put-to his helping hand. But tell me,' saith he, 'how many years' indulgence wouldest thou have?' He answered, 'I will that whosoever comes to this church, confessed and contrite and absolved by the priest, as he ought, that he be absolved from fault and punishment from the day of his baptism, unto the day and hour of his entering into the church aforesaid; and I ask it in the behalf of Christ, who sent me to thee.' The pope said three times publicly, It pleaseth me that thou have it.' So blessed Francis bowed his head, and went out: which when the pope saw, he called, 'O simpleton, whither goest thou? What dost thou carry away of this indulgence?' Francis answered, 'Your word is enough; I will have no other instrument. Let blessed Mary be the paper; Christ, the notary; and angels, the witnesses,' ," &c.* Miracles are related by the dozen to confirm this indulgence; I will mention but one: Upon the day of indulgence, (the first of August,) brother Corradus saw the blessed Virgin with her child in her arms; and the sweet babe† did without intermission, with his own hands, bless all the people that were, out of devotion, present, and imparted to them his grace." Well, you see here both fault and punishment pardoned by indulgences; and yet indulgences can only pardon the punishment: reconcile these.

(5.) A fifth (and the last) thing [that] I shall name, of what is fruitful of contradictions, is, the kind of punishments that are pardoned by indulgences.-Bellarmine saith, "They are neither natural, nor those that are inflicted by any contentious court, whether civil or ecclesiastical."

If this be so, then there is nothing forgiven; for what sufferings more are there to be pardoned, but those that are natural or imposed? If any more were due for sins, without doubt God would inflict them upon the damned: But God inflicts no other upon them: Therefore, &c. But Bellarmine tells us, they are those punishments that are inflicted in the penitentiary court, which we voluntarily fulfil, to which we are no way compelled but by the fear of God and the stingings of our conscience. Pray, who gives the priest power to inflict any punishment upon those whose sins are pardoned? But if we are bound in conscience and in the fear of God to perform them, how dare the pope release them? But pray, let us again consider, what are the punishments usually inflicted. They are prayers and alms and fasting. Must not that be a famous church, think you, where fasting and prayer are punishments, and, as it were, laid in the balance with the pains of purgatory; which pains are as grievous as the torments of hell, bating the duration? Let them never boast more of their devotion or charity: they are with them penalties, with us privileges. We are so far from giving any thing to be excused these duties, that we would not be hired out of the performance of them. Should any of our ministers but preach such dispensations, we should account them the devil's apostles, "deceitful workers." (2 Cor. xi. 13.) What? teach men how to sell themselves to work wickedness, and then how to purchase heaven with their wages of unrighteousness! "O my soul, enter not into their secret." But, in short, we understand neither

Liber Confor. Vita B. et seraph. Pat. Francisci ad Vitam I. C. D. N., pp. 198, 199, impress. Bonon. 1590, Theses Salmuriensis, pars ii.

n. 11, &c. p. 77.

+ Is he a child still?

the grammar nor the divinity of pardoning, of repentance, who think there is nothing but sin or punishment that needs a pardon.*

And thus I have showed you some of their contradictions. The next thing [which] I promised to speak-to was their cheats and I may well be briefer here; for what is all that hath been spoken of, but a grand cheat?

4. The cheats of indulgences will be notorious.-Bring them but forth into the light, and every one may discern them. I need produce but a pattern; for they are all of a piece.

How shall a man be sure [that] he is not cheated of his money, when He cannot know what he buys? And how can a man know what he buys, when they are not agreed among themselves what they sell? For instance: they are not yet agreed, whether an indulgence be a judiciary absolution, or a payment of the debt by way of compensation of punishment out of the treasury, or both.† (I may add, "or neither," ere I have done with this particular.) Could they get over this, here is another difficulty in the way; namely, What bond is loosed by indulgence? that is, What sins, what punishments, are we any way freed from? Though Bellarmine (as you have heard) say, "Without doubt the popes had respect to the worst of men ; yet he himself elsewhere saith, "That we are neither absolved nor solved from the guilt of any fault, whether mortal or venial, by indulgences." Among several reasons given, I will name but one: "As a dead member receives not influence from the other members of the body that are living, so he that is in mortal sin is as a dead member, and receives not indulgence from the merits of living members."§ I know, Bellarmine saith, "The saints cannot merit for others; but they may satisfy for others; there being in the actions of the righteous a double value; namely, of merit and satisfaction." (Though the distinction is every way a nullity, there being neither merit nor satisfaction: but let that pass for the present.) "Without controversy," saith he, one man's merit cannot be applied to another." || Yet, by his favour, Hadrian, though he speaks less than Bellarmine in other things, he speaks more in this; for he saith, "He that is in mortal sin himself, may merit for another," &c.¶ He calls paying for the indulgence, "meriting of it:" and, I think, well he may; for his money is well worth it. I might add, they are not yet agreed what is meant by "a year's pardon; " whether three hundred and sixty days of penance, or only all the fasting-days in the year. ** If the former, what is meant by that usual clause in indulgences, "For so many years, and so many quarantines," or forty days of penance beside those that are contained in the general account of the year? They are not yet agreed about the value and efficacy of indulgences; whether they are worth what they pretend, or not. Some do not stick to say, [that] their holy father may do by his children as a mother by hers; that promiseth her child an apple, if he will do such a thing; but when he hath done it, she doth not give it. Neither are they yet agreed, whether they may not be

⚫ CHAMIERI Panstratia, tom. iii. lib. xxiv. cap. xv. sect. 15. Indulg. lib. i. cap. v. p. 19. Idem, cap. vii. p. 21. § tom. i. p. 1146. BELLARMINUS De Indulg. lib. i. cap. 2. Quæst. de Sacram. in quartum Librum Sentent. fol. 163.

+ BELLARMINUS De

RAYNERII Pantheologia,

THADRIANI VI.

Idem, fol. 162.

effectual, though the condition of them be not performed.

But why do I inquire into those things that will not bear a scrutiny? I have said enough to evidence that neither seller nor buyer understand the ware of their market; and these two things more may be enough to prove them a cheat :

دو

(1.) When Bellarmine saith [that] they are all agreed that an indulgence is not valid, unless the cause be just; and he names several things [which] must concur to make it just; but concludes, "It belongs not to the pope's subjects to judge whether the cause be just or unjust; they ought simply to account it just ; and instanceth, how the pope may grant the greatest indulgences upon the lightest cause: for example : when a plenary indulgence is granted to all those that stand before the doors of St. Peter's church, while the pope upon Easter-day solemnly blesseth the people: * we count this condition ridiculous. "O no,"

saith he elsewhere; 66 they thereby show their obedience to the pope." Is that it? Mark this, I pray you: by this doctrine, a man may live in disobedience and rebellion against God all his days, and at last so far obey the pope as to go [to] see a fine show, without parting with any one sin; and he shall be saved. Who but those that are given up to strong delusion, to believe a lie," can believe this? (2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.)

(2.) Neither those that grant, nor those that receive, nor those that plead for, indulgences, dare themselves trust to them. Witness the solemn services performed for them after their death; yea, for the pope himself. Now those that plead for the validity of plenary indulgences, when they are asked, "What need then of funeral obsequies?" they answer, "Some sins may be forgotten," &c. What? and yet the deceased hath had their "full," their "plenary," and their "most full" indulgences! What these mean, take from one of their infallible oracles, Hadrian VI., in his book that was printed at Rome in the very time of his papacy and so this is as it were out of the chair. He tells us, that a full indulgence respects penance enjoined for mortal sins; a plenary indulgence respects penance enjoined for mortal and venial sins; and a most full indulgence respects the penance that might have been enjoined for mortal and venial sins.† Tolet, almost a hundred years after, gives us a little more light into that gradation of indulgences; and tells us that a full indulgence respects the remission of the punishment enjoined ; a fuller indulgence respects that punishment that might have been enjoined according to the canons; the fullest respects that punishment which may be required by the divine judgment.‡ Now, then, if indulgences pardon all manner of sins, mortal and venial, all manner of repentance that God or man can require, and all manner of punishment that God or man can inflict; and yet those that receive these indulgences, when they are dead, need the same means for pardon that those do that never had any indulgences; doth not this evidence that the chief patrons of indulgences do in their own consciences believe them to be a cheat? I shall next show you how they are injurious to Christ.

5. Indulgences are injurious to Christ.-And, which is to me consider• BELLARMINUS De Indulg. lib. i. cap. 12, pp. 28, 29.

fol. 163.

TOLETI Instruc. Sacerd. lib. vi. cap. 24, p. 676.

+ HADRIANUS, ibid.

:

able, they are most injurious to Christ where they seem most to honour him what they speak of Christ with the greatest reverence, is, at the bottom, full of falsehood, injustice, and blasphemy. For instance: they say, "One drop of the blood of Christ was enough to redeem the world." "Doth not this assertion put an inestimable value upon the blood of Christ?" Examine it a little; and you will find that, Judas-like, they betray him with a kiss. For,

(1.) This takes away the necessity of Christ's death, which the scripture doth so often inculcate.* What need the Son of God undergo such a painful, ignominious, and cursed a death, if one drop of his blood was sufficient? How can we believe that the Father, who delighteth not in the death of a sinner, would delight in the cruel and cursed death of his most innocent, only-begotten Son, if it were not necessary for our redemption? Can we think that God, who will not punish his damned enemies beyond what they deserve, would exact a punishment of his Son so much more than there was need? Is the death of Christ superfluous? I dare not say of the Captain of our Salvation, as David said of the captain of the host of Israel: "Died Abner as a fool dieth?" (2 Sam. iii. 33.) No; death was the debt; and such a death must be the payment as may pay the debt; and that by the sinner, or (through grace) by his Surety.

To

(2.) If one drop of the blood of Christ be sufficient, and all the rest to be laid up in treasury, and the satisfactions of saints likewise added; then there needs more to redeem us from temporal punishments than from eternal wrath, and Christ is not a complete Saviour: than which nothing is more absurd in itself, or more reproachful to Christ. prove this, it is easy to multiply scriptures; but, to produce their own. authors, at present I will name but one,† who expressly tells us that "it is only Christ, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, that can with plenary authority grant all manner of indulgence from fault and punishment and it is Christ alone that can grant so many thousand thousand years of pardon as we find in some popes' grants; for no temporal punishment can endure the thousandth part of that time."

6. Indulgences are abominably injurious to souls.-They came in upon the declining of piety, and they are the product of the later and worse times. The plain truth is, indulgences do in the nature of the thing promote wickedness; for it is only wicked men that need indulgences. Those that they account saints, do so much more than they need, that their superfluous good works constitute a treasury for others. Surely, then, we may reckon, that their middling sort, though they have no satisfactions to spare, yet they have so many [that] they need not be beholden to others: so that it is only the worst of men that need indulgence. And what can "more oblige them to redouble their crimes and misdemeanours, to abandon themselves to all manner of vice and lewdness, than to be sure that all the sins [which] they can commit shall be forgiven them? yea, to have them pardoned beforehand, in having indulgences for sins already committed and to be committed, with this express

• Theses Salmurienses, pars ii. p. 71, &c. Indulg. viii. consid. 5, fol. 191.

lib. xii. cap. viii. p. 655.

† GERSONI Opusc. tom. i. de I FORBESII Instructiones Historico-Theologica,

clause, "Be they never so heinous ?"* Marcus Antonius de Dominis may well say that "indulgences are one of the great secrets of the Papacy; they are famous gold-mines, out of which a great power of gold hath been digged for the apostolical see: but they have utterly banished true repentance from the Popish churches."+ Navarrus goeth further; (if I may credit Peter Du Moulin's quotation of him; ‡ I having not the book by me ;) for although he was the pope's penitentiary, yet, when he writ for indulgences, he could not abstain from saying, "The grant of them is odious; because the collectors seek not the good of souls, but the profit of money," &c. In short: what wicked man is there that gives any credit to their doctrine of indulgences, but will gratify his lusts; that he may have the pleasures of both worlds? For, according to that doctrine, "There are none but fools and friendless can miss of heaven."

But enough, enough, and more than enough, of this mischievous doctrine.

IV. Let us therefore, in the last place, try whether it is possible to make any good use of so bad a doctrine.

USES.

USE 1. Let them henceforth be ashamed of their absurd reproaches of the Reformed churches, as if they were not pure enough or strict enough for them.-What doctrines have we, that the devil himself can charge us with, like theirs of indulgences? Those days are passed with them, wherein it was harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle; (Matt. xix. 24;) for now those need never doubt of salvation. It is for such dull souls as we are, to harp upon such harsh strings as these: "They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him : for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever," &c.: (Psalm xlix. 6-8 :) and that other word of Christ: "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. xvi. 26.) We dare not answer these scriptures with that interpretation of Prov. xiii. 8, [with] which he doth that glosseth upon Gerson in the fore-cited place : "The ransom of a man's life are his riches; " as if a man need do no more but purchase an indulgence, and all is well. We like the apostle's counsel better: "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another; " and that for the very reason which the apostle gives: "For every man shall bear his own burden." (Gal. vi. 4, 5.) We are neither to be proud of being better than others, nor trust to share benefits with those that are better than us. The wise virgins had no oil to spare, when the foolish had their oil to seek. (Matt. xxv. 8, 9.) We bless God that we have a Christ to trust to; and not any that may, like Hermannus, be many years worshipped for a saint, and then his bones dug up and burnt for a heretic, by that very Boniface who

"Review of the Council of Trent," lib. v. cap. 1, p. 250. + De Rep. Eccles. lib. v. cap. viii. n. 13, p. 240. "Novelty of Popery," lib. vii. cap. 2, p. 467.