Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/376

Rh But the tenor of the above-named propositions is as follows:—

1. Some commands of God are impossible to just men, though willing and endeavouring (to fulfil them), according to the strength they possess at present; the grace also is deficient, by which they may become possible.

2. Inward grace in the state of fallen nature is never resisted.

3. To merit and to demerit in a state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from compulsion is sufficient.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of preventing inward grace for single acts, even for the beginning of faith, and in this they were heretics, that they would have it that that grace was such, as human will might resist or comply with.

5. It is semipelagian to say, that Christ died or shed his blood for all men entirely. We, who, amid the manifold cares which constantly harass our mind, were especially anxious that the church of God committed to us from on high, the errors of depraved opinions being removed, might proceed in safety, and as a ship in a calm sea, the waves and storms of all tempests being appeased, might sail on in security, and gain the wished-for haven of salvation, considering the importance of the thing, in the presence of some cardinals of the holy Roman Church, specially and frequently assembled for the purpose, and in the presence of several masters in sacred theology, caused the same five propositions presented to us as above to be carefully examined one by one, and we maturely considered their suffrages, taken as well vivâ voce as in writing, and heard the same masters, various assemblies having been held in our presence, descanting at full length on the same, and on each one of them.

But when from the commencement of such discussions, we both privately and also publicly indicted the prayers of the many faithful in Christ to implore the divine aid, the same being afterwards repeated with still greater fervour, and the presence of the Holy Ghost being anxiously implored by us; at length, by favour of the Divine Being, we came to the declaration and definition below written,