conscience of the conviction of forgiveness:  to absolve is to free—­to comfort by strengthening—­to afford repose from fear.

Now it was the way of the Redeemer to emancipate from sin by the freeness of absolution.  The dying thief, an hour before a blasphemer, was unconditionally assured; the moment the sinner’s feelings changed towards God, He proclaimed that God was reconciled to him:  “This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”  And hence, speaking humanly, hence, from this absolving tone and spirit, came His wondrous and unparalleled power with sinful, erring hearts; hence the life and fresh impulse which He imparted to the being and experience to those with whom He dealt.  Hence the maniac, freed from the legion, sat at His feet, clothed, and in his right mind.  Hence the outcast woman, whom human scorn would have hardened into brazen effrontery, hearing an unwonted voice of human sympathy, “washed His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.”

And this is what we have forgotten:  we have not yet learned to trust the power of redeeming love; we do not believe in the omnipotence of grace, and the might of an appeal to the better parts, and not the slavish parts of human nature.  Settle it in your minds, the absolving power is the central secret of the Gospel.  Salvation is unconditional; not an offer, but a Gift; not clogged with conditions, but free as the air we breathe.  God welcomes back the prodigal.  God loves without money and without price.  To this men reply gravely, It is dangerous to speak thus; it is perilous to dispense with the safeguards of restriction.  Law! law! there is nothing like law—­a salutary fear—­for making men holy.  O blind Pharisee! had you ever known the spring, the life which comes from feeling free, the gush of gratitude with which the heart springs to duty when all chains are shattered, and it stands fearless and free in the Light, and in the Love of God—­you would understand that a large trusting charity, which can throw itself on the better and more generous impulses of a laden spirit, is the safest as well as the most beautiful means of securing obedience.

So far however, there will not be much objection to the doctrine:  it will be admitted that absolution is true in the lips of Christ, because of His Divinity.  It will be said He was God, and God speaking on earth is the same thing as God speaking in heaven.  No my brethren, it is not the same thing.  Christ forgiving on earth is a new truth added to that of God’s forgiving in heaven.  It is not the same truth.  The one is forgiveness by Deity; the other is the declaration of forgiveness by Humanity.  He bade the palsied man walk, that they might know that “the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”  Therefore we proceed a step further.  The same power He delegated to His Church which He had exercised Himself.  “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they