St. Paul daily globe., 1890-03-24
Father O'Gorman Teaching
Large Congregations at
st. Mary's Church.
Powerful Course Of Lectures
Designed for the Peniten-
tial Season.
Father Zimmerman'S Heart
rending Story Of the Dark
Continent.
Trials and Hardships of Mis-
sionaries in That Benight-
ed Country.

Rev. Father O'Gorman is preaching
series of very powerful Lenten sermons
at st. Mary'S church. Interest in them
is so great that standing room can be
obtained only with great difficulty. Yes
terday'S sermon was as follows:
The voluntary recall of our choice of
evil by contrary choice of good is the
essential act by which sin is undone.
The remedy of sin is in sorrow and
amendment. Sin is transgression of
the law. AS long as the transgresSion
is unrepealed, God, the giver and ex-
ecutive of the law, must hold the sinner
liable to the consequences of his act,
amenable to the sanction Of the law.
When the transgreSSion has been re-
pealed it is the very nature of our rela-
tions with God that He should pro-
nounce release from the consequences
of the violation. The sinner needs to
be assured of the forgiveness of his
Creator. David, Magdalen, Peter the
Prodigal, received such assurance.
When the offense to tellowman has
been recalled by our apology we expect
that the apology has been accepted and
that the former friendship we had for
feited is restored. Self-accusation is
the
Expression of That Sorrow
in which consists the undoing of sin.
Man demands that expression from
man; the mother strives to get it from
the guilty child; it was eXacted from
Deyid; Magdalen uttered it in signs
more eloquent than words; Peter undid
his triple denial by a triple protestation
of love. There is no better evidence Of
a changed will than Self-accuSation, the
Acknowledgement of having Sinned:
there is no pardon without confession.
Now, God might receive the confession
of the sinner directly, without the inter-
vention of any agent, and he might give
directly to the sinner the assurance of
His forgiveness.
But the question is not what God
might do; the question is. what has He
willed to be done, what provision has
He made in the case. If He has estab-
liShed process of acQuittal, mode of
procedure, it will matter very little
what we judge should, could or might
be done. and it will matter very much
that we accept His arrangement and
fall in with it.
Now, as matter Of fact, God has
made very definite provision for the
remission of sin. st. Paul sayS-ll.
| Cor, ", IS: "God hath reconciled us TO
Himself through Christ, and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. " 4
| For Christ, therefore, we are ambassa-
doris" Reconciliation is from God, and
| can be from no one else. 1t is from God
| through Christ. But Christ has given
TO the apostles, their assigns and legiti
mate successors, the ministry OF recon-
ciliation. Mark the force of the word
ministry" Ministry means agency.
In Webster the word minister is de-
fined as servant, subordinate, an as
| SiStant of an inferior rank, an agent, a
chief servant of the executive power,
person in whose hands the administra-
ton of government is placed" In the
! Gospel of st. John, Xxx, 1926, we read:
"As the Father sent me, so also l send
| you. When He had said this He breathed
on them, and he said: Receive ye the
| Holy Ghost; whose sins
You Shall Forgive,
they are fol given them. and whose sins
you shall retain, they are retained" By
these words Christ has entrusted the
ministry of reconciliation to the apostles
and to their legitimate successors. The
continuance of the vested powers of
any corporate organization depends not
on the natural life of the individuals
composing that corporation at any given
moment, but on legal life; the legal
life of the Christian organization, by
Gods own enactment, is unto the end
of time. The apostles and their success
sors, as individuals considered in their
natural capacity and Unborn powers,
have not any control over the sins of
other men, have no right to receive con-
fession, to give or withhold forgiveness.
That right belongs to God alone, who is
the one sin offendS. But as the state
delegates its powers and rights to chosen
men, thus investing them with more
than individual character, so God dele
gates the apostles as Els ministers for
reconciliation and invests them with the
power of forgiveness which is His. Who
Shall say God cannot do this?
Christ bids the apostles forgive or
retain, acquit or convict; he has con-
stituted them judges. There can be no
acquittal or conviction without trial.
The trial is for the proving or disprov-
ing of guilt. Guilt is proved or dis
proved by testimony, examination,
cross-eXamination of witnesses, by all
those means which make up the pro-
cedure of law; from all possible sources
all possible light must be thrown ON the
point before the tribunal. 1t is only in
the presence of the result Of this search
ing process that the jury and judge can
act wisely, and may pronounce acquittal
or conviction justly. 1t were blaSphemy
to think that our Lord, when he con-
stituted the apostles judges over the
conscience of the sinner, meant them
to exercise
That Awful Office
arbitrarily. on the whim and humor of
the moment, and not according to
knowledge and all possible evidence.
But how are the delegates of God In this
tribunal to get at the knowledge and
evidence? There is but one way. That
self-accusation, that confession of sin,
which [ have shown to be essentially
implied in repentance, which God no
less than man requires as condition to
pardon, must be made by the sinner
appointed by God. Confession, it is
true, is not named, but it is necessarily
implied in the ministry of recon ella
ton which God hath given to His dele
gates. The words of Christ, Whose
sins YOU shall forgive, they are forgiven;
whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained are absolutely silly without
confession. Who wills the ends wills
the means. God wills his delegates to
remit or retain sin. Sin cannot be
wisely and justly remitted or retained
except through confession as the one
means. Therefore, confession to His
delegates is willed by God. 1t is use
less to say with Naaman, w. Kings, ":
81 thought He would have come out to
me and touched with his hand the place
of the leprosy, and healed me. Are
not the ALBANIA and the Pharfhar, rivers
of Damascus, better than all the waters
of Israel, that must wash in them and
be made clean?" 1t was not as Naaman
had thought, but as the prophet had
ordered, that the healing was to be
done. But, you may say, granting the
obligation of confession, why
The Alternative of Retention,
why this power of retaining given to
the Apostles? If the sinner confess, is