they dreaded His approach,
knowing that He would drive them out of the bodies of men.

Our Lord makes the healing of the body secondary to that of the soul. When
He delivers the body from its distempers His object is to win the
confidence of the spectators by compelling them to recognize Him as the
soul's Physician. He says, for instance, to the palsied man, "Thy sins are
forgiven."(436) The scribes are offended at our Savior for presuming to
forgive sins. He replies, in substance: If you do not believe My words,
believe My acts; and He at once heals the man of his disease. After he had
cured the man that had been languishing for thirty-eight years He
whispered to him this gentle admonition, "Sin no more, lest some worst
thing may happen to thee."(437)

As much as our spiritual substance excels the flesh that surrounds it, so
much more did our Savior value the resurrection of a soul from the grave
of sin than the resurrection of the body from that of death. Hence St.
Augustine pointedly remarks that, while the Gospel relates only three
resurrections of the body, our Lord, during His mortal life, raised
thousands of souls to the life of grace.

As the Church was established by Jesus Christ to perpetuate the work which
he had begun, it follows that the reconciliation of sinners to God was to
be the principal office of sacred ministers.

But the important question here presents itself: How was man to obtain
forgiveness in the Church after our Lord's ascension?

Was Jesus Christ to appear in person to every sinful soul and say to each
penitent, as He said to Magdalen, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," or did He
intend to delegate this power of forgiving sins to ministers appointed for
that purpose?

We know well that our Savior never promised to present Himself visibly to
each sinner, nor has He done so.

His plan, therefore, must have been to appoint ministers of reconciliation
to act in His name. It has always, indeed, been the practice of Almighty
God, both in the Old and the New Law, to empower human agents to execute
His merciful designs.

When Jehovah resolved to deliver the children of Israel from the captivity
of Egypt He appointed Moses their deliverer. When God wished them to
escape from the pursuit of Pharaoh across the Red Sea, did He intervene
directly? No; but, by His instructions, Moses raised his hand over the
waters and they were instantly divided.

When the people were dying from thirst in the desert