APPENDIX

I

T has been shewn in the foregoing effay, that the doctrine of indulgences has a manifeft tendency to the ruin of mens fouls. It has this pernicious tendency, even in case the indulgences be understood to relate only to fins paft. For if a man who is vicioufly inclined can perfuade himself, that pardons may be purchased for money, or obtained by any of those trifling meafures which the indulgences prefcribe; he will fecurely go on, paying for pardon after pardon, and complying with every method which shall be fubftituted in the room of real amendment; but will never endure the thought of that change of heart and mind, without which the Moft High himself bestows no pardon. And a Romanist is the more in danger of going on thus to his life's end, because he knows, that according to the doctrine of his church, the priest is obliged to give abfolution to any man in the article of death, who profeffes penitence: nay further, that after he is dead, he may be prayed out of purgatory, if he leave behind him fufficient to fatisfy the prieft for his pains. If therefore it were ever fo certain, that the indulgences mentioned in the foregoing effay, from Thomas Aquinas, from

U

*

* Concil. Trident. Seff. XIV. de pœnit. cap. 7, Pag. 116, 117.

Anto

Antonine's Repertorium, and from the canon-law, relate only to fins paft: if they were meant only of forty days paft, or feven years past, or a third part of fins paft; or if the plenary indulgences themselves were pardons only for all fins paft: yet it is as certain, that they who can believe, that fuch pardons can be obtained by vifiting of churches, or by any of the other trifling methods prescribed in the Romish indulgences, will never in earneft fet about the work of reformation, or think of conforming their heart and life to the mind of God. Romish indulgences therefore have much the fame pernicious tendency, if understood concerning fins past, as if they directly promised pardon for fins to come: and the granting them, in thofe circumstances in which the popes of Rome grant them, is in effect the fame monftrous abomination, as giving leave to commit fin, and granting pardon beforehand. Nor can any reafon be given, why they, who will fet themselves in the place of God, and undertake to forgive fins paft, as they do, may not as well pretend to forgive fins to come.

The Romish writers indeed deny, that by indulgences they mean leave to commit fin, or pardon for fins to come. And particularly the author of the Grounds of catholic doctrine * denies that he means any fuch thing. It would be fomewhat impolitic, if he fhould directly own it. But whatever this author may mean; what if both the particulars denied by him should be proved by the infallible authority of popes themselves? To this purpose it was intended to have produced

* Pag 49.

in

year

in the foregoing effay a monumental infcription, containing a pardon for 26000 years and 26 days; and likewife an indulgence granted in the 1351, to a king and queen of France and their fucceffors, allowing them liberty to break their oaths and vows, when they could not commodiously keep them. But the copy of the infcription was mislaid: and the other teftimony was not produced, because the author of the effay had not an opportunity of confulting the book in which it was first published, and did not choose to quote it at second hand.

A fresh and authentic copy of the infcription is fupplied by the friendship of the reverend Dr. George Legh, rector of Hallifax in the county of York: to whom it was tranfmitted by George Legh, of High-Legh in the county of Chefter, efquire: who took care to have the impreffion taken from the monument itself, and attefted by the hand of the reverend Mr. John Robinson, now minister of Macclesfield in the fame county: in whose parish the monument is still to be seen, in an oratory belonging to the earl Rivers, ftanding on one fide of the parochial chapel of Macclesfield. There is a brief account of this monument in the last edition of Cambden's Britannia, vol. I. pag. 678, 679. A more large and particular account may perhaps be fome entertainment to a curious reader.

At the bottom of the monument are the following words; in three lines, about 21 inches long; the letters, almost an inch in height, cut out in old church-characters, not very easy to be imitated now, especially in the abbreviations:

U 2

Orate

Diate paialz Rogen legh et

Fizabeth vs fue qui quidm

Rogus obyt uy die Nouembus

Nom af by Elzabeth vezo obyt Göre Octobys Com terec berrix quoz sab; pprreti de?

In English thus :

Pray for the fouls of Roger Legh and Elizabeth his wife: which Roger indeed died the 4th day of November, in the year of our Lord 1506; but Elizabeth died the 5th day of October, in the year of our Lord 1489: to whofe fouls may God be propitious.

Juft above this infcription, and close joining to the right fide of it, is the figure of a woman, kneeling, with her hands held up together before her breaft, and fix children (probably her daughters) ftanding behind her. Near her mouth is a label, with these words, in the fame character as before:

a dampnaçõe zpetua liba nos dñe

from perpetual damnation deliver us o lord.

It

It is probable, by the large vacant space over the other end of the former infcription, that there was originally a plate, reprefenting the gentleman and his fons, facing the lady and her daughters: because the infcription itself, in a very common form, calls upon every fpectator to pray for his and her foul.

But this was all in Latin. And it was probable, that the greatest number of spectators would be fuch as understood only the English tongue. To engage therefore both learned and unlearned to pray for the fouls of Roger and Elizabeth Legh, the most obvious part of the monument was contrived to be an English infcription; raised a confiderable height above the Latin one; ftand-. ing between the space where the lady kneels, and that where the figure of the gentleman probably was; reaching from their elbows up a little above their heads; and confequently fo placed, that both their faces in kneeling must look towards it.

The words of this infcription, in the fame character as before, are as follows; in fix lines, so contrived as to make up the form of an oblong Square:

The