candid and honourable admission of those two ancient Protestant divines, the ornaments of the established church in their times, will the catechist forgive me for supposing, that if a particle of truth and candour enter his composition, he will retract his errors, and do homage to that church, which our Redeemer promised to support to the end of the world?

QUESTION XV.

Why do you reject the use of indulgences, and dispensations of the treasure of the Church?

ANSWER.

1. Because they are built upon false foundations, such as purgatory, supererogations of saints, i. e. their doing more than was necessary, God's imperfect forgiving of sins, and satisfactions to be made to the justice of God.

2. These indulgences are not things so much as heard of in the

primitive church, for they are wholly engrossed by the pope, who sends his servants abroad to sell them for money.

3. Though in the primitive church the respective bishops, in their dioceses, relaxed the time of a true penitent's severity he was to undergo, yet they never pretended to free the penitent from the pains of purgatory, much less to apply to them the superfluous merits of saints, as is done in these popish indulgences.

4. They have no foundation in Scripture, by the confession of their own learned men; and they came very late into the church, not till twelve hundred years after Christ; and it is evident they are used as a means to get money.

5. By these indulgences men are hindered from a true repentance; for they pretend to release men both from sin and punishment, at least the people are suffered to think so, if they do but say so many prayers, or go in pilgrimage to such a place, or abstain on certain days from certain sorts of meat, or give a large sum of money for the building of a church, or go to war against infidels, &c.

OBSERVATIONS.

BEFORE I commence my series of observations on this article of indulgences, I must congratulate the catechist, at least on this single ground,

that he has not adopted the vulgar and disingenuous misrepresentation so often resorted to, that an indulgence is understood in the Catholic church to be a license to commit sin, or an anticipated pardon of sin to be committed. This he probably considers a slander; and he shows a certain liberality of mind in rejecting so foul an imputation. But still the catechist has much to learn on this, as well as other subjects connected with religion; and for his information, and that of the general reader, I must proceed to state, that the Catholic church means nothing else by an indulgence, than a release of the temporal punishment due to such sins as have been actually forgiven by the sacrament of penance. This plain statement of the Catholic doctrine is sufficient to discountenance the vulgar notion of the ignorant, the prejudiced, or the malevolent, that an indulgence implies either leave to commit sin, or grants, by anticipation, the pardon of future transgressions; for, in fact, it regards not immediately and directly the pardon of any sin whatever; on the contrary, it requires and presupposes sin to be already forgiven by hearty contrition and the sacrament of penance. Thus all the scandal, slander, and infamy, which have been heaped on the Catholic church on this ground, during the course of three centuries, are scattered in the wind, by the fair statement of our doctrine.

In order to produce to the satisfaction of the reader, a rational and real ground for admitting the doctrine of indulgences, we have to establish three propositions; the first is, that God, after forgiving sin, usually apportions a certain share of temporal punishment to be borne by the sinner; the second is, that Christ has left in the church a power to remit this punishment; and the third is, that this remission of the temporal pains, or the use of indulgences, has been constantly practised in the church. Nothing will be found clearer than the grounds, by which these three propositions are usually established.

Of the first proposition, that God, on forgiving sin, usually reserves to the sinner a certain portion of temporal pain, the slightest knowledge of the Scripture supplies the most abundant proof. It is known to those who have any knowledge of religion, that we are all born with the original stain of the transgression of him, in whom all have sinned1, and that sin has entailed on all the children of Adam every species of temporal evil. This original sin, however, has been removed in various ways, in the law of nature, the law of Moses, and the law of grace; and yet the attendant pains of death, and the evils of suffering humanity, still remain. In the history of the Israelites, we find that stiff-necked

Rom. v. 12.

people offending God by their violent murmurs'; the Almighty expresses his displeasure with a solemn menace of disinheritance and destruction; Moses interposes, and obtains their pardon; yet the temporal punishment of dying in the wilderness, and the consequent exclusion from the land of promise, are not removed. When God proclaimed pardon to David, by his prophet Nathan, for the enormous crimes of murder and adultery, he still made severe denunciations of temporal sufferings; all which threats were carried into full effect". Various other examples might be produced from Scripture, which invincibly prove, that God, on forgiving sin, usually reserves a certain portion of temporal punishment to be endured by the sinner.

The next proposition to be established is, that Christ has left in his church a power to remit the temporal punishment, which has been proved to exist after the remission of sin. For this purpose, the reader has only to open his Scripture, and see the extensive and unbounded power which our Redeemer bequeathed to the apostles and their legitimate successors. To Peter, he says: I will give unto thee the KEYS of the kingdom of HEAVEN; and WHATSOEVER thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

And

2 Ibid. 11, 12. 3 Ibid. 13-20. 5 See and compare 2 Kings, al. • Matt. xvi. 19.

Num. xiv. 2. 4 lbid. 22, 23. 2 Sam. xii. 13, et seq ch. xiv. ch. xviii.

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