256 INDULGENCE indulgence and the authority which dispensed it into discredit. The crisis came when Julius II. proposed the erection of the new hasilica of St. Peter's on the Vatican hill, and published an indulgence in Poland and France in favor of all who should help defray its cost. His suc- cessor, Leo X., added to this object a crusade against the Turks, and extended the indulgence to the northern provinces of Germany. The papal commission for this purpose was issued to the archbishop of Magdeburg, who delega- ted it to the Dominicans, among whom was the notorious Tetzel. They spread themselves rapidly over Saxony, and, according to Luther, offered indulgences in the streets, markets, and taverns, teaching that every contributor, if he paid on his own account, infallibly opened to himself the gates of heaven ; if on account of the dead, instantly liberated a soul from pur- gatory. These abuses were subsequently con- demned by the council of Trent, and measures were prescribed for suppressing them or pre- venting their recurrence in each diocese. Since that period, though no such general abuses have been noticed by historians, yet in many Roman Catholic countries indulgences have continued to be published in forms which give great of- fence, especially to Protestants. The expres- sions used, and the local customs relating to indulgences, can only be rightly understood from a clear statement of the doctrine of the Eoman Catholic church on this subject. She teaches that by sacramental absolution the guilt of sin (reatus culpce) committed after baptism is taken away, together with the eternal pun- ishment it deserves, by virtue of Christ's suf- ferings ; but that the pardoned sinner re- mains liable to the reatut pan, or to a tempo- ral penalty to be paid in this life or the next. This penalty is not to be confounded with the " canonical penances " of the primitive church. It is held by Catholic theologians that St. Paul showed indulgence to the incestuous Corinthian before the institution of the system of canon- ical penances. These were established gradu- ally by local usage in the East and West, with- out the authority of any general ecclesiastical law ; and the penitential canons which regula- ted the application of such penances varied, like the usage itself, in different countries. As this whole system had been introduced by custom, so it fell into disuse without ever having been repealed by any general council. The church, meanwhile, never ceased to exact of the penitent the satisfaction due primarily to the divine law violated by his transgressions, and secondarily to the community scandalized and disturbed by them. So long as the peniten- tial canons remained in vigor, the fulfilment of their prescriptions was held to be satisfactory before God and the church, releasing the peni- tent from the reatus pxnae both here and here- after. A true satisfaction to the church meant a true satisfaction to God. In like manner, since the disuse of canonical penances, the fulfilment of those imposed by the church is to be taken as the payment of what is due to God as well as to herself. Moreover, penitential works derive their worth and efficacy from their being performed in union with Christ's atonement. He and his sanctified members, whether in heaven, on earth, or in purgatory, form in the view of the church one moral per- son ; and his Spirit imparts to the virtues and acts of his saints all the supernatural merit which they possess. Their merits added to his, like a finite quantity added to the infinite, do not increase the latter, but are only merged in it. These united merits of Christ the head and of all his true members constitute the prop- erty of regenerated humanity ; they form a treasury committed to the guardianship of the church, of which she as his spouse is the dispenser. Out of this she sets apart a por- tion for her needy children, which they may make their own by the performance, in a state of grace, of specified good works, and with this acquired treasure purchase for themselves or for the dead perfect reconciliation and com- munion with God. The Christian who, by gaining an indulgence through the accomplish- ment of certain outward acts, thus becomes master of a portion of Christ's redeeming merits, purchases his own soul's perfect peace with " a price " which he presents to the di- vine justice through Christ; and if he offer the whole fruit for the release of a soul in pur- gatory, he does so through the church, per modum suffragii, as an intercessory offering, which God may or may not accept, but which the church assumes he actually does accept in ratification of her action. In both cases, when every prescribed condition for the gaining of an indulgence has been fulfilled, God remits in heaven what Christ's spouse remits upon earth. The nature and existence of this treasury of merits, its application, as here explained, to the living and the dead, and the ratification by God of the acts of the church relating to indulgences, are, without being defined as of faith, considered as proximo, fidel. As the temporal satisfaction or penalty due by the sinner after sacramental absolution is a con- sequence of the sin itself, it has always been called sin in the style of the Roman chancery, and in the papal bulls which treat of indulgences and jubilees. Hence the phrase " full and com- plete remission of sins " is to be understood as meaning the full and complete remission of the temporal penalty secured by the fulfilment of the conditions prescribed for an indulgence, a necessary but tacit preliminary to which is sacramental absolution to the truly contrite. In no supposable case can indulgence be a par- don for the guilt of sin even to the most heart- stricken penitent, still less a prospective pardon of future sins, or a license for committing them. A plenary indulgence is the remission of the entire satisfaction due to God and sub- ject to the power of the church. The indul- gence of a jubilee differs from this, not in a fuller relaxation of penalty, but in the wider
