should be impossible for the divine love to pour down upon a sinful
man who has forsaken his sin, and is trusting in God's mercy in
Christ, just as if his sin was non-existent, in so far as it could
condition or interfere with the flow of the divine mercy?

And I may say, further, we need a definite divine assurance of pardon.
Ah! if you have ever been down into the cellars of your own hearts,
and seen the ugly things that coil there, you will know that a vague
trust in a vague God and a vague mercy is not enough to still the
conscience that has once been stung into action. My brothers, you
want neither priests nor ceremonies on the one hand, nor a mere
peradventure of 'Oh! God is merciful!' on the other, in order to deal
with that deepest need of your heart. Nothing but the King's own
sign-manual on the pardon makes it valid; and unless you and I can,
somehow or other, come to close grips with God, and get into actual
contact with Him, and hear, somehow, with infallible certitude, as
from His own lips, the assurance of forgiveness, there is not enough
for our needs.

III. So I come to say, in the next place, that the incident before
us teaches us that Jesus Christ claims and exercises this divine
prerogative of forgiveness.

Mark His answer to these cavillers. He admits their promises absolutely.
They said, 'No man can forgive sins but God only.' If Christ was only a
man, like us, standing in the same relation to the divine pardon that
other teachers, saints, and prophets have stood, and had nothing more
to do with it than simply, as I might do, to say to a troubled heart,
'My brother, be quite sure that God has forgiven you'; if Christ's
relation to the divine forgiveness was nothing more than ministerial