Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/519

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
CONFESSION OF FAITH.
611
Confession of Faith required to he subscribed to by converts from the Protestant Church; a very little modified in the articles upon Purgatory and the Invocation of Saints from that which was prepared under Pius IV. after the Council of Trent.

I, A. B., believe with steadfast faith, and acknowledge all and every one of the articles contained in this Creed used in the holy Roman Church, that is to say— * * * *

[Here follows the Nicene Creed.]

I believe and embrace steadfastly the Traditions of the Apostles and of the Holy Church, with all its constitutions and observances.

I admit and receive the Holy Scriptures according to and in the sense that the Holy Mother holds and has held, to whom belongs the right understanding and interpretation of the said Scriptures, and never will I receive or expound them otherwise than according to the common agreement and unanimous consent of the Fathers.

I confess that there are seven Sacraments truly and properly so called in the new Law, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and necessary, but not all to every individual, for the salvation of mankind, which are Baptism, Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Ordination, and Marriage, and through these the grace of God is given to us; and that of them Baptism, Confirmation and Ordination cannot be repeated without sacrilege.

I believe also and admit the ceremonies adopted by the Catholic Church, and made use of in the solemn administrations of the said Sacraments.

I believe also and embrace every thing defined and determined by the Holy Council of Trent on the subject of original sin and justification.

I acknowledge that in the Holy Mass a true, fitting, and propitiatory sacrifice for the dead and the living is offered to God, and that the body and blood with the spirit of the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially in the very Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and that a conversion of the entire substance of the entire bread into the body, and the entire substance of the wine into the blood, takes place in it, which conversion is called Transubstantiation by the Catholic Church.

I confess also that we take and receive Jesus Christ whole and entire in one only of the two kinds in a true Sacrament.