Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/287

254 cannot be distinctly and conveniently judged of by the holy-synod; it enjoins that whatsoever has been by them done shall be laid before the most holy Roman Pontiff, that it may by his judgment and authority be terminated and made public. And it commands that the same be done in regard of the Catechism, by the fathers to whom that work was consigned, and as regards the Missal and Breviary.

The holy synod declares, that, by the place assigned to ambassadors, as well ecclesiastics as seculars, whether in session, procession, or in any other acts soever, no prejudice has been created in regard of any amongst them; but that all their own rights and prerogatives, and those of their own emperor, kings, republics, and princes, are uninjured and sound, and continue in the same state as they were before the present council.

So great has been the calamitousness of these times, and the inverate malice of the heretics, that there has been nothing ever so clear in the statement of our faith, or so surely settled, which they, at the persuasion of the enemy of the human race, have not defiled by some sort of error. For which cause the holy synod hath taken especial care to condemn and anathematize the principal errors of the heretics of our time, and to deliver and teach the true and Catholic doctrine; even as it has condemned, anathematized, and defined. And whereas so many bishops, summoned from the various provinces of the Christian world, cannot be absent for so long a time without great casting away of the flock committed to them, and without universal danger; and whereas no hope remains that the heretics, after having been so often invited, even with the public faith which they desired, and so long expected, will come hither later; and as it is therefore necessary to put an end at length to the sacred council: it now remains for it to admonish in the Lord all princes, as it hereby does, so to afford their assistance as not to permit the things which it has decreed to be corrupted or violated by heretics; but that they be by them and all others devoutly received and faithfully observed.