bjected, that Catholic bishops
remitted sin. St. Pacian answers, "Not I, but only God, who both blots
out sin in baptism, and does not reject the tears of penitents. What I
do is not in my own name, but in the Lord's. Wherefore, whether we
baptize, or draw to penance, or give pardon to penitents, we do it by
Christ's authority. You must see whether Christ can do it, and did
it--Baptism is the sacrament of our Lord's passion; the pardon of
penitents is the merit of confession. All can obtain that, because it is
the gratuitous gift of God, but this labor is but of a small number who
rise after a fall, and recover by tears, and by destroying the flesh."
The saint shows the Novatians encourage sin by throwing men into
despair; whereas repentance heals and stops it. Christ does not die a
second time indeed for the pardon of sinners, but he is a powerful
Advocate interceding still to his Father for sinners. Can he forsake
those he redeemed at so dear a rate? Can the devil enslave, and Christ
not absolve his servants? He alleges St. Peter denying Christ after he
had been baptized, St. {559} Thomas incredulous, even after the
resurrection; yet pardoned by repentance. He answers his objections from
scripture, and exhorts him to embrace the Catholic faith; for the true
church cannot be confined to a few, nor be new. "If she began before
you, if she believed before you, if she never left her foundation, and
was never divorced from her body, she must be the spouse; it is the
great and rich house of all. God did not purchase with his blood so
small a portion, nor is Christ so poor. The church of God dilates its
tabernacles from the rising to the setting of the sun."

Next to these three letters we have his excellent Paraenesis, or
exhortation to penance. In the first part he reduces the sins subjected
to courses of severe public penance by the canons to three, idolatry,
murder, and impurity; and shows the enormity of each. In the second he
addresses himself to those sinners, who out of shame, or for fear of the
penances to be enjoined, did not confess their crimes. He calls them
shamefully timorous and bashful to do good, after having been bold and
impudent to sin, and says, "And you do not tremble to touch the holy
mysteries, and to thrust your defiled soul into the holy place, in the
sight of the angels, and before God himself, as if you were innocent."
He mentions Oza lain for touching the ark, (2 Kings vi.,) and the words
of the