owned; truth is truth, and it is notoriously so; and therefore a reason must be found out for it; and this it is, which we have accounted. But the use we make of it, is this; that since they have declared, that when sins are pardoned so easily, yet the punishment remains so very great, and that so much must be suffered here or in purgatory; it is strange that they should not only in effect pretend to show more mercy than God does, or the primitive church did; but that they should directly lay aside the primitive discipline, and while they declaim against their adversaries, for saying they are not necessary, yet at the same time they should devise tricks to take them quite away; so that neither penance shall much smart here, nor purgatory (which is a device to make men be Mulatas, as the Spaniard calls half-Christians, a device to make a man go to heaven and to hell too) shall not torment them hereafter. However it be, yet things are so ordered, that the noise of penances need not trouble the greatest criminal, unless he be so unfortunate as to live in no country and near no church, and without priest or friend, or money, or notice of any thing that is so loudly talked of in Christendom. If he be, he hath no help but one; he must live a holy and a severe life, which is the only great calamity which they are commanded to suffer in the church of England: but if he be not, the case is plain, he may by these doctrines take his ease. WE doubt not, but they who understand the proper sequel of these things, will not wonder that the church of Rome should have a numerous company of proselytes, made up of such as the beginnings of David's army were. But that we may undeceive them also, for to their souls we intend charity and relief by this address, we have thought fit to add one consideration more, and that is, that it is not fit that they should trust to this, or any thing of this; not only because there is no foundation of truth in these new devices, but because even the Roman doctors themselves, when they are pinched with an objection, let their hold go, and to escape, do, in remarkable measures, destroy their own new building. The case is this: to them who say, that if there were truth in these pretensions, then all these, and the many millions of indulgences more, and the many other ways of releasing souls out of purgatory, the innumerable masses said every day, the power of the keys so largely employed, would, in a short time, have emptied purgatory of all her sad inhabitants, or, it may be, very few would go thither, and they that unfortunately do, cannot stay long; and consequently, besides that, this great softness and easiness of procedure would give confidence to the greatest sinners, and the hopes of purgatory would destroy the fears of hell, and the certainty of doing well enough in an imperfect life, would make men careless of the more excellent: besides these things, there will need no continuation of pensions, to pray for persons dead many years ago: to them, I say, who talk to them at this rate, they have enough to answer. Deceive not yourselves, there are more things to be reckoned for than so. For, when you have deserved great punishments for great sins, and the guilt is taken off by absolution, and (you suppose) the punishment by indulgences or the satisfaction of others; it may be so, and it may be not so. For 1. It is according as your indulgence is. Suppose it for forty years, or it may be an hundred, or a thousand (and that is a great matter); yet, peradventure, according to the old penitential rate you have deserved the penance of forty thousand years; or at least, you may have done so by the more severe account of God: if the penance of forty years be taken off by your indulgence, it does as much of the work as was promised or intended; but you can feel little ease, if still there remains due the penance of threescore thousand years. No man can tell the difference, when what remains shall be so great as to surmount all the evils of this life; and the abatement may be accounted by pen and ink, but will signify little in the perception: it is like the casting out of a devil out of a miserable demoniack, when, there still remains fifty more, as bad as he that went away; the man will hardly find how much he is advanced in his cure. But 2. You have, with much labour and some charge, purchased to yourself so many quadragenes, or lents of pardon; that is, you have bought off the penances of so many times forty days. It is well; but were you well advised? it may be, your quadragenes are not carenes, that is, are not a quitting the severest. penances of fasting so long in bread and water: for there is great difference in the manner of keeping a penitential lent, and it may be, you have purchased but some lighter thing; and then, if your demerit arise to so many carenes, and you purchased but mere quadragenes, without a minute, and table of particulars, you may stay longer in purgatory than you expected. 4 3. But, therefore, your best way is to get a plenary indulgence; and that may be had on reasonable terms: but take heed you do not think yourself secure, for a plenary indulgence does not do all that it may be you require; for there is an indulgence more full, and another most full, and it is not agreed upon among the doctors, whether a plenary indulgence is to be extended beyond the taking off those penances, which were actually enjoined by the confessor, or how far they go further. And they that read Turrecremata, Navar, Cordubensis, Fabius, Incarnatus, Petrus de Soto, Armilla Aurea, Aquinas, Tolet, Cajetan, in their several accounts of indul gences, will soon perceive, that all this is but a handful of smoke; when you hold it, you hold it not. be 4. But further yet; all indulgences are granted upon some inducement, and are not ex mero motu,' or 'acts of mere grace without cause; and if the cause be not reasonable, they are invalid: and whether the cause be sufficient, will very y hard to judge. And if there be for the indulgence, yet, if there be not a reasonable cause for the quantity of the indulgence, you cannot tell how much you get: and the preachers of indulgences ought not to declare how valid they are assertive,' that is, by any confidence; but ' opinative,' or 'recitative,' they can only tell what is said; or what is their own opinion. 5. When this difficulty is passed over, yet, it may be, the person is not capable of them; for, if he be not in the state of grace, all is nothing; and if he be, yet if he does not perform the condition of the indulgence actually, his mere endeavour, or good desire, is nothing. And when the a Vide Joan. de Turrecremata in comment. dist. 1. de Pœnitent. conditions are actually done, it must be inquired, whether, in the time of doing them, you were in charity; whether you be so at least in the last day of finishing them: it is good to be certain in this, lest all evaporate, and come to nothing. But yet, suppose this too, though the work you are to do as the condition of the indulgence, be done so well that you lose not all the indulgence; yet, for every degree of imperfection in that work, you will lose a part of the indulgence, and then it will be hard to tell, whether you get half so much as you propounded to yourself. But here Pope Adrian troubles the whole affair again: for, if the indulgence be only given according to the worthiness of the work done, then that will avail of itself without any grant from the church; and then it is hugely questionable, whether the pope's authority be of any use in this whole matter. 6. But there is yet a greater heap of dangers and uncertainties; for you must be sure of the authority of him, that gives the indulgence, and in this there are many doubtful questions; but when they are over, yet it is worth inquiry (for some doctors are fearful in this point), whether the intromission of vénial sins, without which no man lives, does hinder the fruit of the indulgence; for if it does, all the cost is lost. 7. When an indulgence is given, put case to abide forty days on certain conditions, whether these forty days are to be taken collectively or distributively; for, because it is confessed, that the matter of indulgence is 'res odibilis,' an hateful and 'an odious matter,' it is not to be understood in the sense of favour, but of greatest severity; and, therefore, it is good to know beforehand what to trust to, to inquire how the bull is penned, and what sense of law every word does bear; for it may be any good man's case. If an indulgence be granted to a place for so many days in every year, it were fit you inquire, for how many years that will last; for some doctors say, that if a definite number of years be not set down, it is intended to last but twenty years. And, therefore, it is good to be wise early. 8. But it is yet of greater consideration: if you take out a bull of indulgence, relating to the article of death, in case you recover that sickness, in which you thought you should b Hist. Concil. Trident. lib. i. pag. 20. Londin. edit. use it, you must consider, whether you must not take out a new one for the next fit of sickness; or, will the first, which stood for nothing, keep cold, and, without any sensible error serve when you shall indeed die? 9. You must also inquire, and be rightly informed, whether an indulgence granted upon a certain festival will be valid, if the day be changed (as they were all at once by the Gregorian calendar): or, if you go into another country, where the feast is not kept the same day, as it happens in movable feasts, and on St. Bartholomew's day, and some others. 10. When your lawyers have told you their opinion of all these questions, and given it under their hands, it will concern you to inquire yet further, whether a succeeding pope have not, or cannot revoke an indulgence granted by his predecessor; for this is often done in matters of favour and privileges; and the German princes complained sadly of it; and it was complained in the council of Lyons, that Martin, the legate of pope Innocent VIII., revoked and dissipated all former grants: and it is an old rule, “Papa nunquam sibi ligat manus, The pope never binds his own 99.66 hands." But here some caution would do well. 11. It is worth inquiry, whether, in the year of jubilee, all other indulgences be suspended; for, though some think they are not, yet, Navar and Emanuel Sà affirm that they are; and if they chance to say true (for no man knows whether they do or do not), you may be at a loss that way. And when all this is done, yet 12. Your indulgences will be of no avail to you in reserved cases, which are very many. A great many more very fine scruples might be moved, and are so; and, therefore, when you have gotten all the security you can by these, you are not safe at all. But, therefore, be sure still to get masses to be said. So that now the great objection is answered; you need not fear that saying masses will ever be made. unnecessary by the multitude of indulgences: the priest must still be employed and entertained in 'subsidium,' since there are so many ways of making the indulgence good for nothing: and, as for the fear of emptying purgatory by the free and liberal use of the keys, it is very needless; because the pope d Centum gravam. Germ. Idem facere voluit Paulus Quintus in Vene torum causa. |