13. The granting of indulgences as exemptions from temporal penalties was at first confined to the bishops and their agents, and the practice dates as an organized traffic from about the middle of the twelfth century. It remained for the popes, however, to go to the blasphemous extreme of assuming to remit the penalties of the hereafter on payment of the sums prescribed. Their pretended justification of the impious assumption was as horrible as the act itself, and constitutes the dreadful _doctrine of supererogation_. 14. As formulated in the thirteenth century, this doctrine was thus set forth: "That there actually existed an immense treasure of _merit_, composed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints had performed _beyond what was necessary for their own salvation_, and which were therefore applicable to the benefit of others; that the guardian and dispenser of this precious treasure was the Roman pontiff, and that of consequence he was empowered to assign to such as he thought proper a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes."--(As cited by Mosheim; see "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. XII, Part II, ch. 3:4.) 15. The doctrine of supererogation is as unreasonable as it is unscriptural and untrue. Man's individual responsibility for his acts is as surely a fact as is his agency to act for himself. He will be saved through the merits and by the atoning sacrifice of our Redeemer and Lord; and his claim upon the salvation provided is strictly dependent on his compliance with the principles and ordinances of the gospel as established by Jesus Christ. Remission of sins and the eventual salvation of the human soul are provided for; but these gifts of God are not to be purchased with money. Compare the awful fallacies of supererogation and the blasphemous practice of assuming to remit sins of one man in consideration of the merits of another, with the declaration of the one and only Savior of mankind: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment."--(Matt. 12:36.) His inspired apostles, seeing in prophetic vision the day of awful certainty, solemnly testifies, "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, _according to their works_. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: _and they were judged every man according to their works_."--(Rev. 20:12, 13. Italics intro.)