, wheresoever, or in what idiom soever, in whatsoever edition or version hitherto printed or to be printed; as in like manner we prohibit and interdict all other books in its defence, or in defence of that doctrine, edited in manuscript as well as printed, or to be edited, which God forbid, as also the reading of them, copying, retention, and use, to all and each of the faithful in Christ, under pain of excommunication, to be incurred ipso facto by those who disobey.

We recommend, moreover, to our venerable brethren, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, and other ordinaries of places, as well as to the inquisitors of heretical perverseness, by all means to constrain and force all refractory and rebellious persons whatsoever, by censures and the aforesaid pains, and the other remedies of law and fact, invoking even for this purpose, if necessary, the aid of the secular arm.

But we desire, that the same credit be given to copies, even printed copies of the same presents, subscribed by the hand of some notary-public, and confirmed by the seal of a person placed in ecclesiastical dignity, as should be given to the original letter itself, if it were exhibited or shown.

Let it be lawful, therefore, for no one to infringe, or by rash daring to contravene, this page of our declaration, condemnation, mandate, prohibition, and interdiction. But if any one shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.

Given at Rome, at Saint Mary Major’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1794, on the 5th of he calends of September, the twentieth year of our pontificate.

Ph. Card. PRODATARIUS.

Visa              R. Card. BRASCHIUS DE HONESTIS.

De curia I. MANASSII.

Loco ✣ Plumbi.

F. LIVIZZARIUS.

Registered in the Secretary’s Office of Briefs

In the year from the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1794, on the twelfth indiction, on the 31st day of August, in the twentieth year of the pontificate of our most holy father in Christ, and of our Lord Pius VI., Pope, the aforesaid apostolic letter was affixed and published at the doors of the Lateran Basilic and of the Prince of the Apostles, of the Apostolic Chancery, of the General Court in Montecitatorio, in the plain of Campo di Fiore, and in the other and usual places of the city, by me, John Renzoni, Apostolic Courier.

FELIX CASTELLACEI, Magister Cursorum.

PART OF THE ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE SECRET CONSISTORY, ON THE 26TH DAY OF JUNE, 1805, BY OUR MOST HOLY LORD PIUS VII., BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE

ON our first arrival into that city (Florence) we already had a presentiment, that our brother, Scipio Riccini, bishop of Pistoria formerly, and of Prato, was seriously thinking of reconciling himself to us and the holy Roman Catholic Church, which we wished a long time, and which all good men were most eagerly waiting for. But now he has fulfilled this his intention to us on our return into the aforesaid city, by an egregious example well worthy of imitation. For with filial confidence he signified to us, that he would sincerely subscribe to the formula which it had pleased us to propose to him. Nor was he wanting in the fulfilment of the promise he had made to us. For the formula sent to him by our venerable brother, archbishop of Philippi, he read, admitted, and signed with his own hand. By this formula, therefore, which he desired to be brought to the knowledge of the public, in order to repair the scandal, he declared, that he purely, and simply, and sincerely accepted and venerated the constitutions made by the Apostolic See, in which the errors of Baius, Jansenius, Quesnell, and those who followed him, are proscribed, but especially the dogmatic bull Auctor fidei, by which eighty-five propositions are condemned, culled from the Synod of Pistoria, which he himself had collected and ordered to be published; therefore, that he reprobated and condemned all and every one of these propositions, with those qualifications and in those senses which were expressed in the aforesaid bull; in fine, that he wished to live and to die in the faith of the holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, and in every kind of subjection and true obedience to us and to our successors, as sitting in the chair of Peter, and vicars of Jesus Christ. After so solemn a declaration, we sent for him to us, and when he again affirmed, to us, the formula he had subscribed by him; and when he avowed the sincerity of his meaning, and in repeated terms his inward submission to the dogmatic decisions of Pius the Sixth, of sacred memory, and whilst he declared that his mind was devoted to the orthodox faith and to the Apostolic See, even in the midst of his errors, we embraced him with paternal affection; and having commended him with due praise for the act which he performed, we reconciled him to us and to the Catholic Church with all feelings of charity. But when, in a letter lately dated to us, in which he congratulates us for our happy and successful return into the city, he assured us that he ratified the retractation made at Florence, he again filled our breast with paternal joy.