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"Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign
Can match the fierce, unutterable pain

He feels, who night and day devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast." *

The stings of remorse are the most sensible anticipations that man can experience in this life

* Gifford.

of the pains of hell. Who can picture to us the consolation and joys of the soul at the pardon of sin? Of all consolations, of all joys, the greatest is, when a sinner, who has incurred the displeasure of God, is assured by divine authority, that God has pardoned his sins, washed his soul clean from the guilt of his crimes, restored him to his friendship, and looks upon him once more as his child. This is a sensible foretaste of the happiness of heaven.

What says Protestantism to this want of the sinner's heart?

Let one of her poets speak :

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"I know my soul is weighed

With many sins-the pages of my life

Soiled with unworthy records; that I go

Redder than scarlet to the awful bar

Where God shall judge me; but even knowing this,
And stung with wild, unutterable woe

As the lost chances of my life arise,
With all their opportunities of good
Deepening the blackness of the evil choice,
I will not lean upon another's arm,

Or lift my soul

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Or bid a human intercessor plead

My perilous cause; but I will stagger on,

Beneath my sins, unto the feet of God.

Go, Priest! the absolution which I seek
No prayer of yours can purchase.” *

Prot

Such is the answer of Protestantism. estantism says, man has not the power to pardon sin. Protestantism is right, if it speaks of man as pardoning sin on his own authority.

That Jesus Christ had the power to pardon sin, no one can deny, except an infidel. He forgave the man sick with the palsy his sins ; and when the Jews murmured at this, he confirmed his authority by working a miracle.

He forgave Magdalen her sins, as also the penitent thief. Now, no one who believes in Christ, will deny, that he could, if he pleased, communicate to men the power to pardon sins. But did it please Jesus Christ to communicate this power? This is a question of fact, and may be decided by referring to the record of his life and actions-the Bible.

We find in the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, after Christ promised to build his Church upon St. Peter, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, that he con

* Bayard Taylor.

tinues: "And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." Here an unlimited power to loose and bind is conveyed by Christ to St. Peter.

Some persons may quibble, and say, that there is no express power in this to pardon sins. We reply, if to Peter was given the power to "loose and bind whatsoever," sin being something, he of course had the power to pardon sin. But Christ himself has anticipated this objection.

We read in the twentieth chapter of St. John's Gospel, that on the very day of Christ's rising from the dead, he appeared to his disciples, who were gathered together in a room, with the doors shut, for fear of the Jews; he stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them and whose sins you shall retain,

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they are retained." Here Christ gives, in plain, simple, and express words, the power to pardon sin to his apostles. The only escape from this conclusion is by denying the Bible outright, for these words of Christ are too plain and direct to be perverted to any other meaning than that which they bear on their face, and naturally signify.

Christ, as we clearly see, gave to the priests of his Church the power to pardon sin; Protestantism repudiates all such power, and denies it to her ministers.

And this is an additional proof that Christ understood better than Protestantism the human heart, and its deep wants. For to say to the sinner, "Look to Jesus, he will pardon your sins; his blood will wash your soul from all guilt,”—are vague expressions and phrases, without meaning, to one whose sins stare him terribly in the face. The fact of sin is there, before the sinner's eyes; the fact of pardon must be equally sensible and evident, to give repose to the sinner's conscience, and consolation to his heart. Man cannot trust his own authority in this matter.

To tell the guilty one to trust his

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