in the Romish church, are a remission of the punishment due to sins, granted by the church, and supposed to save the sinner from Purgatory. Clement VI. in his decretal, which is generally received by the church of Rome, declares, that our Saviour has left an infinite treasure of merits, arising from his own sufferings, besides those of the blessed virgin and the saints; and that the pastors and guides of the church, and more especially the popes, who are the sovereign disposers of this treasure, have authority to apply it to the living by virtue of the keys, and to the dead by way of suffrage, to discharge them from their respective proportions of punishment, by taking just so much merit out of this general treasure as they conceive the debt requires, and offering it to God.

The power of granting indulgences has been greatly abused in the church of Rome. It was one of the chief things which the council of Constance laid to the charge of John XXIII. in 1415, that he empowered his legates to absolve penitents from all sorts of crimes, upon the payment of sums proportionable to their guilt. Pope Leo X. in order to carry on the magnificent structure of St. Peter's at Rome, published indulgences, and a plenary remission to all such as should contribute money. money towards it. Finding the project take, he gave his sister, the princess of Cibo, the benefit of the indulgences of Saxony and the neighbouring parts, and farmed out those of other countries to the highest bidders, who, to make the best of their bargains, procured the ablest preachers to cry up the value of the ware.

"Happy times for sinners!" says a modern writer, "their crimes were rated, and the remission of them set up by auction. The apostolic chancery taxed sins at a pretty reasonable rate. It cost but ninety livres and a few ducats, for crimes which people on this side the Alps punished with death."

It was this great abuse of indulgences that contributed not a little to the first reformation of religion in Germany, where Martin Luther began first to declaim against the preachers of indulgences, and afterwards against indulgences themselves: but since that time the popes have been more sparing in the exercise of this power; however, they still carry on a great trade with them to the Indies, where they are purchased at two rials a-piece, and sometimes more.

The pope likewise grants indulgences to persons at the point of death; that is, he grants them, by a brief, power to chuse what confessor they please, who is authorized thereby to absolve them from all their sins in general.