were given in days, quarantines, or years. Plenary Indulgences, or Indulgences in form of Jubilee, in their effect are one and the same thing; the only difference being, that where the Indulgences are granted in form of Jubilee, confessors have power of jurisdiction conferred on them to absolve from reserved cases, to dispense from or commute all simple vows, &c. By all such Indulgences, all the temporal penalty is remitted to us which we owe to God for all those sins for which, though pardoned, we were still debtors, so that theologians teach us, that were we to die immediately after gaining worthily a Plenary Indulgence, we should go straight to heaven. The same may be said of the holy souls in purgatory, whenever in suffrage for them we gain a Plenary Indulgence applicable to them, provided the Divine justice deign to accept it in their behalf.
From all this we may easily gather, devout readers, how highly we ought to prize these Indulgences, how great their value is, and how mighty their efficacy; and lastly, how great a benefit they are spiritually to all faithful Christians. Hence the Holy Council says, "that the usage of Indulgences is most wholesome to Christian people, Indulgentiarum usum Christiano populo maximè salutarem esse;" wherefore it ought to be a holy duty in every Christian to endeavour to gain them, as far as he is able, as well for his own spiritual good as by way of suffrage in behalf of the faithful departed.
To gain an Indulgence, many conditions are requisite. First, it is requisite that we should be in a state of grace, that is, living in the grace of God; for whosoever before God is in his guilt of unremitted sin, and liable to its eternal penalty, is not, and cannot be, whilst continuing in that state, in a capacity to receive the remission of the temporal penalty. No better advice can, then, be given, than before doing the works enjoined for gaining an Indulgence, if we cannot go to Confession previously, to make at least an act of true contrition, accompanying it with a firm resolution to go to Confession, that by so doing we may regain the grace of God should it happen to have been lost.
Moreover, as the Church, in opening the Treasury of Holy Indulgences, has ever obliged faithful Christians to do some good work under specified circumstances of time, place, &c., it is to be remembered that she requires their personal
