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these truths exhausted, are they so evidently realized— even in the writings of the most devout, we will not ask in the life and practice—that the Church militant is ready to supererogate new attainments, and has a right to pine for fresh objective truth? Is it not rather well-known, that the more earnestly we set ourselves to know of the doctrine by doing the will of God in this practical conformity to the image of His Son, the more sensible we become of the vast abundance of the Catholic Faith, the more sensitively alive to the imperfection and Judaism which lurk even in the most seraphic and devotional writings of the Church? Do we not turn, with all our respect and gratitude for possessing such writings, to the Holy Scriptures with an inexpressible feeling of the security of our edification? He, who examines his own heart, will not fail to confess, that the solution of the morbid love of Trentisms, or of any other new objects of belief, is to be found in the self-righteous and faithless neglect of realizing by the Holy Spirit the objective truth of Christ, as it is in Jesus, our Incarnate Archetype; which, subtilly disguised in the garb of spiritual zeal, may be called the generic and besetting sin in all the corruptions of Christendom.

I will only add, that I shall most thankfully receive any corrections or suggestions, with which the reader.

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will favour me in reference to this and the future publication of the inquiry. A list of the Trentisms remaining to be treated is for this purpose here subjoined :(4). Original Sin and Justification; (5). The Sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation; (6). The Denial of the Cup in the Eucharist; (7). Purgatory; (8). Invocation of Saints and their Relics; (9). Images; (10). Indulgences; (11). Supremacy of Rome and her Pope; (12). Romish Councils of Trent, &c.

ARTICLES

IN

POPE PIUS'S CREED

PECULIAR TO

THE CHURCH OF ROME.

FIRST ARTICLE.

SECTION I." I most entirely receive and hold fast the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical traditions, and other rites and constitutions of the Roman Church."*

THIS may be considered as intended to represent, in a summary form, the following decree of the Council of Trent :-†

"The sacred, holy, oecumenical, and general Synod of

Apostolicas et Ecclesiasticas traditiones, reliquasque ejusdem Ecclesiæ observationes et constitutiones firmissimè admitto et amplector.

+ Sacro-sancta œcumenica et generalis Tridentina Synodus, in Spiritu Sancto legitimè congregata, præsidentibus in eâ eisdem tribus Apostolicæ Sedis Legatis, hoc sibi perpetuò ante oculos proponens, ut sublatis erroribus, puritas ipsa Evangelii in Ecclesiâ conservetur: quod promissum ante per Prophetas in Scripturis sanctis, Dominus noster Jesus Christus Dei Filius, proprio ore primùm promulgavit; deinde per suos Apostolos, tanquam fontem omnis et salutaris veritatis et morum disciplinæ, omni creaturæ prædicari jussit: perspiciensque hanc veritatem et disciplinam contineri in libris scriptis, et sine scripto traditionibus, quæ ab ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptæ, aut ab ipsis Apostolis, Spiritu Sancto dictante, quasi per manus traditæ, ad

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Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit under the presidency of the Three Legates of the Apostolic See, proposing ever to itself the preservation of the purity of the Gospel in the Church by the removal of errorwhich Gospel, promised afore in Holy Writ by the Prophets, our Lord Jesus Christ first with his own lips published; then commanded it to be preached to every creature by His Apostles, as the source of all wholesome truth and moral discipline: and perceiving that this truth and discipline are contained in written books and in unwritten traditions, which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ, or from the Apostles themselves, under the Holy Spirit's teaching, by tradition from hand to hand as it were, have come down to us; following the examples of the orthodox Fathers--receives and reverences, with equal piety and veneration, all the Books, as well of the Old as of the New Testament, since the same God is the author of both; and also the above-mentioned traditions, referring both to faith and morals, whether originating from Christ's own mouth or from the Holy Spirit, and preserved by continuous succession in the Catholic Church."

The decree then proceeds to give out the list of the sacred books, in which the Apocryphal books are in

nos usque pervenerunt; orthodoxorum Patrum exempla secuta omnes libros tàm Veteris quàm Novi Testamenti, cùm utriusque unus Deus sit auctor, necnon traditiones ipsas, tum ad fidem, tum ad mores pertinentes, tanquàm vel oretenus a Christo, vel a Spiritu Sancto dictatas, et continuâ successione in Ecclesiâ Catholicâ conservatas, pari pietatis affectu ac reverentiâ suscipit et veneratur.

serted, and concludes with anathematising every one, who receives not all these books as canonical, or who knowingly and deliberately despises the aforesaid traditions.

In this First Article we find two subjects, which require separate treatment: the first makes the Apocrypha canonical; and the second assigns to unwritten Traditions, which are the oral possessions of Rome, the same dignity and value as to the Holy Scriptures.

SECTION II.-The truths hidden under the Trentism, which classes the Apocrypha with the Canonical Scriptures.

THIS Trentism is a corruption of the truth, that the Church is the witness and keeper of Holy Writ, the truth asserted in the Twentieth Article of our own Churches. The Canon of Scripture was once settled by the Church at a time, when its own universal witness to the inspired writings afforded the primitive means of that settlement.* The truth of this authority and office of the Church lies between the two extremes held by Dissenters and Romanists; the former look upon the Bible as a book fallen from Heaven complete to their hands, without seeing the office and agency of the Church in separating it from all other books and writings; the latter meddle, in the sixteenth century, with that act of separation completed early in the Church, and endeavour to supersede it by an ex parte exercise of the same authority.

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* See Bishop Cosin's Scholastic History of the Canon of Scriptures.

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