Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/415

 Oe. XIII.] mM-gsxcse. 4 what they called a p/dmsry remission of' all the gempermr pains and pe- aalties which the church had annexed to certain transgressions. They went still farther; and not only remitted the penalties which the civil and ecclesiastical law8 had enacted against transgressors, but anda- cionsly usurped the authority which belongs to Cod alone, and im- piously pretended to abolish even the punishments which are reserved in a future state for the workers of iniquity; a step this which the bishops, with all their avarice and presumption, had never once ven- tured to take." Our author here refers in a note to Morinus, Mabillon, &c., Catholic writers, "not to speak of the Protestant writers," says he, "whom I designedly pass over. "The pontiffs first employed this pretended prerogative in promoting the holy war, and shed abroad their in&dKences, though with a certain degree of moderation, in order to encourage the European princes to form new expeditious for the conquest of Palestine; but in process of time the charm of indulgences was practised on various occasions of much less consequence, and merely with a view to filthy lucre. Their introduction, amoug other things, destroyed the credit and authority of the ancient noical and cb.astical discipline of penance, and occa- sisned the removal and suppression of the penitentials, by which the reins were let loose to every kind of vice. Such proceedings stood much in need f a plausible defence, but this was impossible. To justify, therefore, these scandalous measures of the pontiffs, a most mon- strous and absurd doctrine was now invented by St. Thomas, in' the following century, (the thirteenth,) and which contained, among others, the following enormities: ' That there actually existed an immense treasure of nn'/t, composed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints had performed beyond wast was necessary for their own salvation, and which were therefore applicable to the benefit of others; that the guardian and dispenser of this precious treasure was the Roman pontiff; and that of consequence he was empowered to assign to such as he thought proper a tMrtion of this inexhaustible source of mr/t, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes.' It is a most deplorable mark of the power of superstition that a doctrine, so absurd in its nature, and so pernicious in its effects, should yet be retained and defended by the Church of Rome." The foundation stone of indulgences was laid by Clement VI., in his bull Unigenitu, de lnitentii et ron/ssiondms, A.D. 1350. This constitution was published fifty years after the first jubilee, and was a new device to bring in customers to Rome at the second jubilee. But it had not yet passed into a Catholic doctrine, for it was disputed against by Franciscus de Majorinis, and Durandus, not long before this hull. The opinion was not formed into a doctrine till the stirs in Ocrmany eoncerniag indulgences made Leo X. set his theologians to work, in order to study the point and form it into a proper shape. Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, and Austin say nothing of indulgences. It i8 strange that if this power of giving indulgences, to take off the punish- ment reserved by God after the sin is pardoned, were given by (hrist to the church, that none of the ancient doctors should know any  concerning it. But it was a doctrine wholly unknown to the church for about one thousand two hundred years after Christ; and Cardinal 1

�