Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/377

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344
APPENDIX.

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 tje 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