Archbishop Tillotson has observed, speaking of the superiority of the reformed religion, ‘We make no money of the mistakes of the people; nor do we fill their heads with fears of new places of torment, to make them empty their purses in a vainer hope to be delivered out of them; we do not pretend to have a mighty bank and treasure of merits in the Church, which they sell for ready money, giving them bills of exchange from the pope on purgatory; when they who grant them have no reason to believe they will avail them, or be accepted in the other world.’ Bad as is the plan of purchasing heaven by money, as these deceivers teach, it is not the worse feature in the disposal of indulgences; for among other methods resorted to by the heads of papacy to support a rotten fabric, indulgences for future convenience in this world, and an exemption from punishment hereafter, were given to those who would fight for the Church, or, in plain terms, persecute all others. Bishop Burnet states that a jubilee was granted after the massacre at Paris, to all who had been in that butchery; and they were commanded to go and bless God for the success of that action. The pope sent Cardinal Urson, his legate, to France, to thank the king for so great a service done to the Church, and to desire him to go on, and extirpate heresy root and branch, that it might never grow again. And as the legate passed through on his journey to Paris, he gave a plenary indulgence to all who had been actors in the massacre. It may not be amiss, if we state, that by a plenary indulgence a man returns to the state he 219was in after baptism; and, did he die that instant, his soul would go at once to paradise, without passing through purgatory. On this principle, the furies who shed the blood of the saints in France were so fully meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, that the alembic of purgatory, through which persons less saintly must pass, might in their happy case be omitted. The depravity connected with the sale of this filthy article has extended itself in other modes. In a book printed in Rome, in the year 1514, by the authority of the pope, entitled, The Tax of the Sacred Roman Chancery, is to be found a table containing a list of prices for which certain sins may with safety be committed. This book was afterwards reprinted at Paris, Cologne, and Venice; and has since been translated into English, under the title of Rome, a great Custom-House of Sin. It informs the world for what price the pardon of heaven and absolution might, for particular crimes, be obtained. For instance, pardon: £ s. d. For stealing holy things out of a consecrated place 0 10 0 For a layman murdering a layman 0 7 6 For murdering father, mother, wife, or sister 0 10 6 For a priest keeping a concubine 0 10 6 For burning a house maliciously 0 12 0