I have always been perplexed as to what the indulgences really give. Christopher has terrible stories about the money paid for them being spent by Dr. Tetzel and others on taverns and feasts; and Gottfried says, "It is a bargain between the priests, who love money, and the people, who love sin."
Yesterday morning I saw one of the letters of indulgence for the first time. A neighbour of ours, the wife of a miller, whose weights have been a little suspected in the town, was in a state of great indignation when I went to purchase some flour of her.
"See!" she said; "this Dr. Luther will be wiser than the Pope himself. He has refused to admit my husband to the Holy Sacrament unless he repents and confesses to him, although he took his certificate in his hand."
She gave it to me, and I read it. Certainly, if the doctors of divinity disagree about the value of these indulgences, Dr. Tetzel has no ambiguity nor uncertainty in his language.
"I," says the letter, "absolve thee from all the excesses, sins, and crimes which thou hast committed, however great and enormous they may be. I remit for thee the pains thou mightest have had to endure in purgatory. I restore thee to participation in the sacraments. I incorporate thee afresh into the communion of the Church. I re-establish thee in the innocence and purity in which thou wast at the time of thy baptism. So that, at the moment of thy death, the gate by which souls pass into the place of torments will be shut upon thee; while, on the contrary, that which leads to the paradise of joy will be open unto thee. And if thou art not called on to die soon, this grace will remain unaltered for the time of thy latter end.
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
"Friar John Tetzel, Commissary, has signed it with his own hand."
"To think," said my neighbour, "of the pope promising my Franz admittance into paradise; and Dr. Luther will not even admit him to the altar of the parish church? And after spending such a sum on it! for the friar must surely have thought my husband better off than he is, or he would not have demanded gold of poor struggling people like us."
"But if the angels at the gate of paradise should be of the same mind as Dr. Luther?" I suggested, "would it not be better to find that out here than there?"
"It is impossible," she replied; "have we not the Holy Father's own word? and did we not pay a whole golden florin? It is impossible it can be in vain."
"Put the next florin in your scales instead of in Dr. Tetzel's chest, neighbour," said a student, laughing, as he heard her loud and angry words; "it may weigh heavier with your flour than against your sins."
I left them to finish the discussion.