Now, must we for ever go on in this uncertainty? Shall we never, after we have sinned, have again the assurance that we are pardoned? Must we go trembling all our days, and be terror-stricken at the hour of death? Are we left to our own fancyings and feelings to decide whether we are pardoned or not? Shall we never hear that sweet consoling word: "Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?" Yes, Christ is risen. He is come from the grave "with healing in His wings." He is come as a conqueror, with the trophies of victory. Hear what He says of Himself: "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I live forever, and have the keys of Hell and Death." [Footnote 98]
[Footnote 98: Apoc. i. 18.]
He has come back from the grave with the keys of Hell in His hand. While He was yet among men He had promised to give those keys to St. Peter and the Apostles, but it was only after His death, by which He had merited our pardon, and after His Resurrection, by which His Father had attested His acceptance of the Ransom, that He proceeded solemnly to deliver them. "Now when it was late," says St. John, "that same day" (Easter day) "Jesus came and 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 He said to them, Receive the Holy Ghost: Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." [Footnote 99]
[Footnote 99: St. John xx. 19.]
Do you hear this, O sinner? He offers you pardon, and He assures you of it. All He asks of you is a true sorrow; all He asks is a fervent and true purpose to offend Him no more. Come, confessing your sins; come, forsaking them, and He has promised that His priest shall declare to you, in His name: "I absolve thee from thy sins." He has promised to ratify the sentence in heaven. Can you doubt His power? Can you doubt His truth? No: He has risen for our justification. "What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who shall be against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of the elect of God? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ that died, yea also Who is risen again." [Footnote 100]
[Footnote 100: Rom. viii. 33.]
Do not look on us, the ministers of His grace, weak and frail as we are. Look at the Saviour. Look at Him dying on the cross, a ransom for our sins. Look at Him, rising from the dead on the third day, having accomplished a complete victory over our spiritual enemies, and bringing to us life and pardon. See Him in His divine power, instituting sacraments by which that life and pardon might be communicated to us. Believe His word, trust His merits, have recourse to His sacraments, and thus, "being justified by faith have once more peace with God, and rejoice again in hope of the Glory of God." [Footnote 101]
[Footnote 101: Rom. v. 1.]
Come, forgiven sinner, lift up your head, for God hath cleansed you. Be happy: be a Christian: be a man once more, for you are clothed again in the garments of innocence and sanctity. It is no incomplete and grudging pardon He has given you. Though your sins "were as scarlet," they are now as "white as snow;" though they were "red like crimson," they are "as white as wool." "He hath cast your sins into the bottom of the sea." They shall never be mentioned to you again. He has even restored to you again the merits you had acquired in days of innocence, and lost again by sin. He has "restored to you the years which the locust and the caterpillar and the mildew and the palmer-worm hath eaten." [Footnote 102] Let, then, gratitude fill your heart, let joy be written on your face, and let holy resolves for the future correspond to the mercy you have received.