rence; we must readily perceive that this gift, bestowed on the Church by the bounteous hand of Christ our Lord, is one of inestimable value. The manner, too, in which God, in the fullness of his paternal clemency, resolved to cancel the sins of the world, must powerfully excite the faithful to the contemplation of this great blessing: it was his will that our offences should be expiated in the blood of his only begotten Son, that he should voluntarily assume the imputability of our sins, and suffer a most cruel death; the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty. [1] When, therefore, we reflect, that " we were not redeem ed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled;" [2] we are naturally led to conclude that we could have received no gift more salutary than this power of forgiving sins, which proclaims the ineffable providence of God, and the excess of his love towards us.
This reflection must produce, in all, the most abundant spiritual fruit; for whoever offends God, even by one mortal sin, instantly forfeits whatever merits he may have previously acquired through the sufferings and death of Christ, and is entirely shut out from the gate of heaven, which, when already closed, was thrown open to all by the Redeemer's passion. And, indeed, when this reflection enters into the mind, impossible not to feel impressed with the most anxious solicitude, and contemplating the picture of human misery which it presents to our view. But if we turn our attention to this admirable power with which God has invested his Church; and, in the firm belief of this Article, feel convinced that to every sinner is offered the means of recovering, with the assistance of divine grace, his former dignity; we can no longer resist sentiments of exceeding joy, and gladness, and exultation, and must offer immortal thanks to God. If, when labouring under some severe malady, the medicines prepared for us by the art and industry of the physician, generally become grateful and agreeable to us; how much more grateful and agreeable should those remedies prove, which the wisdom of God has established to heal our spiritual maladies, and restore us to the life of grace; remedies which, unlike the medicines used for the recovery of bodily health, bring with them, not, indeed, uncertain hope of recovery, but certain health to such as desire to be cured.
The faithful, therefore, having formed a just conception of the dignity of so excellent and exalted a blessing, should be exhorted to study, religiously, to turn it, also, to good account for he who makes no use of what is really useful and necessary affords a strong presumption that he despises it; particularly as, in communicating to the Church the power of forgiving sins, the Lord did so with the view, that all should have recourse to this healing remedy; for, as without baptism, no man can be cleansed from original sin, so, without the sacrament of penance,
