Papal indulgence

“ The pope, he holds, can only grant indulgences for what the pope and the law of the Church have imposed; nay, the pope himself means absolution from these obligations only, when he promises absolution from all punishment. And it is only the living against whom those punishments are directed which the Church's discipline of penance enjoins; nothing, according to her own laws, can be imposed upon those in another world.
Further on Luther declares: "When true repentance is awakened in a man, full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without any letters of indulgence." ”

“ With regard to indulgences, there is not a Papist who will admit that they are a license to sin. The voice of history declares that 'a regular scale for absolution was graded,' and the fact is authenticated by a recent traveler, who asserts that in the chancel of Santa Croce, at Rome, is hung a catalogue of the indulgences granted to all who worship in that church. Yet your priests will tell you they are the remission of sins already committed. Did not Herrara say, 'I have paid the Padre and can eat meat'? ”

“ The sale of indulgences seems, therefore, no more criminal than any other cheat of the church of Rome, or of any other church. The reformers, by entirely abolishing purgatory, did really, instead of partial indulgences sold by the pope, give, gratis, a general indulgence of a similar nature, for all crimes and offences, without exception or distinction. The souls once consigned to hell were never supposed to be redeemable by any price. There is on record only one instance of a damned soul that was saved, and that by the special intercession of the Virgin. See Pascal’s Provincial Letters. ”

“ Instead of appearing personally at Rome, it was enough to pay the cost of such a journey. The nepotism and extravagance of the popes had left an empty exchequer, which this sale of indulgences was intended to fill. The war with the Turks and the building of St. Peter’s gave occasion to repeated indulgence crusades. Traffickers in indulgences in the most barefaced way cried up the quality of their wares; the conditions of repentance and purpose of reformation were scarcely so much as named. Indulgences were even granted beforehand for sins that were contemplated. ”

“ As the light illuminated their understanding and made glad their hearts, they longed to shed its beams upon those who were in the darkness of papal error.
They saw that under the guidance of pope and priests, multitudes were vainly endeavoring to obtain pardon by afflicting their bodies for the sin of their souls. Taught to trust to their good works to save them, they were ever looking to themselves, their minds dwelling upon their sinful condition, seeing themselves exposed to the wrath of God, afflicting soul and body, yet finding no relief. ”

“ Thus ensnared by the devil they ensnare the souls of the faithful. He forbears to dwell further on these and other wickednesses by which they deserve to be despoiled of their privileges, preferring to hope that they will free themselves from their turpitude. A concluding allusion to their lack of respect towards papal legates probably explains the venomous vigor of the papal attack, but the accusations which it makes touch points on which there is other conclusive evidence. ”

“ Whoever, regarding the sufferings of our Lord, shall truly repent of his sins, and shall thrice repeat the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria, shall be entitled to seventeen thousand years of indulgence, which have been granted to him by Pope Gregory, as well as by two other popes and by forty bishops. ”

“ Is IT HONEST to assert that the Catholic Church grants any indulgence or permission to commit sin—when an 'indulgence,' according to her universally received doctrine, was never dreamed of by Catholics to imply, in any case whatever, any permission to commit the least sin ”

“ The experience of Catholics proves that nothing tends more effectually to promote practices of piety and to enkindle a religious spirit, than the doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding indulgences. Take, for example, the case of a plenary indulgence. How many penitential and meritorious works are required to secure a participation in so precious a treasure? The person wishing to gain an indulgence of this kind must diligently examine his conscience, excite himself to contrition for his sins, make an humble confession, and perform some penitential work in reparation for the past. ”

“ Whoever, therefore, after confession and communion, recites the Rosary daily for a week, for the Pope's intention and for the happy termination of the Council, may gain a plenary indulgence of all his sins, applicable also to the dead. The Pope adds that even when a child, and far more as Pope, he has always placed his whole confidence in the Mother of God, and that he firmly believes it to be given to her alone by God to destroy all heresies throughout the world. ”

“ But “the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world.”96 The Holy Scriptures were almost unknown, not only to the people, but to the priests. Like the Pharisees of old, the papal leaders hated the light which would reveal their sins. God's law, the standard of righteousness, having been removed, they exercised power without limit, and practised vice without restraint. Fraud, avarice, and profligacy prevailed. Men shrank from no crime by which they could gain wealth or position. The palaces of popes and prelates were scenes of the vilest debauchery. ”

“ The Pope having no authority for such a command, any more than to forbid a man to eat and drink, or to digest, or to grow fat, no one is bound to obey it, and the Pope is answerable for every sin against it, for all the souls that it has brought to destruction, and for all the consciences that have been troubled and tormented by it. He has long deserved to be driven out of the world, so many poor souls has he strangled with this devil's rope, though I hope that God has shown many more mercy at their death than the Pope did in their life. ”

“ And yet for all these terrors of conscience, affrighting punishments which are so frequent, or whatsoever else may cause or aggravate this fearful malady in other religions, I see no reason at all why a papist at any time should despair, or be troubled for his sins; for let him be never so dissolute a caitiff so notorious a villain, so monstrous a sinner, out of that treasure of indulgences and merits of which the pope is dispensator, he may have free pardon and plenary remission of all his sins. ”

“ A more demoralizing system of indulgences was that of sending out "quaestuarii," or pardoners, sometimes furnished with relics, by a church or hospital in need of money, and sometimes merely carrying papal or episcopal letters, by which they were authorized to issue pardons for sin in return for contributions. Though these letters were cautiously framed, yet they were ambiguous enough to enable the pardoners to promise, not only the salvation of the living, but the liberation of the damned from hell for a few small coins. ”

“ Just as if the Holy Sacrament were not worthy that a pope, a poor miserable sinner, should stand to do honour to his God, although all other Christians, who are much more holy than the Most Holy Father, receive it with all reverence! Could we be surprised if God visited us all with a plague for that we suffer such dishonour to be done to God by our prelates, and approve it, becoming partners of the Pope's damnable pride by our silence or flattery? ”

“ An Indulgence can never remit guilt; the Pope himself cannot do such a thing; God has kept that in His own hand.
iii. It cannot remit the divine punishment for sin; that also is in the hands of God alone.
iv. It can have no efficacy for souls in Purgatory; penalties imposed by the Church can only refer to the living; death dissolves them; what the Pope can do for souls in Purgatory is by prayer, not by jurisdiction or the power of the keys.
v. The Christian who has true repentance has already received pardon from God altogether apart from an Indulgence, and does not need one ”

“ Jesus Christ will inflict this punishment upon them, and the holy angels will behold it and approve of it. Idolatry, both pagan and papal, is a damning sin in its own nature, and will prove fatal to those who persist in it, after fair warning given by the word of Providence; those who refuse to come out of Babylon, when thus called, and resolve to partake of her sins, must receive of her plagues; and the guilt and ruin of such incorrigible idolaters will serve to set forth the excellency of the patience and obedience of the saints. These graces shall be rewarded with salvation and glory. ”

“ And we gather from the tenor of history that such atrocities grow out of events—and events of great importance grow out of creeds—and a struggle for religious supremacy (and the Papacy must ever strive to that end) always tends to persecution; and what shall we say, when persecution is a duty of obedience, and the consciences of the many are merged in the infallibility of a Pope? The history of the Popes shows a frightful list of these claimants of infallibility.
Few who speak or who write on this Papal Aggression approach the principle of toleration with any doubt ”

“ He again repeated, that every Christian who truly repents possesses the remission of [259] sins without indulgence; that the pope, like the humblest of priests, can only declare simply what God has already pardoned; that the treasure of the merits of the saints administered by the pope was a chimera, and that Holy Scripture was the only rule of faith. Let us hear himself on some of these points.
He begins with establishing the nature of true penitence, and contrasts the divine act, which renews man, with the mummery of the Romish Church. ”

“ Sinners say nowadays ‘I care not how many or how great sins I commit before God, for I shall easily and quickly get plenary remission of any guilt and penalty whatsoever (cujusdam culpae et poenae) by absolution and indulgence granted to me from the Pope, whose writing and grant I have bought for 4d. ”

“ In destroying the government of the priests, and in depriving the Pope of his authority, we have most certainly no intention to offer any offence, either to religion or to God; we assert unequivocally that the religion we are desirous to profess is not one of human councils, or of vain traditions, and we are not disposed to admit that the Pope is God. ”

“ But it is to the Pope and his followers that, by preference, he applies such imagery. “They have forsaken the stool of St. Peter and St. Paul and now parade their filth [concerning original sin] ; to such a pass have they come that they no longer believe anything, whether concerning the Gospel, or Christ, or even their own teaching.” [1130] —“This is the filth they now purvey, viz. that we are saved by our works; this is the devil’s own poisonous tail.” ”

“ To think the papal pardons so great that they could absolve a man even if he had committed an impossible sin and violated the Mother of God — this is madness. [20]
76. We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned. [21]
77. It is said that even St. Peter, if he were now Pope, could not bestow greater graces; this is blasphemy against St. Peter and against the pope.
78. We say, on the contrary, that even the present pope, and any pope at all, has greater graces at his disposal ”

“ The church's claim to the right to pardon, leads the Romanist to feel at liberty to sin; and the ordinance of confession, without which her pardon is not granted, tends also to give license to evil. He who kneels before fallen man, and opens in confession the secret thoughts and imaginations of his heart, is debasing his manhood, and degrading every noble instinct of his soul. In unfolding the sins of his life to a priest,—an erring, sinful mortal, and too often corrupted with wine and licentiousness,—his standard of character is lowered, and he is defiled in consequence. ”

“ The sacerdotal system, developed by the dialectics of the Schoolmen, had constructed a routine of external observances through which salvation was to be gained not so much by abstinence from sin as by its pardon through the intervention of the priest, whose supernatural powers were in no way impaired by the scandals of his daily life. Except within the pale of the pagan Renaissance, never was there a livelier dread of future punishment, but this punishment was to be escaped, not by amendment but by confession, absolution, and indulgences. ”

“ For the liberation of the laity from the Papal yoke, he set at once further to work by composing a treatise 'On Confession, whether the Pope has power to order it.' He commends confession, when a man humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of God through the lips of a Christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter, and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of increasing their own power. ”

“ In the Commentary he had written, that too great esteem of outward works led to a too frequent granting of Indulgences, and that the Pope and the Bishops were more cruel than cruelty itself if they did not freely grant the same, or even greater Indulgences, for God’s sake and the good of souls, seeing that they themselves had received all they had for nothing. ”