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Part 3 of Martin Downes' interview with Sean Michael Lucas.

Martin is also reading Mike Horton's latest Covenant and Salvation.

"What?" you say, "I thought Rome was shamed into giving up plenary indulgences after Luther published the Ninety-Five Theses in 1517." Not so fast. "Well, surely we were to think that Rome quit this sort of thing after Vatican II." Wrong again. Rome has been issuing plenary indulgences non-stop since before the Reformation.

What's an indulgence? Here's how Canon Law defines them:

An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.

What this means is that, if you meet the conditions stipulated in the indulgence, you are pardoned from "temporal punishments." What are they? Purgatory. When you fail to propitiate the divine wrath perfectly by failing to perform your assigned acts of penance and you add to your time in purgatory. If however, you keep your part of the covenant (according to Rome), you can get out of purgatory free.

What are the conditions? According to the decree, the "usual conditions" include "sacramental Confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Holy Father" but they have to be met "in the following way:"

A) "If between December 8, 2007 and December 8, 2008 they visit, preferably in the order suggested: (1) the parish baptistery used for the Baptism of Bernadette, (2) the Soubirous family home, known as the 'cachot,' (3) the Grotto of Massabielle, (4) the chapel of the hospice where Bernadette received First Communion, and on each occasion they pause for an appropriate length of time in prayer and with pious meditations, concluding with the recital of the Our Father, the Profession of Faith, ... and the jubilee prayer or other Marian invocation." B) "If between February 2, 2008 ... and February 11, 2008, Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes and 150th anniversary of the apparition, they visit, in any church, grotto or decorous place, the blessed image of that same Virgin of Lourdes, solemnly exposed for public veneration, and before the image participate in a pious exercise of Marian devotion, or at least pause for an appropriate space of time in prayer and with pious meditations, concluding with the recital of the Our Father, the Profession of Faith, ... and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

The great thing is that, if you can't meet these conditions, as long as you can in your heart "spiritually visit" them if you can do it "with the soul completely removed from any attachment to any form of sin...."

The decree concludes by recalling that faithful who "through sickness, old age or other legitimate reason are unable to leave their homes, may still obtain the Plenary Indulgence ... if, with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin and with the intention of observing, as soon as they can, the usual three conditions, on the days February 2 to 11, 2008, in their hearts they spiritually visit the above-mentioned places and recite those prayers, trustingly offering to God, through Mary, the sickness and discomforts of their lives."

Hey, that's not so hard. Just perform the visit in your heart without any sin whatever, oh, and you must "recite those prayers, trustingly offering to God, through Mary...." So, you must have the right intent and it has to be sinless.

Come on you slacker, what's so hard about that?

But, it may be asked, if these graces are inseparably connected, why be so solicitous to distinguish them? First, because in so doing we follow the sacred writers; secondly, because it has a bad effect to use a Scriptural word to express what it was never designed to express; and, thirdly, because of the special office of faith in a sinner's justification; in which neither love nor any other grace has any part, although they are the effects of faith. When love is confounded with a justifying faith, it is very easy to slide into the opinion that as love is the substance of evangelical obedience, when we are said to be justified by faith, the meaning is, that we are justified by our own obedience. And accordingly, in a certain system of divinity valued by many, the matter is thus stated: faith is considered a comprehensive term for all evangelical obedience. The next step is—and it has already been taken by some—that our obedience is meritorious, and when its defects are purged by atoning blood it is sufficient to procure for us a title to eternal life. Thus have some, boasting of the name of Protestants, worked around, until they have fallen upon one of the most offensive tenets of Popery. But it would be difficult to bring a true penitent to entertain the opinion that his own works were meritorious, or could in the least recommend him to God. The whole of God's dealings with the souls of His own people effectually dispel from their minds every feeling of this kind. The very idea of claiming merit is most abhorrent to their feelings.

But while it is of importance to distinguish faith from every other grace, yet it is necessary to insist on the fact that that faith which does not produce love and other holy affections is not a genuine faith. In the apostles' days a set of libertines arose who boasted of their faith—but they performed no good works to evince the truth of their faith. Against such the apostle James writes, and proves that such a faith was no better than that of devils, and would justify no man; that the faith of Abraham and other believers, which did justify, was not a dead faith—but living; not a barren faith—but productive of good works, and proved itself to be genuine by the acts of duty which it induced the believer to perform."

(From, Thoughts on Religious Experience, 74-75)

***

“The natural consequence of this assent, is the LOVE of the truth thus known and acknowledged. This is the third act of faith, and of this the Apostle speaks when he says; “They received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” Since the saving truths of the Gospel afford a bright manifestation of the glory of God, as not only his veracity in his testimony, but also his wisdom, holiness, righteousness, goodness, power, and other divine perfections, shine forth in them,—the believing soul, contemplating these amiable perfections of the Deity in those truths, cannot fail to burn with an ardent love for them, to exult in them, and to glorify God…We admit that, strictly speaking, love is to be distinguished from faith; yet the workings of these two graces are so interwoven with each other, that we can neither explain nor exercise faith, without some operations of love intermingling, such as that of which we now treat. This remark has been formerly made by some of the greatest Divines; as, not to mention others at present, by Chamier and Wendelin. Each of these writers avails himself of the authority of Augustine, and makes the following quotation from him: “What is it to believe in God? It is by believing to love him.” See, also, Le Blanc, that celebrated Divine of Sedan, in his learned Theses. If any one, however, is disposed, agreeably to the language of the Schools, to denominate this love, an imperate act of faith, we shall not contend with him; provided it is understood that the believing soul, while exercising faith, cannot but sincerely love the doctrines of the Gospel, known and acknowledged, as they are in Jesus, rejoicing that such things are true, and delighting in the truth; and is thus very differently affected from devils and ungodly men, who disrelish those doctrines which they know to be true, and wish that they were false.” (Witsius, The Apostles’ Creed, 2 vols. 1:46-48).

The funny thing is that Zacharias Ursinus, the primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism addressed this position explicitly. Thanks to Brad Lindvall for sending this.

***

Objection 4:

Faith does not justify without that which is required in those who are justified. Good works are required in those who are justified. Therefore, faith is not without good works, and so does not justify alone.

Answer:

There is here the same fallacy to which reference has just been made, on account of the doubtful construction of the particle without. Faith does not, indeed, justify without those things which are required in those who are justified. But although it never exists alone, and is always joined with love, by which it works, yet it alone justifies – is the act of embracing and applying to itself the merits of Christ. The minor also must be more fully explained; for faith and good works are not required in the same sense in those who are justified. Faith, with its own peculiar act, (without which it cannot be considered) is required as the necessary instrument, by which we apply to ourselves the merits of Christ. Good works, on the other hand, are not required that by them we may apprehend the merits of Christ, much less that we may be justified on account of them; but that we may thereby prove our faith, which without good works is dead, and can only be known by their presence. Good works are required as the fruits of our faith, and as the evidences of our gratitude to God. That is not always necessary for the accomplishment of a certain result, which is necessarily connected with the cause of the same thing. So good works, although they are necessarily connected with faith, are nevertheless not necessary for the apprehension of the merits of Christ. (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 64, p. 337).