Page:The Decrees of the Vatican Council.djvu/29

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THE VATICAN COUNCIL
25

by the heavenly gift of faith, and of those who, led by human opinions, follow a false religion; for those who have received the faith under the teaching (magisterio) of the Church can never have any just cause for changing or doubting that faith. Therefore give thanks to God the Father, who has made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light; let us not neglect so great a salvation, but with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.[1]


IV

Of Faith and Reason

THE Catholic Church with one consent has also ever held, and does hold, that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct both in principle and in object: in principle, because our knowledge in the one is by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely revealed, cannot be known. Wherefore the Apostle, who testifies that God is known by the Gentiles through created things, still, when discoursing of the grace and truth which come by Jesus Christ,[2] says: "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world unto our glory; which none of the princes of this world knew; . . . but to us God hath revealed them by His

  1. Hebrews xii, 2; x, 23.
  2. John i, 17.