XXIV.
Christ Our Only Advocate
The confession asserts that Christ is the sole mediator and that all human inventions regarding saintly intercession or self-redemption detract from His finished work.
XXIV. We believe, since Jesus Christ is given to us as our only advocate, and that he commands us to approach his Father freely in his name, and even that it is not lawful for us to pray except by following the form God has dictated to us by his Word, that everything men have imagined about the intercession of the departed Saints is nothing but an abuse and a deception of Satan, to lead men astray from the form of praying well.1 We also reject all other means that men presume to have for redeeming themselves before God, as detracting from the sacrifice of the death and passion of Jesus Christ.
Freedom from Human Inventions
The church rejects purgatory and various religious traditions that attempt to merit grace, identifying them as human inventions that burden the conscience.
Finally, we hold purgatory to be an illusion that has come from this same shop, from which have also come monastic vows, pilgrimages, prohibitions of marriage and of the use of meats, the ceremonial observance of days, auricular confession, indulgences, and all other such things by which people think they merit grace and salvation.✦✦23 We reject these things not only because of the false belief in merit attached to them, but also because they are human inventions that impose a yoke on consciences.✦✦✦
Read the original French
XXIV. Nous croyons, puisque Jésus-Christ nous est donné pour seul avocat, et qu’il nous commande de nous retirer privément en son nom vers son Père; et même qu’il ne nous est pas licite de prier, sinon en suivant la forme que Dieu nous a dictée par sa Parole; que tout ce que les hommes ont imaginé de l’intercession des Saints trépassés, n’est qu’abus et fallace de Satan, pour faire dévoyer les hommes de la forme de bien prier. Nous rejetons aussi tous autres moyens que les hommes présument avoir pour se racheter envers Dieu, comme dérogeants au sacrifice de la mort et passion de Jésus-Christ.
Finalement, nous tenons le purgatoire pour une illusion procédée de cette même boutique, de laquelle sont aussi procédés les vœux monastiques, pélerinages, défenses du mariage, et de l’usage des viandes, l’observation cérémonielle des jours la confession auriculaire, les indulgences et toutes autres telles choses, par lesquelles on pense mériter grâce et salut. Lesquelles choses nous rejetons, non-seulement pour la fausse opinion du mérite qui y est attaché, mais aussi parce que ce sont des inventions humaines, qui imposent joug aux consciences.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Tim.4.3 — who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
- ↩Col.2.16 — Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
- ↩Acts.15.10 — Now then, why are you testing God by placing a yoke on the necks of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
- ↩Gal.5.1 — For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not again be subject to a yoke of slavery.
- ↩Col.2.22 — which are all destined to perish with use, according to the commandments and teachings of men.
Notes
- 1 ↩Privément can mean privately or freely and familiarly. The context concerns access to the Father through Christ; the translation chooses freely to express that access, without excluding the word’s private or familiar senses.
- 2 ↩French boutique is a shop or workshop; here it is a polemical image pointing back to Satan, named earlier in this same article.
- 3 ↩The source has no comma between the ceremonial observance of days and auricular confession; both are clearly items in the same list and are punctuated as such in English.
French Confession of Faith (Confession de La Rochelle / Gallican Confession) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit