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XIX.-ROMISH DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES.

THE PARDON OF SIN; PURGATORY; AND INDULGENCES.

A FEW Subjects yet remain, which demand a careful and patient investigation. One of these is the Pardon of Sin, as preached by the church of Rome; with its two branches, Purgatory and Indulgences. Let us devote a few moments to a serious consideration of these doctrines.

In bringing the mind to these topics, it will be impossible to forget that remarkable circumstance, which stands recorded as giving rise to the Reformation. There is no reason to suppose that in other respects it differed from the usual practice of the Romish see; but as having caused so great a revolution in the state of the visible church, it will ever remain peculiarly distinguished in the page of history.

In the year A. D. 1514, and even under the direction of one of the most acute and intelligent of all the popes, began that particular issue of indulgences, for money, which raised the indignation of Martin Luther, and brought on, ultimately, the Reformation in Germany. Leo X. professed to need funds for the erection of St. Peter's, and for carrying on a war with the Turks. For these ends he issued the papal briefs, proclaiming a general indulgence to all who would purchase it, and immediately the agents and salesmen of these paper-pardons began to publish and offer them for sale throughout Europe. "The money," says Bower, "went to neither purpose, but was lavished in gratifying the luxury of the court of Rome and its dependents." The sale of these indulgences in Saxony, and the produce of such sale, were given

to the pope's sister Magdalen, who employed as her agents, Tetzel, a Dominican monk, of notoriously immoral habits. The form of pardon published by Tetzel, ran thus,-" May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon thee, and absolve thee by his most holy passion; and I, by his authority, and that of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of the most holy pope, granted and committed to me in these parts, do absolve thee; first, from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they have been incurred; and, then, from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they may be; even from such as are reserved for the cognizance of the holy see; and as far as the keys of the holy church extend, I remit to you all punishment which you deserve in purgatory on their account, and I restore you to the holy sacraments of the church, to the unity of the faithful, and to that innocence and purity which you possessed at baptism; so that, when you die, the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of the paradise of delight shall be opened; and if you shall not die at present, this grace shall remain in full force when you are at the point of death. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And his harangues, in pushing the sale of these things, are thus described by Lonicerus: "He impudently preaches up the pope's dignity and power, and the virtue and efficacy of indulgences, bawling out, that there could be no wickedness committed so great, but that might thereby be forgiven; and that those souls which are tormented in purgatory, as soon as the money was flung into the basin, skipped for joy, and, being released from their pains, flew right to heaven."*

Such was the doctrine, such the practice of the church of Rome, as to the pardon of sin, up to the very moment of the Reformation. Now, however, in the broad face of day, and in countries like this, rejoicing in the free circulation of the word of God, and an open proclamation of pardon by the blood of Christ

*Theatr. Histor. fo. 241.

alone, these monstrous follies and frauds no longer venture to show themselves. The greatest care and ingenuity is used to cloak and cover the doctrine preached; but still that doctrine is essentially the same as in the days when Leo and Tetzel carried it to its full and legitimate results. Let us now see in what cautious and insidious phrases it is cloaked and covered by Dr. Wiseman. The following are his words:

"The Catholic church teaches, that Christ did establish on earth a means whereby forgiveness should be imparted to wretched sinners;—whereby, on the performance of certain acts, all who have offended God may obtain authoritative forgiveness." "The Catho

lic church believes that the institution thus left by our Saviour was the sacrament of penance."'*

"Sin is forgiven by a sacrament instituted by Christ for that purpose, for which the power of pronouncing judicial sentence of remission was communicated to the pastors of the church.t"

"We believe that upon this forgiveness of sins, that is, after the remission of that eternal debt, which God in his justice awards to transgressions against his law, he has been pleased to reserve a certain degree of inferior or temporary punishment, appropriate to the guilt which had been incurred; and it is on this part of the punishment alone, that according to the Catholic doctrine satisfaction can be made to God."

"The doctrine of purgatory follows as a consequence or corollary from that of which I have just treated; so much so, that the Catholic doctrine of satisfaction would be incomplete without it. The idea that God requires satisfaction, and will punish sin, would not go to its fullest and necessary consequence, if we did not believe that the sinner may be so punished in another world, as not to be wholly and eternally cast away from God."S

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Prayer for the dead is essentially based on the

*Wiseman's Tenth Lecture, p. 8, 9.

+ Wiseman's Eleventh Lecture, p. 41.

+ Ibid, p. 41.

§ Ibid. p. 52.

belief in purgatory, and the principles of both are consequently intimately connected together. Why does the Catholic pray for his departed friend, but that he fears, lest not having died in so pure a state as to have been immediately admitted to the sight of God, he may be enduring that punishment which God has awarded after the forgiveness of his sins; and believes, that, through the intercession of his brethren, he may be released from the distressing situation."*

"What then is an indulgence? It is no more than a remission by the church, in virtue of the keys, or the judicial authority committed to her, of a portion, or the entire, of the temporal punishment due to sin. The infinite merits of Christ form the fund whence this remission is derived; but besides, the church holds, that, by the communion of saints, penitential works performed by the just, beyond what their own sins might exact, are available to other members of Christ's body."

"It is evident that if the temporal punishment reserved to sin, was anciently believed to be remitted through the penitential acts which the sinner assumed, any other substitute for them, that the authority imposing or recommending them, received as an equivalent, must have been considered by it truly of equal value, and as acceptable before God. And so it must be now. If the duty of exacting such satisfaction devolves upon the church, and it must be the same now as it formerly was,-she necessarily possesses at present the same power of substitution, with the same efficacy, and consequently, with the same effects. And such a substitution is what constitutes all that Catholics understand by the name of an indulgence."+

Such then, is the present version of this doctrine, as polished and trimmed and set off to the best advantage, so as to win, if it were possible, even the

*Wiseman's Eleventh Lecture, p. 54.

+ Wiseman's Twelfth Lecture, p. 71, 72.

affections of intelligent Protestants. Two remarks may be made, in the first place, and we will then pass on to the closer consideration of the opposing views of Protestantism and Popery in this matter.

The first remark is, that an important variation is apparent between the doctrine preached by Tetzel, in A. D. 1516, and that avowed by Dr. Wiseman in 1836. Tetzel says, "By the authority of Christ, and of the blessed apostle Peter and Paul, and of the most holy Pope, I absolve thee from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they may be." Dr. W. says, "An indulgence is nothing more than a remission by the church of a portion, or the whole, of the temporal punishment due to sin." This is another proof, if any were needed, of the pliability with which this infallible and unchangeable church adapts her demands to the degree of credulity upon which she can venture to calculate.

The second point which seems to call for observation, is the utter want of Scripture authority for the whole of this system. Here is "a sacrament of penance." Where, in the whole Bible, do we find a single word of, or even an allusion to, any such "sacrament?" The text, John xx. 23, is adduced:--- "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” But the true and the false application of this passage is sufficiently apparent. Peter retained the sins of Ananias and Sapphira, and remitted those of Cornelius. When any other minister can show the like signs of divine authority, we will believe as readily in the certainty of a remission granted by him. But when those who call themselves "the successors of St. Peter," declare that the sins of Cranmer, Ridley, and all the martyrs are retained, we know of a truth that they speak falsely, and that what they retain is not retained.

Several texts are adduced, indeed, to prove that God chastises his children for their sins, even when he intends not to take away his love from them;but no Protestant questions this. The Popish infer