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

S36OF INDULGENCES.justice, for their actual sins, as is equivalent to the value ofthe indulgence bestowed and received." We might quote,did our space permit, numerous bulls of succeeding popes tothe same effect, all showing that the Church of Rome holdsthat thematter of indulgences is the merits of Christ andthe saints, and that they confer remission of sin and releasefrom purgatory. We might quote the bull of Pius VI., publishedin 1794 ; the bull of Benedict XIII.* in 1724 ; andthat of Benedict XlV.f in 1747 ; and the bull of " Indictionfor the Universal Jubilee in 1825,""]: which grants, uponcertain conditions, " a plenary indulgence, remission, andpardon of all their sins, to all the faithful of Christ." TheCouncil of Trent strongly recommended indulgences as " salutaryto Christian people," and anathematized all who shouldassert the contrary.§ But as the scandal of Tetzel was stillfresh in the recollection of Europe, the council recommendedno less strongly, discretion in the distribution of indulgences,and forbade all " wicked gains'" accruing therefrom,—a decree that was to little purpose, seeing no priest wouldbe forward to own that his gains, however great, were of thekind to which the Tridentine prohibition had reference. TheRomish authorities, from the Council of Trent downwards,have been careful how they defined indulgences. Indeed,they have studiously involved the subject in obscurity.Theirexplanations remind us of the lucid reply given by a monk atRome to a visitor in the eternal city, who asked him whatan indulgence was. " An indulgence," said the friar, crossinghimself,— " an indulgence is a great mystery !"||Still,no reader of the least discrimination can fail to discover,through all the ambiguities and generalities by whichPopish writers seek to conceal the grosser featuresof thismost demoralizing system, that indulgences carry all the* Theol. Mor. et Dog. Petri Dens, torn. viii. p. 429.+ Ibid. p. 425. t Laity's Directory for 1825.§ Concil. Trid. sess. xxv. dec. i., de Indulg.IIRome in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 359.