From the Treatise on the Creed, addressed to Catechumens

Ye are as yet the unborn offspring of a great Mother. Our holy Mother the Church hath by the most sacred Sign of the Cross received you into her womb; and from thence she is now about to bring you forth, a she hath already spiritually brought forth your brethren, with great joy. But until, through the washing of regeneration, she bringeth you forth into the true light, she feedeth you in her womb with such food as becometh your condition, and so in joy matureth her children for the glad moment of her delivery. For this your Mother is not doomed, by the sentence of Eve, to bring forth children in sorrow; which children themselves oftentimes come forth weeping rather than rejoicing. Rather doth your spiritual Mother annul the sentence of your earthly mother: Eve, by disobedience endowed her offspring with death; the Church by obedience, giveth them newness of life. All the mystic prayers and ceremonies which have been and are still being performed over you by the ministry of the servants of God, (the exorcisms, the prayers, the spiritual canticles, the breathings upon, the wearing of haircloth, the prostrations the baring of the feet, the dread which must come over you, even though there is nothing to fear, ) all these things, I say unto you, are the nourishment which ye are drawing from your Mother while as yet ye are in her womb, that at your baptismal birth she may be able to present you strong and laughing babes unto Christ.

Ye have also received the creed, which protecteth your travailing Mother against the venom of the dragon. In the Apocalypse of the Apostle John it is written: And the dragon stood before the Woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as it was born. That this dragon is the devil ye all know. Ye likewise know that by the Woman is signified the Virgin Mary, who, herself a Virgin, bore our Virgin-Head, and who is revelaed unto us as a type of the Holy Church; for even as Mary bore a Son and yet remained a Virgin, so the Church doth in all times give birth to her members, and yet is ever presented a chaste virgin to Christ. I have undertaken with God's help, to expound to you every clause of the Creed, so as to instil what each containeth into your minds. Your hearts also are ready, for the enemy hath been driven out of your hearts.

Ye have made profession of renouncing the enemy. At the moment of that profession it was not before men only, but in the presence of God and his Angels that ye said: I do renounce him. Renounce him, not only in your words, butin your ways; not only with your lips, but in your works. Know ye well that the wrestling which ye have undertaken is a strife with a crafty, ancient, and inveterate foe. Now that ye have once for all renounced him, let him never again give him the right to bring you into bondage. O Christian, thou wilt be caught and exposed, if thou doest act one thing, and yet professest another; if thou art faithful in name, and makest it to be evident by thy works that thou hast broken the Faith pledged by this promise; if somewhile thou goest into a church to pray, and anon to the theatre to join in applauding obscene representations. What hast thou to do any more with the pomps of the devil, which thou hast renounced?