to open and shut the kingdom of heaven; a doctrine that introduces pride among the saints, and advances the opinion of their works beyond the measures of Christ", who taught us, "That when we have done all that is commanded, we are unprofitable servants;" and, therefore, certainly cannot supererogate, or do more than what is infinitely recompensed by the kingdom of glory, to which all our doings and all our sufferings are not worthy to be compared, especially since the greatest saint cannot but say with David, "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight no flesh living can be justified:" it is a practice that hath turned penances into a fair, and the court of conscience into à lombard, and the labours of love into the labours of pilgrimages, superstitious and useless wanderings from place to place; and religion into vanity, and our hope in God to a confidence in man, and our fears of hell to be a mere scarecrow to rich and confident sinners: and at last, it was frugally employed, by a great pope, to raise a portion for a lady, the wife of Franceschet to Cibo, bastard son of Innocent VIII.; and the merchandise itself became the stakes of gamesters at dice and cards, and men did vile actions that they might win indulgences; by gaming, making their way to heaven easier.

pope

Now although the holy fathers of the church could not be supposed, in direct terms, to speak against this new doctrine of indulgences, because, in their days, it was not: yet they have said many things, which do perfectly destroy this new doctrine and these unchristian practices. For besides that they teach repentance wholly reducing us to a good life; a faith that entirely relies upon Christ's merits and satisfactions; a hope wholly depending upon the plain promises of the Gospel, a service perfectly consisting in the works of a good conscience, a labour of love, a religion of justice, and piety, and moral virtues: they do also expressly teach, that pilgrimages to holy places, and such like inventions, which are now the earnings and price of indulgences, and not required of us, and are not the way of salvation, as is to be 'that to him that readeth the decretals, it plainly appears,

Ut quid non prævides tibi in die judicii, quando nemo poterit per alium excusari, vel defendi; sed unusquisque sufficiens onus erit sibi ipsi: Th, a Kempis, lib. i. De Imit. c. 24.

seen in an oration made by St. Gregory Nyssen, wholly against pilgrimages to Jerusalem; in St. Chrysostom", St. Austin, and St. Bernard. The sense of these fathers is this, in the words of St. Austin: "God said not, Go to the east, and seek righteousness; sail to the west, that you may receive indulgence. But indulge thy brother, and it shall be indulged to thee: you have need to inquire for no other indulgence to thy sins; if thou wilt retire into the closet of thy heart, there thou shalt find it." That is, all our hope of indulgence is from God through Jesus Christ, and is wholly to be obtained by faith in Christ, and perseverance in good works, and entire mortification of all our sins.

To conclude this particular: Though the gains, which the church of Rome makes of indulgences, be a heap almost as great as the abuses themselves, yet the greatest patrons of this new 'doctrine could never give any certainty, or reasonable comfort, to the conscience of any person, that could inquire into it. They never durst determine, whether they were absolutions or compensations; whether they only take off the penances actually imposed by the confessor; or potentially, and all that which might have been imposed; whether all that may be paid in the court of men; or all that can or will be required by the laws and severity of God. Neither can they speak rationally to the great question,— Whether the treasure of the church consists of the satisfactions of Christ only, or of the saints?— For if of saints, it will, by all men, be acknowledged to be a defeasible estate, and being finite and limited, will be spent sooner than the needs of the church can be served; and if, therefore, it be necessary to add the merits and satisfaction of Christ, since they are an ocean of infinity, and can supply more than all our needs, to what purpose is it to add the little minutes and droppings of the saints? They cannot tell, whether they may be given, if the receiver do nothing or give nothing for them and although this last particular could better be resolved by the court of Rome than by the church of Rome, yet all the doctrines, which built up the new fabric of indulgences, were so dangerous to determine, so improbable,

n Homil. 1. in Ep. ad Philem.

Serm. 1. de Advent.

• Serm. de Marty. ib.

so unreasonable, or, at best, so uncertain and invidious, that, according to the advice of the bishop of Modena, the council of Trent left all the doctrines and all the cases of conscience quite alone, and slubbered the whole matter both in the question of indulgences and purgatory, in general and recommendatory terms; affirming, that the power of giving indulgence is in the church, and that the use is wholesome: and that all hard and subtile questions, viz. concerning purgatory, which although (if it be at all) it is a fire, yet it is the fuel of indulgences, and maintains them wholly; all that is suspected to be false, and all that is uncertain; and whatsoever is curious and superstitious, scandalous, or for filthy lucre, be laid aside. And in the mean time, they tell us not what is, and what is not, superstitious, nor what is scandalous, nor what they mean by the general term of 'indulgence;' and they establish no doctrine, neither curious nor incurious, nor durst they decree the very foundation of this whole matter, the church's treasure; neither durst they meddle with it, but left it as they found it, and continued in the abuses, and proceeded in the practice, and set their doctors, as well as they can, to defend all the new, and curious, and scandalous questions, and to uphold the gainful trade. But however it be with them, the doctrine itself is proved to be a direct innovation in the matter of Christian religion; and that was it, which we have undertaken to demonstrate.

SECTION IV.

THE doctrine of purgatory is the mother of indulgences, and the fear of that hath introduced these: for the world happened to be abused like the countryman in the fable, who, being told he was likely to fall into a delirium in his feet, was advised, for remedy, to take the juice of cotton: he feared a disease that was not, and looked for a cure as ridiculous. But if the patent of indulgences be not from Christ and his apostles; if, upon this ground, the primitive church never built, the superstructures of Rome must fall; they can be no stronger than their supporter. Now, then, in order to the proving the doctrine of purgatory to be an innovation;— 1. We consider, that the doctrines, upon which it is

pretended reasonable, are all dubious, and disputable at the very best. Such are,

1. Their distinction of sins mortal and venial in their own nature.

a

2. That the taking away the guilt of sins, does not suppose the taking away the obligation to punishment; that is, that when a man's sin is pardoned, he may be punished without the guilt of that sin as justly as with it; as if the guilt could be any thing else but an obligation to punishment for having sinned; which is a proposition, of which no wise man can make sense; but it is certain that it is expressly against the word of God, who promises, upon our repentance, so to take away our sins that he will remember them no morea:" and so did Christ to all those to whom he gave pardon; for he did not take our faults and guilt on him any other way, but by curing our evil hearts, and taking away the punishment. And this was so perfectly believed by the primitive church, that they always made the penances and satisfaction to be undergone, before they gave absolution ; and, after absolution, they never imposed or obliged to punishment, unless it were to sick persons, of whose recovery they despaired not: of them, indeed, in case they had not finished their canonical punishments, they expected they should perform what was enjoined them formerly. But because all sin, is a blot to a man's soul, and a foul stain to his reputation, we demand, in what does this stain consist? In the guilt, or in the punishment? If it be said that it consists in the punishment, then what does the guilt signify, when the removing of it does neither remove the stain nor the punishment, which both remain and abide together? But if the stain and the guilt be all one, or always together, then when the guilt is taken away, there can no stain remain; and if so, what need is there any more of purgatory? For since this is pretended to be necessary, only lest any stained

a Ezek. xviii. 22.

b Neque ab iis quos sanas, lente languor abscedit; sed illico, quem restituis, ex integro convalescit; quia consummatum est quod facis, et perfectum quod largiris. S. Cyprian. de Cœna Domini: vel potius Arnoldus.-P. Gelasius d. vincul. anathem. negat pœnam deberi culpæ, si culpa corrigatur.

Delet gratia finalis peccatum veniale in ipsa dissolutione corporis et animæ. Hoc ab antiquis dictum est. Albert. Mag. in Compend. Theolog. Verit. lib. iii. c. 13.

or unclean thing should enter into heaven, if the guilt and the pain be removed, what uncleanness can there be left behind? Indeed Simon Magus (as Epiphanius reports, Hæres 20,) did teach, that, after the death of the body, there remained ↓uxv nálagos, a purgation of souls:' but whether the church of Rome will own him for an authentic doctor, themselves can best tell.

3. It relies upon this also, that God requires of us a full exchange of penances and satisfactions, which must regularly be paid here or hereafter, even by them who are pardoned here; which if it were true, we are all undone.

6

4. That the death of Christ, his merits and satisfaction, do not procure for us a full remission before we die, nor, as it may happen, of a long time after. All which being propositions new and uncertain, invented by the school-divines, and brought, ' ex post facto,' to dress this opinion, and make it to seem reasonable; and being the products of ignorance concerning remission of sins by grace, of the righteousness of faith, and the infinite value of Christ's death, must needs lay a great prejudice of novelty upon the doctrine itself, which, but by these, cannot be supported. But to put it past suspicion and conjectures: Roffensis and Polydore Virgile affirm, that whoso searcheth the writings of the Greek fathers, shall find that none, or very rarely any one of them, ever makes mention of purgatory; and that the Latin fathers did not all believe it, but by degrees came to entertain opinions of it: but for the catholic church, it was but lately known to her.

d

But before we say any more in this question, we are to premonish, that there are two great causes of their mistaken pretensions in this article from antiquity.

The first is, that the ancient churches, in their offices, and the fathers, in their writings, did teach, and practise respectively, prayer for the dead. Now because the church of Rome does so too, and, more than so, relates her prayers to the doctrine of purgatory, and for the souls there detained; her doctors vainly suppose, that whenever the holy fathers. speak of prayer for the dead, that they conclude for purgatory; which vain conjecture is as false as it is unreasonable;

d Art. 18. cont. Luther.

Invent. Rerum, lib. viii. c. 1,