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gure is drawn no lower than the hips; being vided from the rest of the picture by balifters, hind which it feems defigned to be placed.

Whether all this imagery was intended to fignify, that the then reigning pope had prayed to our Lord Jefus Chrift, to impower him to grant the pardon mentioned in the infcription, and that, according to the frequent fictions of thofe times, our Lord had appeared to him, to affure him of his confent; or whatever elfe was the real defign; cannot now be certainly determined. But it is plain from the monument itself, that such a pardon was granted by a pope: and that this was well known when the monument was fet up; otherwife fevere must have been the punishment of those who erected it, for an impofition upon the church, and a flander against his holiness. The inscription itself, thus pompously attended, is, I fay, a fufficient indication; that the pope then reigning did grant an indulgence, containing a pardon for fins to come, fins not yet committed; the penalty whereof is here exprefly remitted for 26000 years to come. So that if the author of the Grounds does, as he * affirms, mean no more by indulgences, than a releafing by the power of the keys committed to the church. the debt of temporal punishment, which may ⚫ remain due upon the account of our fins, after 'the fins themselves, as to the guilt and eternal punishment, have been already remitted by repentance and confeffion :' yet in the cafe before us, even according to his own explication, the

*Pag. 49.

indulgence

indulgence must extend to fins to come: and that in a very flagrant manner; fo as to lead the fuperftitious devotees to hope, that upon saying the appointed pater nofters and ave Maries and creed, they should have a pardon reaching beyond the duration of this world.

I chose the rather to take notice of this monument, because it gives a more fure account of what is meant by popish indulgences, than is likely to be gathered from the writings of authors, whose business it is to make them as plaufible as they can.

appear

The other teftimony relates more immediately to the queftion, whether indulgences include a leave to commit fin: though as it extends to all the fucceffions of the kings and queens of France, it must likewife, if it fignifies any thing at all, include in effect a pardon beforehand, for all the fins they should ever commit, in breaking their folemn oaths and vows. It is an indulgence, granted by Clement VI. in the year 1351, to the king and queen of France, and their fucceffors. I fhall produce it in the pope's own words: and then leave the world to judge, what he himself, and the perfons to whom he granted it, could be supposed to understand by it. The pope's words, tranfcribed from D'achery's Spicilegium, are at the bottom of the page. The English is to the following purpose: but an exact translation is not pretended to.

Clement

ye

* Clement, bishop, fervant of the fervants of God: to our most dear children in Chrift, John and Joan, the illuftrious king and queen of France; greeting and apoftolical benediction. Your defires we readily agree to: thofe especially, by which may obtain from a propitious God, as ye piously request, peace and health of foul. Hence it is that we, inclined to your fupplications, do by apoftolical authority, by the tenor of these prefents, for ever indulge to you and your fucceffors, who for the time being fhall be kings and queens of France, and to every of you and them; that fuch confeffor, religious or fecular, as any of you and them Shall think fit to choofe, may commute, for you and them, fuch vows as perhaps you may have made already, or which by you and your fucceffors may be hereafter made, (the ultramarine sow, and X that

*Clemens, epifcopus, fervus fervorum Dei, cariffimis in Chrifto filiis, Joanni regi, & Joannæ reginæ Franciæ illuftribus: falutem & apoftolicam benedictionem. Votis veftris libenter annuimus: iis præcipuè, per quæ, ficut piè defideratis, pacem & falutem animæ, Deo propitio, confequi valeatis. Hinc eft, quòd nos, vestris fupplicationibus inclinati, vobis & fuccefforibus veftris, regibus & reginis Franciæ, qui pro tempore fuerint, ac veftrum & corum cuilibet, auctoritate apoftolicâ, tenore præfentium, in perpetuum indulgemus: ut confeffor religiofus vel fæcularis, quem veftrum & eorum quilibet duxerit eligendum, vota per vos forfitan jam emiffa, ac per vos & fucceffores veftros in pofterum emittenda, ultramarino, ac beatorum Petri & Pauli apostolorum, ac caftitatis & continentiæ votis dumtaxat exceptis ; necnon juramenta per vos & eos præftanda in pofterum, quæ vos & illi fervare commodè non poffetis, vobis & eis commutare valeat in alia opera pietatis, prout fecun→ dum Deum & animarum veftrarum & eorum faluti viderit expedire. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam noftræ conceffionis infringere, vel ei aufu temerario contraire. Siquis autem hoc attentare præfumferit, indignationem omnipotentis Dei, & beatorum Petri & Pauli apoftolorum ejus, fe noverit incurfurum. Datum Avenioni, x11 calend. Maii, anno nono. Dacher. Spicileg. edit. 1723. tom. III. pag. 724.

that of the bleed apoftles Peter and Paul, and that of chastity and continency, only excepted) and alfo fuch oaths, by you taken, or by you and them hereafter to be taken, as you and they cannot commodioufly keep, into other works of piety, according as he fall fee expedient for the health of your and their fouls, and agreeable to God. Be it therefore utterly unlawful for any man whatever to infringe this our grant; or by a rash adventure to proceed in oppofition to it. But if any fhall prefume to attempt this; let him know, that he Thall incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of his bleffed apoftles Peter and Paul. Given at Avignon, the 19th of April, in our ninth year.

I will not offer to affirm, that the kings and queens of France have, fince the grant of this indulgence, kept their folemn oaths and vows a whit worse than they would have done, if no fuch indulgence had ever been granted. Yet if they had any faith in the pope's power, the indulgence muft needs have been a strong temptation to break through their oaths and vows, upon all those occafions, where the strict observation of them became any way incommodious to their interefts, or unfuitable to their inclinations. However let the world judge: whether the undertaking to discharge men from vows and oaths, by ' which they have folemnly bound themselves; particularly whether the giving this liberty to princes, upon whofe public obligations their own. fubjects and thofe of other nations think they have a right to depend, and the commuting or changing those obligations for others of a different kind, is not granting a leave to commit fin. If it

is

is not then the breaking of oaths and vows, merely for our own intereft or pleasure, and without any regard to the just claims of our fellow-creatures, is no fin.

Now let the author of the Grounds choose; whether he will deny the * facts related; or fet up his own authority against that of the popes, who granted the indulgences referred to; or whether he will vindicate them in those blafphemous grants, and prove they were guilty of no crime, and overtaken with no error.

*Other inftances of the like kind might be produced. Among which is a remarkable Rubric in the Hortulus anima, pagg. 340, 341, under the head of Suffragia virginum, in the following words. Alexander Papa fextus conceffit decem millia annorum indulgentiarum pro mortalibus, et viginti pro venialibus, dicenti banc orationem trinâ vice coram imagine S. Annæ ac B. Virginis, et Filii ejus: quas et proprio ore promulgavit et publicavit; anno videlicet M.CCCC. XCIIII. That is to fay: Pope Alexander VI. granted ten thousand years of indulgences for mortal fins, and twenty for venial fins, to him who should fay this prayer before the image of S. Anne, and of the bleffed Virgin, and of her Son: which indulgences he alfo promulged and published with his own mouth, in the year 1494. Then the prayer is recited. To the fame purpose is a paffage, in fol. 213. of the Horas Portuguezas, e Manual de OraCoens, &c. printed with the King's royal licenfe, at Lisbon, 1675. Where we are told: that whoever shall devoutly fay a prayer, there recited, of the merits of the passion of Jefus Christ our Lord, compofed by the glorious father Saint Auguftine, taken from the original, which is in the chapel of St. John of Lateran in Rome, fball, provided he obtains in the fame year the Bull de fancta Cruce, gain, the day in which he recites that prayer, eighty thousand years of indulgence and remiffion of mortal fins, granted and confirmed by many popes. And not altogether foreign to the fubject is fol. 212. of the fame book: where we are affured: that pope Clement VIII. granted the indulgence of delivering a foul out of purgatory, for every time that a certain prayer, there recited, fhould be faid in honour of the holy Sudarium; "provided only, that he be in the fame year "furnish'd with the Bull just now mentioned."---But things of this kind are so notorious, that there is no need of multiplying proofs.

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