ART.

XXII.

has no relation to the applying this to others who are off the ftage; therefore if we can have any juft nogone tions either of fuperftition, or of will-worship, they are applicable here. Men will fancy that there is a virtue in an action, which we are fure it has not of itfelf, and we cannot find that God has put in it; and yet they, without any authority from God, do fet up a new piece of worfhip, and imagine that God will be pleafed with them in every thing they do or afk, only because they are perverting this piece of worship, clearly contrary to the inftitution, to be a folitary mafs. In the primitive Church, where all the fervice of the whole affembly ended in a communion, there was a roll read, in which the names of the more eminent faints of the Catholic Church, and of the holy bithops, martyrs, or confeffors of every particular Church, were registered. This was an honourable remembrance that was kept up of fuch as had died in the Lord. When the foundnefs of any perfon's faith was brought in suspicion, his name was not read till that point was cleared, and then either his name continued to be read, or it was quite dafhed out. This was thought an honour due to the memory of thofe who had died in the faith and in St. Cyprian's time, in the infancy of this Cypr. practice, we fee he counted the leaving a man's name out Epift. 1. as a thing that only left a blot upon him, but not as a thing of any confequence to his foul; for when a prieft nit. had died, who had by his laft will named another priest the tutor (or guaridan) of his children, this feemed to him a thing of fuch ill example, to put thofe fecular cares upon the minds of the clergy, that he appointed that his name fhould be no more read in the daily facrifice; which plainly fhews, unlefs we will tax St. Cyprian with a very unreafonable cruelty, that he confidered that only as a fmall cenfure laid on his memory, but not as a prejudice to his foul. This gives us a very plain view of the fenfe that he had of this inatter. After this roll was read, then the general prayer followed, as was formerly acknowledged, for all their fouls; and fo they went on in the Communion Service. This has no relation to a mals faid by a fingle prieft to deliver a foul out of Purgatory.

Oxon. ad

pleb. Fur

Here, without going far in tragical expreffions, we cannot hold faying what our Saviour faid upon another оссаfion, My boufe is a boufe of prayer, but ye have made it a den Mark xi. of thieves. A trade was fet up on this foundation. The 17. world was made believe, that by the virtue of fo many mafles, which were to be purchafed by great endowments, fouls were redeemed out of Purgatory; and fcenes

of

38.

ART. of vifions and apparitions, fometimes of the tormented, XXII. and fometimes of the delivered fouls, were published in all places; which had fo wonderful an effect, that in two or three centuries endowments increased to fo vaft a degree, that if the scandals of the clergy on the one hand, and the ftatutes of mortmain on the other, had not restrained the profufenefs that the world was wrought up to upon this account, it is not eafy to imagine how far this might have gone; perhaps to an entire fubjecting of the temporalty to the fpiritualty. The practices by which this was managed, and the effects that followed on it, we can call by no other name than downright impoftures; worse than the making or vending falfe coin; when the world was drawn in by fuch arts to plain bargains, to redeem their own fouls, and the fouls of their ancestors and pofterity, fo many masses were to be faid, and forfeitures were to follow upon their not being faid: thus the maffes were really the price of the lands. An endowment to a religious ufe, though mixed with error or fuperftition in the rules of it, ought to be held facred, according to the decifion given conNumb. xvi. cerning the cenfures of thofe that were in the rebellion of Corah fo that we do not excufe the violation of fuch from facrilege; yet we cannot think fo of endowments, where the only confideration was a falfe opinion first of Purgatory, and then of redemption out of it by masses; this being expreffed in the very deeds themselves. By the fame reafons, by which private perfons are obliged to reftore what they have drawn from others by bafe practices, by falfe deeds, or counterfeit coin; bodies are alfo bound to restore what they have got into their hands by fuch fraudulent practices; fo that the ftates and princes of Christendom were at full liberty, upon the discovery of thefe impoftures, to void all the endowments that had followed upon them; and either to apply them to better ufes, or to reftore them to the families from which they had been drawn, if that had been practicable, or to convert them to any other ufe. This was a crying abuse, which those who have obferved the progrefs that this matter made from the eighth century to the twelfth, cannot reflect on without both amazement and indignation. We are fenfible enough that there are many political reafons and arguments for keeping up the doctrine of Purgatory. But we have not fo learned Chrift. We ought not to lie even for God, much lefs for ourfelves, or for any other pretended ends of keeping the world in awe and order; therefore all the advantages that are faid to arife out of this, and all the mischief that may be thought to follow

on

ART.

on the rejecting of it, ought not to make us presume to carry on the ends of religion by unlawful methods. XXII. This were to call in the affiftance of the Devil to do the work of God: if the juft apprehenfions of the wrath of God, and the guilt of fin, together with the fear of everlafting burnings, will not reform the world, nor restrain finners, we must leave this matter to the wife, and unfearchable judgments of God.

The next particular in this Article is, the condemning the Romish doctrine concerning Pardons: that is founded on the diftinction between the temporal and eternal punishment of fin; and the Pardon is of the temporal punishment, which is believed to be done by a power lodged fingly in the Pope, derived from those words, Feed my Jbeep, and To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of beaven. This may be by him derived, as they teach, not only to Bishops and Priefts, but to the inferior orders, to be difpenfed by them; and it excufes from penance, unlefs he who purchases it thinks fit to use his penance in a medicinal way, as a prefervative against fin. So the virtue of indulgences is the applying the treasure of the Church upon fuch terms as Popes fhall think fit to prescribe, in order to the redeeming fouls from Purgatory, and from all other temporal punishments, and that for fuch a number of years as fhall be fpecified in the bulls; fome of which have gone to thousands of years; one I have feen to ten hundred thousand and as thefe indulgences are sometimes granted by special tickets, like tallies ftruck on that treafure; fo fometimes they are affixed to particular churches and altars, to particular times, or days, chiefly to the year of jubilee; they are alfo affixed to fuch things as may be carried about, to Agnus Dei's, to medals, to rofaries and fcapularies; they are alfo affixed to fome prayers, the devout faying of them being a mean to procure great indulgences. The granting thefe is left to the Pope's difcretion, who ought to diftribute them as he thinks may tend moft to the honour of God, and the good of the Church and he ought not to be too profufe, much lefs to be too fcanty in difpenfing them.

This has been the received doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome fince the twelfth century; and the Council of Trent in a hurry, in its laft feffion, did in very general words approve of the practice of the Church in this matter, and decreed that indulgences fhould be continued; only they reftrained fome abufes, in particular that of felling them; yet even thofe reftraints were wholly referred to the Popes themfelves: fo that this crying abufe, the fcandal

X

XXII.

ART. fcandal of which had occafioned the first beginnings and progrefs of the Reformation, was upon the matter eftablithed; and the correcting the exceffes in it was trufted to those who had been the authors of them, and the chief gainers by them. This point of their doctrine is more fully opened than might perhaps feem neceffary, if it were not that a great part of the confutation of fome doctrines is the expofing of them. For though in ages and places of ignorance these things have been, and fill are, practised with great affurance, and to very extravagant exceffes; yet in countries and ages of more light, when they come to be queftioned, they are difowned with an affurance equal to that with which they are practifed elsewhere. Among us fome will perhaps fay, that these are only exemptions from penance; which cannot be denied to be within the power of the Church; and they argue, that though it is very fit to make fevere laws, yet the execution of these must be softened in practice. This is all that they pretend to juftify, and they give up any further indulgences as an abufe of corrupt times. Whereas at the fame time a very different doctrine is taught among them, where there is no danger, but much profit, in owning it. All this is only a pretence; for the epifcopal power, in the inflicting, abating, or commuting of penance, is ftated among them as a thing wholly different from the power of indulgences. They are derived from different originals; and defigned for ends totally different from one another. The one is for the outward difcipline of the Church, and the other is for the inward quiet of confciences, and in order to their future ftate. The one is in every Bishop, and the other is afferted to be peculiar to the Pope. Nor will they efcape by laying this matter upon the ignorance and abufes of former times. It was publifhed in bulls, and received by the whole Church: fo that if either the Pope, or the diffufive body of the Church are infallible, there must be fuch a power in the Pope; and the decree of the Council of Trent, confirming and approving the practice of the Church in that point, mutt bind them all. For if this doctrine is falfe, then their infallibility must go with it; for in every hypothefis in which infallibility is faid to be lodged, whether in the Pope or in Councils, this doctrine has that feal to it.

As for the doctrine itself, all that has been already faid against the diftinction of temporal and eternal punishment, and against Purgatory, overthrows it; fince the one is the foundation on which it is built, and the other is that which it pretends to fecure men from; and therefore this

falls

falls with those. All that was faid upon the head of the ART. Sufficiency of the Scriptures comes alfo in here: for if the XXII. Scriptures ought to be our rule in any thing, it must be chiefly in those matters which relate to the pardon of fin, to the quiet of our confciences, and to a future ftate. Therefore a doctrine and practice that have not fo much as colours from Scripture in a matter of fuch confequence, ought to be rejected by us upon this fingle account. If from the Scripture we go to the practice and tradition of the Church, we are fure that this was not thought on for above ten centuries; all the indulgences that were then known being only the abatements of the feverity of the penitentiary canons: but in the ages in which afpiring and infolent Popes imposed on ignorant and fuperftitious multitudes, a jumble was made of indulgences formerly granted, of Purgatory, and of the papal authority, that was then very implicitly fubmitted to; and fo out of all that mixture this arofe; which was as ill managed as it was ill grounded. The natural tendency of it is not only to relax all public difcipline, but also all fecret penance, when fhorter methods to peace and pardon may be more eafily purchased. The vaft application to the executing the many trifling performances to which indulgences are granted, has brought in among them fuch a proftitution of holy things, that either it must be faid that thofe are public cheats, and that they were fo from the beginning, or that their virtue is now exhaufted, though the bulls that grant them are perpetual: or else a man may on very eafy terms preferve himself and redeem his friends out of Purgatory. If the faying a prayer before a privileged altar, or the vifiting fome churches in the time of jubilee, with thofe flight devotions that are then enjoined, have fuch efficacy in them, it is fcarce poffible for any man to be in danger of Purgatory.

The third head rejected in this Article is the Worshipping of Images. Here thofe of the Church of Rome complain much of the charge of idolatry, that our Church has laid upon them, fo fully and fo feverely in the Homilies. Some among ourselves have alfo thought that we muft either renounce that charge, or that we must deny the poffibility of falvation in that Church, and in confequence to that conclude, that neither the baptifm nor the orders of that Church are valid: for fince idolaters are excluded from the kingdom of heaven, they argue, that if there can be no falvation where idolatry is committed by the whole body of a Church, then that can be no Church, and in it there is no falvation. But here we