The eighth article is, that He shall come at the day of judgment to judge the dead and the living, the good and the bad, and render to each according as he hath deserved in this world. These are the articles that belong to the Son. This article St. Matthew, the evangelist, ordained.
The ninth article and the three last belong to the Holy Ghost, and is this: ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost.’ This article requires that one believe that the Holy Ghost is the gift and love of the Father and of the Son, from whom comes all the good of grace, and that He is one God, and one with the Father and the Son, except the person, which is other than the person of the Father and of the Son. This article St. James, St. Simon’s and St. Jude’s brother, ordained.
The tenth article is this: ‘I believe (in) the holy Catholic Church and the communion of saints;’ that is to say, the fellowship of all the saints, and of all the good men that are, and shall be unto the end of the world, and were since the beginning, together in the faith of Jesus Christ. And in this article are understood the seven sacraments that are in holy Church, to wit, christening, confirming, the sacrament of the altar, orders, marriage, the holy shrift, and the last anointing. This article St. Simon ordained.
The eleventh is, to believe the forgiveness of sins, that God gives by the virtue of His holy sacraments that are in holy Church. This article St. Jude ordained.
The twelfth article is, to believe the general resurrection of the body, and the life without end, that is the bliss of Paradise, which God shall give to them that have deserved it by good faith and by good works. This article gives (us) to understand its contrary, that is, the torment without end that God hath prepared for the lost. This article shall be understood in such a manner, that each, be he good, be he bad, shall be at the day of judgment raised from death to life in his own body, wherein he shall have [lived], and receive his reward in body and in soul, according as he has deserved in this life. And therefore shall the good at that day in body and in soul be in life without end, and the wicked lost evermore in body and in soul. This article St. Matthew ordained.
OF THE REVELATION THAT ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST SAW.
My lord, St. John, in the book of his visions, which is called the Apocalypse, so says that he saw a beast that came out of the sea wonderfully adorned and exceedingly dreadful. For the body of the beast was as a leopard, the feet were of a bear, the throat of a lion, and it had seven heads and ten horns, and upon the ten horns ten crowns; and St. John saw that the same evil beast had power of himself to fight with the saints, and to overcome and to overmaster them. This same beast, so wonderful and so counterfeited and dreadful, betokens the devil, who came out of the sea of hell, which is full of all sorrow and of all bitterness. The body of the beast, as St. John says, was so like the leopard because, as the leopard hath divers colours, so hath the devil divers modes of watching and of dispute, in order to beguile and to tempt folk. The feet were like the feet of a bear, for as the bear, which hath its strength in its feet and in its arms, holds strongly and binds what it hath under its feet, what it embraces, just so does the devil them that he hath embraced and overthrown by sin. The throat was of a lion, because of his great cruelty, that will devour all.
THE TOKENS OF THE HEADS OF THE BEASTS.
The seven heads of the beast of hell are the seven capital sins by which the devil draws to himself also all the world. For scarcely it befalls that one falls not into the throat of some of the seven heads, and therefore St. John says well that it had power against the saints. For on earth is no man so holy that he can perfectly escape all the kinds of sin that come of these seven heads without special privilege of grace, as it was in the maid Mary, or in some others by special grace, which they had of God. The ten horns of the beast betoken the offences against the ten behests of our Lord, which the devil obtains, as much as he can, by the seven aforesaid sins. The ten crowns above betoken the victory that it (he) hath over all the sinful, because he causes them to sin against the ten behests.