Page:The spiritual venality of Rome.djvu/31

8 not put in a napkin or hide in a fields but com« mitted to St. Peter» the key-keeper of heaven, and to his successors, his own vicars on earth, to be prudently dispensed to the faithfiil; and, for proper and reasonable causes, at one time for the total, at another for the partial, remis- sion of the temporal punishment dne for sin, as well generally as specially, in conformity with the known will of God, to be mercifully admi- nistered to those who are truly penitent and confess. To the accumulation of which trea- sure the merits of the holy mother of God, ancjL of all the elect, from the first just one to the last, are known to contribute ; of the consump- tion or diminution of which not the least fear need be entertained, as well on account of the infinite merits of Christy before stated, as firom the consideration, that the greater the number of persons attracted to righteousness by the application of it, so much is the amount of the merits increased." By this ingenious hypo- thesis, the same pipe which drains, returns into and replenishes, the reservoir.* The original of the most considerable part of the above is — Quern quidem thesaurum — Wicliff, 1. iv. c. 32. De Indulgentiifl. 1525, or FntxwL 1752..
 * The same view is given in the Dialogi, or Tiialogus, of