or mercenary nature are to be ended. Saints in heaven are to be invoked to intercede for men with God the Father through Jesus Christ His Son, who is our alone Redeemer and Saviour. No divinity or virtue is believed to reside in images of Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the other saints; but the honour which is shown to them is referred to the prototypes which they represent. In granting indulgences, moderation is to be observed, "lest by excessive facility ecclesiastical discipline be enervated," and "all evil gains for the obtaining thereof,-whence a most prolific cause of abuses amongst the Christian people has been derived," are to be "wholly abolished." THE ROMAN CREED. For the purposes of individual confession, the Council of Trent had declared the necessity of a binding “ formula of profession and oath" for all dignitaries and teachers of the Church. By order of Pius IV. the Profession of the Tridentine Faith, or Creed of Pius IV., was prepared in 1564 by a commission of Cardinals, and was at once made obligatory on the whole ecclesia docens. It passed also into general use for Protestant converts to Romanism. Obviously the decrees and canons of the Council were ill suited for such uses. The Profession comprises 12 articles, the first containing in full the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed with the Western changes (italicized in the text below), the next 8 containing a short summary of the Tridentine decrees, the last 3 containing new matter, acknowledging the Roman Church as the mother and mistress of all churches, promising on oath obedience to its Bishop as the successor of St. Peter and the vicar of Jesus Christ, accepting the canons and decrees of the Councils, including that of Trent, and promising lifelong adherence by God's help to "this true Catholic faith without which no one can be saved." The Creed is in the first person, and is as follows: 1 I. I... with a firm faith believe and profess all and every one of the things contained in the symbol of faith which the holy Roman Church makes use of, namely— 1 Tr. Schaff, in Hist. pp. 98-99, Creeds of Gr. and Lat. Churches, pp. 207–210. I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible : And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man ; He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven; sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end: And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets : and one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins : and I look for the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the world to come. Amen. II. I most steadfastly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same Church. III. I also admit the Holy Scriptures according to that sense which our holy Mother Church has held, and does hold, to which it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. IV. I also profess that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and necessary for the salvation of mankind, though not all for every one, to wit: baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance and extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony; and that they confer grace; and that of these baptism, confirmation, and ordination cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. I also receive and admit the received and approved ceremonies of the Catholic Church used in the solemn administration of the aforesaid sacraments. V. I embrace and receive all and every one of the things which have been defined and declared in the holy Council of Trent concerning original sin and justification. VI. I profess likewise that in the Mass there is offered to God a true proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist there is truly really and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a change of the whole essence of the bread into the body, and of the whole essence of the wine into the blood; which change the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. VII. I also confess that under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire, and a true sacrament. VIII. I firmly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful. Likewise that the saints reigning with Christ are to be honoured and invoked, and that they offer up prayers to God for us; and that their relics are to be held in veneration. IX. I most firmly assert that the images of Christ and of the perpetual Virgin, the Mother of God, and also of other saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration are to be given them. I also affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people. X. I acknowledge the holy catholic apostolic Roman Church. as the mother and mistress of all churches, and I promise and swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome as the successor of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, and as the vicar of Jesus Christ. XI. I likewise undoubtingly receive and profess all other things delivered defined and declared by the sacred Canons and oecumenical Councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent; and I condemn reject and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies which the Church has condemned, rejected and anathematized. XII. I do at this present freely profess and truly hold this true Catholic faith, without which no one can be saved (salvus esse); and I promise most constantly to retain and confess the same entire and inviolate, with God's assistance, to the end of my life. And 1 will take care, as far as in me lies, that it shall be held taught and preached by my subjects or by those the care of whom shall appertain to me in my office. This I promise vow and swear :-so help me God, and these holy Gospels of God. THE ROMAN CATECHISM. The Profession of the Tridentine Faith was followed in 1566 by the elaborate Roman Catechism, the preparation of which the Council had at first essayed, but finally handed over to the Pope. In 1564, Pius IV., advised by Cardinal Borromeo of Milan, entrusted the work to a learned and distinguished Commission of four prelates under Borromeo's supervision-Marini, Foscarari, Calini, and the Portuguese Fureiro-who were assisted in matters of style and rendering by eminent Latin scholars. The teaching is Dominican (three of the four Commissioners belonging, as did the Pope, to that order) and Thomist-a feature which ensured for it the opposition of the Jesuit order. It is not meant for the young or for popular reading, but for the equipment of the teaching clergy. It is exceedingly long and comprehensive, but admirably arranged and lucidly expressed. It contains four parts which follow a lengthy introductory treatment of preliminary topics, and treats successively of (1) the Apostles' Creed, (2) the Sacraments, (3) the Ten Commandments, and (4) the Lord's Prayer. It is noteworthy that, while it adds to the Tridentine teaching sections which deal with the limbus patrum, the Authority of the Church, and the doctrine of the Church, it omits all reference to Indulgences and the Rosary. Apart from its franker Augustinianism, the Catechism reproduces very faithfully the substance of the Decrees of Trent, whose circumspection and whose massiveness it reflects,1 1 Schaff, Hist. pp. 100-102. OTHER ROMAN STANDARDS OF THE 16TH AND 17TH In 1568 appeared, under similar auspices, and with similar authority, the Breviarium, and in 1572 the Missale Romanum, the devotional and liturgical standards of the Church, which had been preceded in 1564 by the Index Librorum Prohibitorum proclaiming the censure of the Church on literature heretical in doctrine or dangerous in tendency. A special Confession of Urban VIII., under whose rule (A.D. 1623–1644) Galileo was condemned, was prescribed for use at consecration by Greek and other Bishops in Eastern Churches united to Rome but retaining by special privilege their own rites and usages. THE PAPAL DECREE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. The long and chequered Papacy of Pius IX. brought with it a fresh stirring of polemic and dogmatic activity which issued in a remarkable series of Papal publications. In 1854, after formal consultation by encyclical letter with the bishops on the propriety of satisfying the desire of the Catholic world for a solemn definition by the Apostolic See of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and on the completion of the labours of a special commission and a consistory of consultation, the Pope summoned a great assemblage of prelates to the Basilica of St. Peter, and in their presence, "by authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own," personally proclaimed it to be a doctrine revealed by God "that the most blessed Virgin Mary in the first moment of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, out of regard to the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race, was preserved immune from all stain of original sin." By that declaration not only a long course of controversy throughout the history of the Church, but also a longcontinued devotional and doctrinal development were |