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

The year of Ju!Alce, to which alloton Is mule ip the 1141,
sage just cited, owes its institution to Pope Boniface VIII.,
one of the most ambitious and aspiring of the Roman pon-
tiffs. This bold assentor of pontifical powers and privileges
in the year 1300 published a bull, by which he proclaimed
that " all who should at that time, or thenceforth, make a
pap image to Rome, which should take place every hundred
years, should there receive a plenary indulgence." Upon
this. says Merse D'Auhigne, " 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
at twenty-five. Then, for the greater convenience of pur-
chasers, and to increase the profit of the vendors, they trans-
ferred both the jubilee and its indulgences from Rome to the
market-places of all the nations of Christendom. It was no
longer necessary to abandon one's home ; what others had
been obliged to seek beyond the Alps, each might now ob-
tain at his own door."
But Burnett and D'..kubigne are Protestants. Let us
appeal to some Romish testimonies with respect to indul-
gences.
The Douay Catechism is very cautious in its definition of
an indulgence. It describes it as " a releasing of temporal
purishment 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 Churches 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 Jesus Christ the
power of granting them, and that the use of them is very sa-
lutary to Christians.
" Qu. Of what use 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?—Ana. The
pope in the whole church, and the bishops in their dioceses,
with the limitations appointed by the church."
Still more largely, it 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,
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-
phic," 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 of indul-
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
treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ and the saints, he
either confers the indulgence by the method of absolution,
or transfers it by the method of suffrage—wherefore all per-
sons, whether living or dead, who really obtain any indul-
gences of this kind, are delivered from so much temporal pu-
nishment, due according to divine justice for their actual
sins, as is equivalent to the value of the indulgence bestowed
and received."
Let us next hear the Council of Trent—" Since the power
of granting indulgences has been bestowed by Christ upon
his church, and this power, divinely given, has been used
from the earliest antiquity, the holy council teaches and en-
joins that the use of indulgences, so salutary to Christian
people, and approved by the authority of venerable councils,
shall be retained by the church, and it anethamatizes those
who assert that they are useless, or deny that the church has
the power of granting them."
Listen to another pope on the subject. Pope Urban the
Vlllth, in a bull, in which he promised indulgence to the
Irish, as a reward of the meritorious work of exterminating
heretics, (i.e. Protestants,) states that, " having taken into
his serious consideration the great zeal of the Irish towards
thethe.nrquarration of the catholic faith : which kingdom, (for
**lnsular fervency in the true worship of Gio*.l,) was of
old called the land of saints ; and having certain notice that
in imitation of their godly and worthy ancestors, they en-
deavoured by force of arms to deliver their thralled nation
from the oppressions of the heretics, and to extirpate those
workers of iniquity, who had infected the mass of catholic
Purity with the pestiferous leaven of their heretical conta-
gion, by virtue of his power of binding and loosing, which
God hath conferred upon him, to all and every the aforesaid
Christians in the kingdom of Ireland, so long as they should
militate against the said heretics and other enemies of the
catholic faith, be did grant a full and plenary indulgence,
and full remission of all their sins, desiring all of them to be
partakers of this precious treasure. Dated from the Vati-
can, or St. Peter's-palace, in Rome, May 25, 1643, in the
20th year of his pontificate." Under this plenary indulgence
the Papists of Ireland murdered many thousands of their
Protestant neighbours.
To come nearer to our own days. In the present century
Pope Pius the Vllth favoured the people of Cork with a
plenary indulgence " applicable" (as his letter especially
states) "to the souls in purgatory." A bull was issued by
Leo the Xllth, in the year 1825—a year of jubilee—styled,
therefore, by the pope in the bull in question, " the year'of
expiation and pardon, of redemption and grace, of redemp-
tion and indulgence." " During which year of jubilee,"
says his holiness, " we mercifully give and grant in the Lord
a plenary indulgence, remission, and pardon of all their
sins, to all the faithful of Christ of both sexes, truly penitent
and confessing their sins, and receiving the holy communion,
who shall devoutly visit the churches of blessed Peter and
Paul, as also of St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major of
this city," (Rome,) " for thirty successive days." Pope
Leo, in the same bull, calls on all patriarchs, primates, arch-
bishops, and bishops, to rouse their people to the meritorious
undertaking ; adding, "To you it belongs to explain with
perspicuity the power of indulgences ; what is their efficacy,
not only in the remission of the canonical penance, but also
of the temporalpunishment due to the divine justice for past
sin; and what succour is afforded out of the heavenly trea-
sure from the merits of Christ and his saints, to such as have
departed real penitents in God's love, yet before they had
duly satisfied by fruits worthy of penance, for sin of com-
mission and omission, and are now purifying in the fire of
purgatory, that an entrance may be opened unto them into
the eternal country, where nothing defiled is admitted."
Such is the doctrine of indulgences—a doctrine of which
Pope Pius the IVth in his creed (which has ever been re-
garded as an accurate and explicit summary of the Roman
Catholic faith, and to which some of my beloved brethren
and myself are now taking the liberty of appending a few
notes and comments,) makes the affirmation which we are
now considering.
He affirms that the power of indulgences was left by Christ
in the church. We ask, when did Christ do this ? When and
where has he intimated that he has done it? Where are we
to look for the record of the gift? Of what Christ has done
for the church--of what Christ has bestowed on the church—
we know we can know nothing but from the Scriptures ; and
with regard to this power of indulgences, affirmed by Pius to
have been placed by Christ in the church, the Scriptures
preserve a profound silence.
The doctrine of indulgences is indissolubly linked to that
of works of supererogation. It must stand or fall with it.
One single declaration of Christ demolishes that doctrine—
" So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things
which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants :
we have done that which was our duty to you."—Luke,
xvii-10. " That which was our duty to do !"—that—and
Where, then, are works of supererogation '

no more
Gone!

" And, like the ba,

s fabric of a vision,
1-,;,,,4 ~

Let it also be remembered that the holy law of God re-

quires perfect obedience. How, then, can we overpass by
one single step the line of its requirements? How, with
higher than the falcon's flight, are we to soar above perfec-
tion ? Yet this we must do to accomplish works of superero-
gation. What, then, if we have fallen far short of the law's
requirements? What if the " Scriptures have concluded all
under sin ?"—if they testify that " in many things we offend
all ?"—that " all have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God?" Where are the works of supererogation? (Loud
cheers.) . „

V.
The inspired Psalmist declares that " none can by any
means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for
him." The work of Christ is a finished work. "It is
finished !" was his dying exclamation. As the surety of the
church, he " paid the uttermost farthing" of our debt to di-
vine justice. What is the testimony of his word ? " There is,
therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus." (Rom. viii. 1.) "Ye are complete in him." (Col.
ii. 10.) "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them
that are .anctified." (Heb. x. 14.) Thus the Scriptures,
from which alone we can know the mind and will of God,
directly negative the confident assertion of Pius on this head.
Pius affirms, secondly,—That " the use of indulgences is
most Wholesome to all Christian people." Now, if whole-
some, it must he wholesome in one, or both of two ways ;
i either as ministering the medicine of a solid and well grounded
comfort to the soul of a convinced sinner, or as the means of
mi-
nisters to
leading him to "follow after" the "holiness, without which
salutary medlicailar
no man shall
vigour, and see the Lord,"—with greater alacrity, ardour,
asuccess. But what is the comfort which it mi-
peace. A believing
and awakened conscience? Not the
Redeemer, is the
the spurions
medicine
of a genuine and scriptural comfort, but
solid ground of eine, or rather the deadly poison, of a false
nogtew of the finished work of our adorable
scriptural, and, consequently, the only
conraYf
with respect to its ort to an awakened conscience. And,
holiness, is it not evide
wholesomen tendency in the promotion of
can be purchased for t that a notion that " the gift of God
bought from ap • money,"—that
nest, must remission of sin can be
reverse ? (Hear, hear.) have a practical effect the very
Instead of occupying your time
length-
ened and elaborate argument on by any attempt at
plain and obvious to render it in a point which is really too
say, I will bring before you anstthe slightest degree neces-
sary,
Rome in the Nineteenth Centuryatent of the author of
and remission of sins are offered here o" Plenary indulgence
was at first rather startled with the prodigal manner
easY terms. I
full pardon of all transgressions was bestowed-manner in which
consideration of repeating certain pray at Rome in
prayers before the •
of certain saints, or paying a certain sum of mons t e shrine
priests. I was surprised to find scarcely a church "Rrotarnine,
which did not hold up at the door the tempting inscription
of ' Indulgenzia Plenaria.' Two hundred days of indilii:
gence I thought a great reward for every kiss bestowed upon