Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/540

spared and pardoned David and Ezechias, and Manasses and Achab. So accustomed, indeed, were God's chosen people to regard man's repentance and God's mercy as the essential elements in every reconciliation of the Creator with His creatures, that we find them in to-day's Gospel taking exception to Christ's apparently blasphemous words and sharply demanding: "Who can forgive sins but God?" Their idea was that the forgiving of sins demanded omniscience and omnipotence; omniscience, to know the worthiness of the penitent's disposition, and omnipotence, to obliterate his fault. But Christ, though they knew it not, was God, and He had come not to destroy but to perfect the law, by raising the virtue of penance to the dignity of a sacrament. That Christ as God had the power of forgiving sins needs no demonstration; it is evident from the very definition of sin. That Christ as man enjoyed the same authority, is equally clear, for He says of Himself: "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth," and in to-day's Gospel He rebukes the unbelief of the bystanders by healing the man sick of the palsy, that from His ability to cure bodily ills they might learn that the Son of man hath also power on earth to forgive sins. This power in its fulness He imparted to His Apostles. " As the Father hath sent Me," He says to them, " so also do I send you," that is, with all necessary faculties for the continuance and accomplishment of His earthly mission. To Peter first, and later to all the Apostles, He said: " I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of