The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

;THEORY OF INDULGENCES.S35plain opposition to the decreesthe deliverancesof Trent on this suhjcct, toof the Roman Catechism, and to the doctrinetaught in Dens and Perrone. The latter remarks,that " the power of forgiving every kind of sin by the sacramentof penance resides in the Church ; and consequentlythe absolving priest truly reconciles sinners to God by a judicialpower received from Christ." He repudiates the ideathat it is a mere power of declaring that the sin has beenforgiven that the priest exercises. The man, says he, whoheals a wound orunties a chain does not merely pronouncethe patient to be whole or the captive to be free ; he actuallymakes him so. So the absolution of the Church isnot the wiere declaring t\\Q sin to be forgiven; it is the remittingor retaining of the sin.*The statement of Bossuet isin plain opposition, moreover, to the notorious practice oftheChurch of Rome, which, before the Reformation especially,kept open market in Europe, in which, for a littlemoney, men might purchase the remission of all sorts ofenormities and crimes. This scandalous traffic Rome unblushinglycarried on till it was denounced by Luther.Sincethat time she has exercised a little more circumspection.She no longer sends trains of mules and waggons across theAlps, laden with bales of pardons.This branch of her businessis novi' carried on by her ordinary bishops. The tradeis too shameful to be openly avowed, but too gainful to begiven up. Her hawkers have ceased to perambulate Europebut her indulgences still circulate throughout it.The doctrine of indulgences, as explained by Leo. X., is," That the Roman pontiff may, for reasonable causes, by hisapostolic authority, grant indulgences out of the superabundantmerits of Christ and the saints, to the faithful who areunited to Christ by charity, as well for the living as for thedeadAll persons, whether living or dead, whoreally obtain any indulgences of this kind, are deliveredfrom so much temporal punishment, due, according to divine* Perrone's Prajlectioncs Theologica?, torn. ii. p. 273, 274.