LETTER VIII. Indulgences. WE have not yet completed the catalogue of expedients for the comforts of those who can afford to pay for them. The subject of this letter presents us with a whole storehouse of mercies at the disposal of the Church. But before I advert to them, I must beg leave to pay a little attention to yourself and Dr. Milner. It is remarkable that both of you exhibit an excessive shyness in acknowledging the natural relation between the doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences. Mr. Southey* has, as might be expected, treated them in connection with each other, as parent and offspring. But you, professing to "take succes"sively into consideration the principal subjects "on which he criminates the Roman-Catholics "in his 10th chapter,"† make a most awkward separation between these two articles, and thrust in "Confession," between them. And yet, after all, when you come to talk about Book of the Roman-Catholic Church, p. 99. Indulgences you are compelled to recognize their close connection with Purgatory. He Dr. Milner takes a still bolder course. does not, indeed, compel a direct separation between them, but he reverses their relation, and makes Indulgences precede Purgatory. Not only so, but he scolds Bishop Porteus in good round terms, telling him that "his ideas are much confused," and "his knowledge" of the subjects he is writing upon 66 66 66 very imperfect;"* in part, because he treats those subjects in their natural order. I must again call on old Bishop Fisher to protect his Protestant brother from the chastisement of this modern apostolic Vicar. He does so in the same passage from which I quoted before. "As long," says he, "as there was no care "about Purgatory, no one sought for Indulgences: for it is on Purgatory that all regard for Indulgences depends. If you take away Purgatory, for what will you want Indul 66 * End of Controversy, p. 302. + It is proper to add that the Tractatus de Poenitentia, by Delahogue, which is the Class-book at Maynooth College, presents these subjects in the same order as Bishops Fisher and Porteus. Fisher's Works (Johan. Roffen.) ubi supra. "Ex illo "pendet omnis indulgentiarum existimatio." "Since gences? we shall not have the smallest need "of them, if there be no Purgatory." "then Purgatory was so late in being known "and received in the Church, can any one won"der respecting Indulgences, that there was no "use of them in the early ages of the Church?" These concluding words I leave to Dr. Milner to discuss, when he next announces, that "the "Church has claimed and exercised the power" of granting Indulgences, "ever since the time "of the Apostles down to the present."* Meanwhile, he must forgive those who prefer Bishop Fisher's authority to his. But what is the meaning of all this reluctance to own the connection between these two doctrines? Is there any thing scandalous in it? Dr. Milner appears to think so, as do several other of your Church's modern advocates and I am rendering to you only an act of justice, (which I do most cheerfully,) when I say, that your account of the doctrine of Indulgences is one of the fairest I have seen in the works of any of your modern writers. Many of your apologists prevaricate most sadly. For instance, Gother's "Papist misrepresented and represented," says, that 66 * End of Controversy, p. 306. 66 Indulgences "are nothing else but a mitigation " or relaxation, upon just causes, of canonical penances, which are, or may be enjoined by "the pastors of the Church, on penitent sin"ners, according to their several degrees of "demerit."* 66 Bossuet more largely says the very same; that "it is the necessity of satisfactory works which has obliged the ancient Church to impose penances called canonical: when, therefore, "she imposes on sinners painful and laborious "works, and they undergo them with humility, "that is satisfaction: and when, out of regard "to the fervour of the penitents, or to other good works, which she prescribes to them, "she relaxes something of the punishment "which is due, that is called Indulgence."† 66 Dr. Milner conducts this part of his case with even more than his usual skill. In conformity to his plan of keeping the connection of Purgatory and Indulgences, as much as possible, out of sight, he actually contrives, in a long and laboured and methodized explanation of the latter, to avoid even once naming the former. He tells us, that "God (like every "sovereign Prince) may shew mercy to con "8, of Indulgences." M + Exposition of Faith, s. 8. "demned sinners either by remitting to them "all punishment, or subjecting them to some lighter one than that to which they are con"demned; that many instances occur in the "Bible of God's remitting the essential guilt "of sin, and the eternal punishment due to it, "and yet leaving a temporary punishment still "to be endured that this is, indeed, the com"mon course of his mercy and wisdom in the 'forgiveness of sins committed after baptism: "that the essential guilt and eternal punish"ment of sin can only be expiated by the merits "of Christ, but a certain temporal punish"ment is reserved for the penitent himself to "endure that satisfaction for this temporal pu"nishment has been instituted by Christ, as a 66 66 part of the sacrament of penance: neverthe"less, that the jurisdiction of the Church ex"tends to this very satisfaction, so as to be able "to remit it wholly or partially, in certain cir"cumstances, by what is called an Indulgence: "that this power was exercised by St. Paul, "and has been claimed and exercised by the "Church from the time of the apostles. Still "it is not arbitrary; there must be a just cause "for exercising it; and there must be a certain proportion between the punishment remitted "and the good work performed; hence, no 66 |