SUPEREROGATION, Works of, Sylvester Hassell The Lateran Council of 1215, under Pope Innocent III., adopted seventy canons, exalting the papal supremacy to the highest point, and containing a summary of papal doctrine and polity, justifying, among other things, transubstantiation, indulgences, works of supererogation, and the extirpation of heretics. The doctrine of works of supererogation was founded upon the alleged distinction between the precepts of the law and the exhortations of the gospel, the former being considered obligatory, and the latter non-obligatory; so that, when a person performed the latter, he laid up a stock of merits; and all the merits of the saints, with the merits of Christ, formed a vast treasury, from which indulgences might on certain conditions, be granted to persons of deficient merit or of positive sinfulness. This doctrine was defended by the famous Schoolmen, Alexander Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and Bonaventura; and it was implicitly decreed in the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. —The Council of Toulouse, in 1229, under Pope Gregory IX., prohibited laymen from possessing or reading the Bible in the mother tongue; and the same pope in 1231 prohibited laymen
from disputing on the faith under penalty of excommunication.” (Hassell)