The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-10 00:00:00

The year of Jo'

of Schools

B. Riching, vicar

v, Fleet-street

t strongly, this

A schools. It is

t knowing why

catechism,

I doctrines are
;hoot one word

twenty-five

swer questions

Protestant.

ke, by rote

was in

n up a noble

gences

,chool in

)otii private and

xcellent little

Tent and the al

I yet shortness, simpli-

ley, Church-street, Li-

a sporting phrase—'

bout break or pause

his reucontre with a P. P.,
arbour. H

to which allusion is made in the pat.
just cited, owes its institution to Pope Boniface VIII.,
so of the most ambitious and aspiring of the Roman pon-
fl's. This bold assertor of pontifical powers and privileges
i the year 1300 published a bull, by which he proclaimed
?at " all who should at that time, or thenceforth, make a
pilgrimage to Rome, which should take place every hundred
years, should there receive a plenary indulgence." Upon
this, says Terse D'Aubigne, " multitudes flocked from all
parts of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, France, Spain, Ger-
many, Hungary, and other quarters. Old men of sixty and
seventy set out on their pilgrimage ; and it is computed that
two hundred thousand persons visited Rome in one month.
All these foreigners brought with them rich offerings, and
the popes and the Romans saw their coffers replenished.
The avarice of the pontiffs soon fixed this jubilee at intervals
of fifty years ; afterwards at thirty-three years ; and lastly
Then, for the greater convenience of pur-

chasers, and to increase the profit of the vendors, they trans-
-,•ed both the jubilee and its indulgences from Rome to the
t-places of all the nations of Christendom. It was no
longer necessary to abandon one's home ; what others had
indirect been obliged to seek beyond the Alps, each might now ob-
ful master, and tain at his own door."

But Burnett and D'Aubigne are Protestants. Let us
appeal to some Romish testimonies with respect to indul-

The Douay Catechism is very cautious in its definition of
an indulgence. It describes it as " a releasing of temporal
punishment due to such sins as are already forgiven us by the
sacrament of penance."

Another catechism, the title of which is "A. Catechism

for the use of all the' Chhrches in the French empire, to

which are prefixed the Pope's bull and the Archbishop's
mandamus," is rather more copious in its exposition of the
doctrine of indulgences. We extract from it a few queries
and replies.
`` Qu. What does faith teach us concerning indulgences ?

—Ans. That the church has received from J;sus Christ the
power of granting them, and that the use of them is very sa-
lutary to Christians. _

" 4u. Of what ;ise are indulgences?—Ans. They are of
much use to us in every way ; since we have always reason
to believe that we are very far from having satisfied according
to our obligations.

" Qu. What follows from hence ?—That we should be our
own enemies, if we had not recourse to the graces and indul-
gences of the church.
" Qu. On what are indulgences founded ?

'—Ans. On the

satisfaction of Jesus Christ and the saints.
"Why do you add the satisfaction of the saints to that of
Jesus Christ?—Ans. Because of the goodness of God, who
is willing on behalf of his most pious servants, to forgive
others.
" Qu. Who has a right to give indulgences?—Ans. The
pope in the whole church, and the bishops in their dioceses,
with the limitations appointed by the church."
Still more largely, if not more satisfactorily, is the doctrine
of indulgences expounded in other Romish documents. In
a " treatise on indulgences, printed in English, Anno 1617,
and said to be translated out of Italian, for the benefit of all
catholic people," an indulgence is thus defined. "An in-
dulgence, as it is ordinarily taken in the catholic church, is
a remission or forgiveness of sins, either in part or in whole ;
yet not of the mortal crime or guilt itself, (which is remitted
otherwise, in the sacrament of penance,) but of the pain,
(not eternal, but temporal,) due unto man for his sins, after
they be forgiven by sacramental confession, which forgive-
ness does spring and flow from the infinite merit and super-
abundant satisfaction of Christ, and of the blessed virgin his
mother, and of other holy saints and martyrs, which is depo-
sited as a common treasure ; and thereof the church, i.e.,
the pope, bath the disposal, and so may at his pleasure be-
stow so much out of the same to any person as shall discharge,
in full or in part, (as he thinks fit,) the punishment due to
his offences, and which he must have suffered in purgatory."
But what say the " masters in Israel"—the greater au-
thorities of the Roman Church ?
The celebrated Cardinal Bellarmine thus defines an indul-
gence—" An indulgence is properly a judicial absolution,
having annexed thereunto a payment and satisfaction made
out of the treasure of the church."
St. Thomas Aquinas, who is regarded as one of the pil-
lars of the Roman Church—sometimes extolled as the "sera-

p zw, sometimes eulogised as the "angelic" doctor—says,
"There actually exists an immense treasure of merit, com-
posed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the
saints have performed beyond what is necessary for their own
salvation, and which are, therefore, applicable to the benefit
of others. The guardian and dispenser of this precious trea-
sure is the Roman pontiff, and, of consequence, he is em-
powered to assign to such as he thinks proper, a portion of
this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their respective
guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due
to their sins."
Leo the Xth—a memorable name in the history ofindul-

gences—thus explains the doctrine—" The Roman Church,
whom other churches are bound to obey as their mother,
hath taught that the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter
in regard of the keys, and the vicar of Jesus Christ upon
earth, possessing the power of the keys, by which power all
hindrances are removed out of the way of the faithful—that
is to say, the guilt of actual sins by the sacrament of penance
—and the temporal punishment due for those sins, according
to the divine justice ; that the Roman pontiff may, for rea-
sonable causes, by his apostolic authority, grant indulgences,
out of the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints, to
the faithful, who are united to Christ by charity, as well for
the living as the dead ; and that, in thus dispensing the
of the merits of Jesus Christ and the saints, he