Page:The Decrees of the Vatican Council.djvu/27

 forth many and most evident miracles and prophecies, and of the Apostles we read: "But they, going forth, preached everywhere, the working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed." And again it is written: "We have the more firm prophetical word, whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light shining in a dark place.

But though the assent of faith is by no means a blind action of the mind, still no man can assent to the Gospel teaching, as is necessary to obtain salvation, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all men sweetness in assenting to and believing in the truth. Wherefore faith itself, even when it does not work by charity, is in itself a gift of, and the act of faith is a work appertaining to salvation, by which man yields voluntary obedience to Himself, by assenting to and co-operating with His grace, which he is able to resist. Further, all those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the Word of, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by her ordinary and universal teaching (magisterium), proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.

And since without faith it is impossible to please, and to attain to the fellowship of His children, therefore without faith no one has ever attained 