what was called “a Common Mass.” The practice, therefore, of offering “private Masses” for souls in Purgatory, as it was very lucrative, so it became very prevalent. Thus spiritual things were used for the purpose of bringing large money gains to the Chantry Priests, and what should be, and we may surely affirm was meant to be, for the common benefit of all became the narrow privilege of the few. For rich men could provide Masses for their dead friends and for themselves after death, which it was quite out of the power of the poor to provide. [88]
4. But a word also must be said about “Indulgences.” An Indulgence was an abatement or remission granted by the Church’s authority of some part of the temporal penance imposed by that authority upon an evil doer. If the guilty person should show sincere proofs of penitence, or by liberal giving of alms made satisfactory recompense for wrongs done, his penance might be eased, or the term of his excommunication shortened, and his Church privileges partly or wholly restored. It may well be understood how all this might be very wisely and fitly done. The authority which inflicted the penance may rightly have been entrusted with the power also of mitigating or removing it. But gradually this remission of the temporal punishment for sins done in the past became applicable, not seldom, to future sin also: and it soon was no uncommon thing to grant Indulgences for 500, or 10,000, and even for 50,000 years. And, since these long periods of
years would, of course, extend beyond any man’s term of life on earth, it was obvious that they were intended to secure the remission, not indeed of the guilt of the sin, but of the temporal punishment of sin during all these years in Purgatory. Thus it was supposed that the best possible provision was made whereby the duration of the long years of torments due for sin in Purgatory might be curtailed. But worse remained. The Papal Court needed treasure. And in an evil moment permission was given that these Indulgences might be sold for money. Thus grew up an unholy traffic, which, as we all know, first roused in Germany the storm of the Reformation. Subsequently, the Papal authorities so far yielded as to forbid all taking of money for these Indulgences. But the system itself had meantime taken deep root. It continued, and continues to this day. It was, however, at its worst when the Twenty-second Article was drawn up.
Can we be surprised that it sternly condemned it? It is all a pitiful history. But it was necessary to refer to it in order both to show how the growth of the Romish Doctrine of Purgatory gradually gathered round it mischievous accretions, and also to prove how little the belief, that in the Intermediate State there is a progressive advance of the soul in holiness towards perfection, is like the Romish teaching and practice.
But it would be an act of disloyalty to the truth, and of cowardice into the bargain, if we should abandon or minimize a truth because it has been by some corrupted and perverted. Many a truth which has come down to us may have lost some of the fresh lustre of its early purity. But all the same, if it is the truth we cannot let it go. And that truth which tells us something of the land, now beyond our sight, to which our dear ones have already passed, which we shall each of us ourselves soon enter—the truth which
God has made known to us in Holy Scripture about this land, we cannot afford to ignore and disregard. Nothing is easier than to discredit such a truth by raising the cry of Popery. It is one of the penalties which those have to pay who seek to disentangle the truth which He has in His Church revealed from the untruth which has wrapped it round.
But we must not shrink from this duty. In days when principles are questioned, and almost all truths disputed, we must, at all hazards, learn to keep our sight clear and our footing steady. For the Lord is our Light and our Salvation. Whom then shall we fear? The Lord is the strength of our life: of whom then shall we be afraid? [92]
IX.
“The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.”—2 Tim. i. 18.
We must now bring to a close the discussion which has been occupying our attention: not that everything has been said that can or ought to be said about it; for the interest of the subject grows with the handling of it, as the various features of it open out to view.