he Protestant Reformation this belief was a bit more thought out. They believed that purgatory and hell had the same “fire” and that the pain was the same:St Thomas Aquinas quoted Gregory the Great as quoting St. Augustine as saying ‘even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleaned’ This is taken to mean that hell and purgatory have the same punishment but in hell a person is there for all of eternity and in purgatory that person is there only as long as it takes to have his soul cleansed. Indulgences are meant to shorten this time. They cannot be used for anything else. Someone cannot just buy their way into heaven; they have to go through the same cleansing process of purgatory.There are two kinds of indulgences. There are partial indulgences and plenary indulgences. Mostly the difference is the amount of time that is decreased by the indulgence. A partial indulgence takes off the time for one minor sin. A plenary indulgence takes off more time. This indulgence takes off a more serious sin or a few minor ones. The difference in price however is immense. This was just another reason that Martin Luther was displeased with the church. ...
