The Romish Creed | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Rochester, N. Y. · May 29, 1855

The Romish Creed.

THE following Romish Creed is a selection from an extract taken from a discourse delivered a few years since, before an Orange Lodge in Ireland, and published in the Protestant Vindicator. The object of the discourse was to show the blasphemy and wickedness of the Romish Church; comparing their corrupt principles with the true principles of the gospel; in confirmation of which, the following Romish Creed was presented as the principles of the Romish Faith, and are summed up in the following articles, which were found in the pocket of Priest Murphy, who was killed in the battle of Arklow, 1798.

"When we assemble we cross ourselves, saying, we acknowledge these our articles in the presence of Christ's Vicar, the Lord God the Pope, and in the presence of the Holy Primates, Bishops, Monks, Priors, and Priests.

"We acknowledge that they can make vice virtue, and virtue vice, according to their pleasure. They all fall flat on their faces, beginning the articles in this manner, and speaking to the Host, we acknowledge it according to our great father the Pope's mind. We must all fall down before the great effigy of our Lord God Almighty.
"We all acknowledge the supremacy of the holy Father the Lord God the Pope, and that he is Peter's lawful successor in the Chair.
"We acknowledge that holy Peter has the keys of heaven, and will receive all those who acknowledge his supremacy.
"We are bound to believe no salvation out of our holy Church.
"We are bound to believe that the holy massacre was lawful, and lawfully put into execution, against Protestants, and likewise we are to continue the same, provided with the safety of our lives.
"We are bound to curse, ring the bells, and put out the candles, four times a year against heretics.
"We are bound to believe a heretic can never be saved, unless he is a partaker of that holy sacrament, Extreme Unction.
"We are bound to believe that those who elope from our holy religion, go into the power of the Devil, whom heretics follow.
"We are bound not to keep our oaths with heretics, though bound by the most sacred ties; for say our holy fathers, they have followed damnation, and Luther and Calvin.
"We are bound not to believe their oaths, for their principles are damnation.
"We are bound to drive heretics with fire, sword, faggot and confusion, (out of the land,) as our Fathers say if their heretics prevail we shall become their slaves—O, dear father, keep us from that—(here the holy water is shaken, and they say, Hail Mary, three times.)
"We are bound to absolve, without money or prize those who imbue their hands in the blood of a heretic.
"We are bound to believe that Christ's Vicar, the Lord God the Pope, can absolve all men, heretics excepted, and those given to all clergymen under inspection to do the like.
"We are to believe all the articles our holy religion commands.
"We are bound to believe the Virgin Mary has more power in heaven than any other Angel.
"We are bound to pray to the holy angels, that they pray for us.
"We are bound to believe in the holy cross, holy spittle, holy water, holy earth, holy bones, holy people, and beads, and that they are to be used on certain occasions.
"We are bound to celebrate the holy Mass in Latin, having ourselves clothed in holy vestments and shirt, and bearing the holy cross on our shoulders, signifying we are Christ's.
"We are bound to believe every time Mass is celebrating there is an expiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead.
"We are bound to believe there are four places in Purgatory, viz:—Limbus Infantum, Limbus Patrum, Meadows of Ease, and Purgatory.
"We are bound to believe that Christ was three days in Limbus Patrum, where the souls of the holy fathers go till they get to holy Peter.
"We are bound to believe that the souls of children unbaptized go to Limbus Infantum, until original sin is well paid away by the help of holy Masses said for them.
"We know that the souls of Christians go to Purgatory, and remain there till we pray them out of it, that they may have power to walk the Meadows of Ease with safety, till it pleases holy Peter to open for them, where no heretic shall ever enter.
"We are bound to keep Lent according to our Clergy's pleasure, and to maintain the works of supererogation.
"We acknowledge the Lake in the North to be holy, called Lough Derg.
"We are bound to pray to no other saint on that day, only to whom it is dedicated.
"We must baptize bells, consecrate chapels; and no man enter the holy office of Priest only he who is known to be a man.
"We maintain seven sacraments essential to salvation, viz: Baptism, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, Confirmation, and Matrimony.
"We maintain that we can transubstantiate the bread and wine into the real body and blood of Christ.
"We believe that heretics eat their kind of sacrament to their eternal damnation.
"We believe that Christ is everywhere, but particularly in our Church.
"We maintain that we cannot marry any heretic woman, without being in danger of judgment.
"We maintain that heretics know neither the will of the Prophets nor of Christ.
"We maintain and acknowledge that the Rosary of Saint Bridget is to be said once a week.
"And lastly, that our holy church can never err. I shall also add to these the second article of the Romish Church.

"I believe in a multitude of intercessors and mediators between God and man, such as the holy martyrs of Old; the saints of the Church of Rome; the Angels and Archangels, but more especially our Lord Jesus Christ and his mother the Virgin Mary, the queen of heaven. I believe that I am bound to honor the saints, pray to them, and venerate their images, and bow to them; but more particularly to invoke most fervently the Virgin Mary, to whom are due glory and honor for evermore."