1 When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said Repent...’, he meant that the whole life of believers should be one of penitence.
2 The word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, in other words of confession and satisfaction, as administered by priests.
3 Yet he did not restrict it to inward penitence only; for inward penitence is nothing unless it produces outwardly the various mortifications of the flesh.
4 Hence as long as hatred of self remains (i.e. true inward penitence) the penalty of sin remains, that is, until we enter the kingdom of heaven.
5 The Pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties beyond those he has imposed either at his own discretion or by canon law.
6 The Pope can remit no guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by God; or, at most, he can remit it in cases reserved to his discretion. To ignore such remissions would of course leave the guilt untouched.
7 God never remits guilt to anyone without, at the same time, humbling him in total submission to the priest, his representative.
8 The penitential canons apply only to the living, and, according to the canons themselves, none applies to the dying.
9 Accordingly, the Holy Spirit does well for us through the Pope, by always making exception in his decrees of cases of imminent death or necessity.
10 It is ignorant and wrong for priests to reserve for the dying the canonical penalties in purgatory.
11 When canonical penalties were changed into penance in purgatory, the bishops must have been asleep while tares were being sown.
12 In former days, canonical penalties were imposed not after but before absolution, as evidence of true contrition.
13 The dying will pay all their debts by their death; and they are already dead to the canon laws and free from their jurisdiction.
14 Defective spiritual health or love in a dying man must needs bring with it a great fear, and the greater the deficiency the greater the fear.
15 This fear and horror is sufficient in itself (to pass over all else) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it comes very near the horror of despair.
16 There seems to be the same difference between hell, purgatory, and heaven as between despair, near despair, and assurance.
I7 It seems that for souls in purgatory their love is necessarily increased as their horrors are abated.
18 Nor does it seem proved, on any grounds of reason or scripture, that those souls are outside the state of merit, or unable to grow in love.
19 Nor does it seem proved that they - or at least all of them - are certain and assured of their salvation, even if we are very certain of it ourselves.
20 Therefore the Pope, by his plenary remission of all penalties, does not mean ‘all’ in the absolute sense, but only those imposed by himself.
21 Hence those preachers of Indulgences are wrong when they say that a man is absolved and saved from every penalty by the Pope's Indulgences.
22 Rather, he cannot remit to souls in purgatory any penalty which canon law declares should have been paid in this present life.
23 If any remission of all penalties whatsoever can be granted to anyone, it can only be to those who are most perfect, in other words to very few.
24 It must therefore follow that the greater part of the people are deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of freedom from penalty.
25 The same power as the Pope has in general over purgatory is possessed in particular by every single bishop in his bishopric and curate in his parish.
26 The Pope does excellently when he grants remission to the souls - not by the power of the keys (for he has none), but through intercession.
27 It is mere human talk to preach that the soul flies out [of purgatory] immediately the money clinks in the collection-box.
28 It is certainly possible that when the money clinks in the collection-box greed and avarice can increase; but the intercession of the Church depends on the will of God alone.
29 Who knows if all the souls in purgatory wish to be redeemed in view of the story told of St. Severinus and Paschal?
30 No one is sure of the reality of his own contrition, much less of receiving plenary forgiveness.
31 A man who truly buys Indulgences is as rare as a true penitent, in other words very rare indeed.
32 All those who believe themselves certain of their own salvation because of letters of pardon, will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.
33 We must especially beware of those who say that the Papal pardons are that inestimable divine gift by which a man is reconciled to God.
34 For the gifts of grace conveyed by these pardons relate only to the penalties of sacramental satisfaction which have been decreed by man.
35 It is not Christian preaching to teach that those who aim to redeem their souls, or to purchase confessional Indulgences, have no need of contrition.
36 Any Christian whatsoever who is truly repentant has, as his due, plenary remission from penalty and guilt, even without letters of Indulgence.
37 Any true Christian whatsoever, living or dead, participates in all benefits of Christ and the Church; and this is granted him by God, even without letters of Indulgence.
38 Yet the Pope's remission and dispensation are in no way to be despised, for, as already said, they proclaim the divine remission.
39 It is very difficult, even for the most learned theologians, to extol to the people at the same time the bounty of Indulgences and the need for true contrition.
40 True contrition seeks out and loves to pay the penalties of sin; whereas the bounty of Indulgences relaxes the penalties and makes men resent them - or at least it can do.
41 Apostolic pardons should only be preached with caution, lest people wrongly understand that they are more important than other good works of love.
42 Christians should be taught that the Pope has no thought that the purchase of Indulgences should be understood as at all comparable with works of mercy.
43 Christians should be taught that one who gives to the poor, or lends to the needy, does a better action than if he purchases pardons.
44 This is because, by a work of love, love grows and a man becomes better; whereas, by pardons, he does not become better, but only more free from punishment.
45 Christians should be taught that he who sees a needy person and passes him by, although he gives money for pardons, wins for himself not Papal Indulgences but the wrath of God.
46 Christians should be taught that, unless they abound in possessions beyond their needs, their duty is to retain what is necessary for their own household, and in no way to squander it in buying pardons.
47 Christians should be taught that the purchase of pardons is voluntary not obligatory.
48 Christians should be taught that, in granting pardons, the Pope has more need, and more desire, for devout prayer on his own behalf than for ready money.
49 Christians should be taught that the Pope's pardons are useful only if they do not rely on them, but most harmful if they lose the fear of God through them.
50 Christians should be taught that, if the Pope knew the exactions of the preachers of Indulgences, he would rather have the basilica of St. Peter reduced to ashes than built with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.
51 Christians should be taught that the Pope would be willing, as he ought if necessity should arise, to sell the church of St. Peter, and give of his own money to the great number from whom certain pardon-merchants are extorting it.
52 It is vain to rely on salvation through letters of pardon, even if the commissary, or indeed the Pope himself, were to put his own soul in pledge for them.
53 It is the enemies of Christ and of the Pope who forbid the word of God to be preached at all in some churches, in order that pardons may be preached in others.
54 The Word of God suffers injury if, in the same sermon, an equal or longer time is devoted to pardons than to that Word.
55 The mind of the Pope must necessarily be that if pardons (a very small matter) are celebrated by a single bell, by single processions and ceremonies, the Gospel (a very great matter) should be preached to the accompaniment of a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.
56 The treasures of the Church, out of which the Pope gives Indulgences, are not sufficiently spoken of or known among the people of Christ.
57 It is at least clear that they are not temporal from the fact that many of the merchants do not scatter them freely, but only collect them.
58 Nor are they the merits of Christ and the saints, because, quite apart from the Pope, these merits are always working grace in the inner man, and cross, death and hell in the outer man.
59 St. Laurence said that the poor were the treasures of the Church, but in saying this he was using the language of his own time.
60 We do not speak rashly in saying that the keys of the Church are its treasure, and are bestowed by the merits of Christ.
61 For it is clear that the power of the Pope suffices, by itself, for the remission of penalties and (reserved) cases.
62 The true treasure of the Church is the holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God.
63 But this is deservedly the most hated, for it makes the first to be the last.
64 On the other hand, the treasure of Indulgences is deservedly most popular, for it makes the last to be the first.
65 Therefore the treasures of the Gospel are nets which, in former times, they used to fish for men of wealth.
66 The treasures of the Indulgences are the nets which they use to fish for men of wealth today.
67 The Indulgences, which the merchants extol as the greatest gifts of grace, are rightly understood as ‘greatest’ only as far as money-getting is concerned.
68 But they are in truth least of all comparable with the grace of God and the piety of the cross.
69 Bishops and curates are in duty bound to receive the commissaries of the Apostolic pardons with all reverence.
70 But they are under a much greater obligation to give all their eyes and ears to prevent these men preaching their own dreams instead of the Pope’s commission.
71 Let him be anathema and accursed who denies the truth of the Apostolic pardons.
72 On the other hand, let him be blessed who is on his guard against the wantonness and licence of the pardon-merchants' words.
73 Just as the Pope rightly thunders against those who contrive by any means to make a fraud of the business of pardons.
74 Much more does he intend to thunder against those who use the pretext of Indulgences to make a fraud of holy love and truth.
75 It is madness to think that Papal pardons have so much power that they can absolve a man even if he has done the impossible and violated the mother of God.
76 We assert the contrary, that the Pope's pardons are not able to remove the least of venial sins as far as their guilt is concerned.
77 When it is said that not even St. Peter, if he were now Pope, could bestow greater gifts of grace, it is blasphemy against St. Peter and the Pope.
78 We assert the contrary, that both he and any Pope whatever, possesses greater gifts of grace - the Gospel, virtues, graces of healing, etc., as in I Corinthians XII.
79 It is blasphemy to say that the cross erected with the insignia of the Papal arms is of equal value with the cross of Christ.
80 Bishops, curates, and theologians who authorize such preaching to the people, will have to answer for it.
81 This wanton preaching of pardons makes if difficult even for learned men to redeem respect due to the Pope from the slanders or at least the shrewd questionings of the laity.
82 For example: ‘Why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the sake of most holy love and the supreme need of souls? This would be the most righteous of reasons, if he can redeem innumerable souls for sordid money with which to build a basilica, the most trivial of reasons.’
83 Again: ‘Why should requiems and anniversary masses for the dead continue to be said? And why does the Pope repay, or permit to be repaid, the benefactions instituted for the dead, since it is wrong to pray for those souls who are now redeemed?’
84 Again: ‘Surely this is a new sort of piety, on the part of God and the Pope, when they allow an impious man, an enemy of God, to pay money to redeem a devout soul, a friend of God; while yet they do not redeem, for free love's sake, the pious and beloved soul without payment, on account of its own need?’
85 Again: ‘Whereas the penitential canon laws, which in fact and through disuse, have long been repealed and dead in themselves, why are dispensations from them still bought for money, through the granting of Indulgences, as if they were fully operative?’
86 Again: ‘Since the Pope's wealth is larger than that of the crassest Crassi of our time, why does he not build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with that of the faithful poor?’
87 Again: ‘What does the Pope remit or dispense to people who, by their perfect contrition, have a right to plenary remission and dispensation?’
88 Again: ‘What greater good would be done to the Church if the Pope were to bestow these remissions and dispensations, not once, as now, but a hundred times a day, on any believer whatever.’
89 ‘Since the Pope seeks by Indulgences not money so much as the salvation of souls, why does he suspend the letters and pardons formerly conceded, as they are still as efficacious as they ever were?’
90 To suppress these most conscientious questionings of the laity by authority only, instead of refuting them by reason, is to expose the Church and the Pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christian people unhappy.
91 If, therefore, pardons were preached in accordance with the spirit and mind of the Pope, all these difficulties would be easily overcome, or rather would never have arisen.
92, Away, then, with those prophets who say to Christ's people, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace.
93 Good riddance to all of those prophets who say to Christ's people, ‘The cross, the cross!’ when there is no cross.
94 Christians should be exhorted to seek earnestly to follow Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hells.
95 And let them thus be more confident of entering heaven through many tribulations rather than through a false assurance of peace.
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