Page:The spiritual venality of Rome.djvu/39

16 missariia ; et tacitig nomine et cognomine, solum expressis cjualitate delicti^ aut deliiicjuen- tis £etcaltatiba8, de taxa cum eis deliberare ac aliis eis imponendis penitentiis.* The historians of the Refonnation most generally be referred to for documents — of the unlimited but obscure claims of the Pope respecting the power of pardon and indulgence^ of absolution from the guilt (culpa) as well as punishment (poena) of sin, with conditions, all easily dispensed with, except the pecuniary onef— of yarious forms of Indulgence, high- souudiug and enigmatic, as usual^ and admit- ting of being avowed or disavowed at pleasure and according to circumstauces4 iliese two See particularly the Diploma of Leo X. to Cajotan, dated Cal. Jan. 1518, in Gerdesii, &c. ut supra, Numb. xiii. Collet, Traits dea Indulgences, torn. i. p. 25, is puzzled to explain the culpa, which he endeavours to confound with pcrna, although they are always carefully enough distiiiLaiihhcd in the pontihcal documents. This is likewise the predicament of another very able Frenchman, J. P. Thiers, Dr. en.Theol. Tnutti dea Super- stitions, iv. pp. 196, &c. It is fetrange that defenders of the blasphemous form should be reduced to apologize for it by ad- mitting that it is not properly true — not properly true, that a aiim, pope or not, can remit the guilt as well a.s iha punishmetU of sin ! Might not any lie be justified on the same plea? See likewise on this nice point, Morini Comm. Hist de Pcmitentia, lib. X, cap. xxii. pp. 775—8. t See Gkrdetii, &c. ibid. Numb, vii.; Taxse, l^DaMont» pp. 113» ImliilgeiiMs for thooiinds of ycen aze firand
 * The punctiiatioa has been vecUfied a little.