But further than this. In a subordinate, because less perfect degree,
the forgiveness of a man as man carries with it an absolving power.
Who has not felt the load taken from his mind when the hidden guilt
over which he had brooded long has been acknowledged, and met by
forgiving human sympathy, especially at a time when he expected to be
treated with coldness and reproof? Who has not felt how such a moment
was to him the dawn of a better hope, and how the merciful judgment of
some wise and good human being seemed to be the type and the assurance
of God's pardon, making it credible? Unconsciously it may be, but
still in substance really, I believe some such reasoning as _this_
goes on in the whispers of the heart--"He loves me, and has compassion
on me--will not God forgive? He, this man, made in God's image, does
not think my case hopeless. Well, then, in the larger love of God it
is not hopeless." Thus, and only thus, can we understand the
_ecclesiastical_ act. Absolution, the prerogative of our humanity, is
represented by a formal act of the Church.

Much controversy and angry bitterness has been spent on the absolution
put by the Church of England into the lips of her ministers--I cannot
think with justice--if we try to get at the root of these words of
Christ. The priest proclaims forgiveness authoritatively as the organ
of the congregation--as the voice of the Church, in the name of Man
and God. For human nature represents God. The Church represents what
human nature is and ought to be. The minister represents the Church.
He speaks therefore, in the name of our godlike, human nature. He
declares a divine fact, he does not create it. There is no magic in
his absolution: he can no more forgive whom God has not forgiven, by
the formula of absolution, or reverse the pardon of him whom God has
absolved by the formula of excommunication, than he can transfer a