faction made. But if there be danger of death, he must be absolved before Easter, lest he die without communion.” Ep. ad Decent. Conc. Gen. T. ii. p. 1247.
ST. CYPRIAN, L. C. On other occasions, particularly when persecution threatened, the period of penance was shortened, as we again learn from St. Cyprian, who fully explains and insists on the expediency of this indulgence. “ He that gave the law, has promised, that what we bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and what we loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.—But now, not to those that are infirm, but to the healthy, the peace of reconciliation is necessary; not to the dying, but to the living, it must be extended; in order that those whom we incite to battle, be not left without arms, but be fortified by the body and blood of Christ. For since the design of the holy Eucharist is, to give strength to those that receive it, they must not be deprived of its support, whom we would guard against the enemy." Ep. liv. ad Cornelium, p. 77.
The Indulgences which, in these primitive times, were thus granted, referred to the canonical penances then in use, and of which they were a relaxation. Rigidly severe, they attested the opinion, entertained by the Church, of the enormity of sin, and of the temporal punishment due to it after the remission of its guilt; for which punishment, the penances in question, were considered, as far as human judgment could calculate, to be a compensation. They may also he said to have been substituted, in part, at least, in lieu of that punishment. But when, in process of time, those penances ceased to be enforced, and the temporal punishment, in the order of divine justice, resuming, if it may be so said, its natural course, remained to be undergone by sinners; the Church, empowered by the promises of Christ, continued to exercise the same merciful dispensation in the grant of Indulgences; not now by releasing canonical penances, which were no longer in force; but by remitting, agreeably to the
