6089. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. The decrees of that council were confirmed by bull, in 1564, in November of that year. (1) That Holy Scripture is not to be explained and interpreted by any, save by the Church. (2) That the seven Sacraments are, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Repentance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony. (3) That the body and blood are truly, really, and substantially in the Eucharist, together with the soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there takes place a turning of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood - which they call conversion and transubstantiation. (4) That souls detained in purgatory are benefited by the suffrages of friends. (5) That the saints reigning with Christ should be venerated and invoked. (6) That honors and veneration are to be paid to images. (7) That the Pope is the successor of Peter, the chief of the apostles, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The following are from the bull:
That the saints reigning with Christ, offer their prayers for men to God, and that it is for this reason good and profitable to invoke them in prayer, and, on account of the benefits obtained from God by His Son Jesus Christ, who is our only Redeemer and Savior, to have recourse to their prayers, assistance and help; but that those think wickedly who deny that the saints enjoying eternal happiness in heaven are to be invoked, or who assert, either that they do not pray for men, or that the invoking of them to pray also for each one of us is idolatrous, or that it is repugnant to the Word of God and opposed to the honor of the one Mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, or that it is folly to supplicate, orally or mentally, those who are reigning in heaven. Concerning Justification by faith, and Sanctification by it, the Catholics entertain almost similar opinions with the Reformed. There is not much difference.
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