Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/293

260 Who, in fine, can hereafter doubt concerning the virtue and efficacy of these sacraments, when it is perceived that that grace, which daily, like certain droppings of water, is, by means of those said [sacraments], instilled into the minds of the faithful, was then so abundantly present unto us? To these matters were added decrees touching the sacred and holy sacrifice of the mass, and the communion under both forms, and [the communion] of little children; than which [decrees] nothing is more holy, nothing more useful, so that they may seem to have fallen from heaven, not to have been composed by men. To these a certain doctrine will this day be added, touching indulgences, purgatory, the veneration, invocation, images, and relics of the saints; by which not only will resistance be made to the frauds and calumnies of heretics, but full satisfaction will also be given to the consciences of pious Catholics.

These matters, touching the things appertaining to our salvation, which are called of dogmas, have been prosperously and happily settled, nor will anything else on that head be expected from us at this season.

But whereas, in the administering of certain of the aforesaid matters, there were some points which were not fitly and rightly observed, you, most noble fathers, took most earnest care that they should be treated of purely and holily, and after the manner and ordinance of our ancestors. Thus did ye remove all superstition, all search after gain, all so-called 'irreverence' from the divine celebration of masses; ye forbade vagrant, unknown, and sinful priests offering this sacrifice; recalled the use of this most sacred thing from private and profane houses to sacred and religious places; removed effeminate songs and symphonies, walkings to and fro, conversations, and traffic, from the temple of the Lord; and those laws were by you prescribed to each ecclesiastical degree, in such wise that, the order being divinely handed down to them, no opportunity of abusing it can be left. Thus ye have removed certain impediments to matrimony, which seemed to give, as it were, a handle for violating the precepts of the Church; ye have shut off the easy way of obtaining excuse from those who entered into the compact of matrimony in a manner scarcely lawful. What should I say touching stealthy and secret marriages? In truth I