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

LICENSE TO SIN. 343isms were immaculate and holy compared with Home.Theirprinciples tended to relax the restraints of virtue, and generallyto debase human nature; but when did they proclaimto the world an unbounded liberty of sinning ? When didthey trade in sin ? All this Rome has done. Althoughhell were to empty itself upon the earth, it could not inflicta worse pollution than this spawn of Rome.were toThough fiendswalk up and down in the world, and with serpenttongue and hissing accents to prompt and solicit mortals,they could not lure and destroy more effectually than Rome'spardonmongers. When Rome took her way among the benightednations, who could resist her offers ? A paradise ofein on earth, and a paradise of happiness hereafter, and allfor a little money ! Yes ; of all the evil systems which havearisen to affront God, to mock man, and to do the work ofhell, Rome is entitled to rank foremost. Others have doneviciously, but she has excelled them all. She has inventedsin, taught sin, acted sin, and traded in sin; and so has madegood, beyond the possibility of doubt or question, her titleto the name which stood on the page of prophecy as atonce the ominous harbinger and the compendious descriptionof a system afterwards to arise,— " The Man of Sin."There is not a day in the year in which indulgences forany sin, and to any amount, may not be obtained ; but theyear of jubilee is marked in the calendar of Rome as a yearof special grace. The jubilee was instituted in the year1300 by Boniface VIII.* It was to return every hundredthyear, in imitation of the secular games of the Romans, whichwere celebrated once in an age. " A most j)lenary pardon "of all their sins was promised to those who should visit thechurches of St Peter and St Paul at Rome. The same rewardwas to belono: to such as, unable to undertake so lonofa pilgrimage, should pay a certain sum, and to such as mightdie by the way. He who sat on the Seven Hills gave commandmentto the angels to carry their souls direct to the* Mosheim, cent. xiii. part ii, chap. iv.