13786 A THIRD LETTER TO N. WISEMAN, D.D. ON THE ROMISH DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTIONS. BY THE REV. WILLIAM PALMER, M.A. OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER; J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. 1841. 1308. e. 30 (2) A THIRD LETTER, &c. IN SIR, my last Letter I demonstrated, that, according to the doctrines generally taught in the Church of Rome, a justified and sanctified person still remains subject to the wrath of God; that a beloved child of God has to dread His anger and His vengeance ; that the same persons are at the same moment loved and hated by their Creator and Saviour. These conclusions are intimately and indissolubly connected with your belief, that temporal punishments remain to be endured after sin has been pardoned. They lie at the foundation of your doctrine of Satisfaction, Purgatory, and Indulgences. It is my intention to pursue this error into all its ramifications, and to expose the mass of dangerous errors and superstitions, and of absurd contradictions to which it leads, and in which it actually involves all your theologians. On the present occasion, your doctrine of Satisfaction shall become the subject of discussion; and with this view we must in the first instance proceed to ascertain what your tenets really are on this point, and to what practices they give rise. 1. It is your belief then, that after sin has been remitted as far as regards its guilt and eternal penalties, by the merits of Christ's sacrifice applied in the sacrament of Penance, a temporal penalty still remains due to the justice of an offended and angry God; and that this wrath and anger of avenging justice may be appeased, and your sin expiated and atoned for as regards its temporal penalty, by SATISFACTIONS, that is, penitential works, such as prayer, alms-giving, fasting, mortifications, &c. 2. You also believe, that Indulgences validly and effectually received, remit a portion or the whole of the temporal penalty due to remitted sin, and partially or wholly remove the necessity for satisfactions; but as it is impossible, generally speaking, to know whether the conditions on which alone Indulgences are valid, have been fulfilled in any particular case, you therefore hold that penitents ought to continue in the performance of works of satisfaction to the end of their lives, and never believe themselves relieved from the necessity of expiating and atoning for sin, although that sin may have been remitted and pardoned long before in the sacrament of Penance. Such is your belief on this point, as I shall now shew by references to your own writings, and to |