find rest unto your souls: for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” {36a} Before the nativity of our blessed Lord, the command was conveyed by an angel, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” {36b} Agreeably to which, He Himself says, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” {36c} And St. Paul prefaces his delivery of the great truth he was commissioned to teach, in a manner befitting its importance: “This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” {36d} If the Gospel did not contain a free pardon for sin, little would it be in accordance either with its name, _good news_, or with the proclamation of the heavenly host, which heralded the birth of the Messiah: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be _to all people_, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” {36e} To every penitent the promise is addressed—“Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.” {36f} The Divine mercy towards repentant sinners knows no restrictions; the cleansing power of the Saviour’s blood, no limitations. If there be any self-convicted and self-condemned sinner, still hesitating to throw himself upon the mercy of God in Christ, let him hear the Psalmist, who has represented under the most striking and affecting images, the love of God towards man: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy; long-suffering and of great goodness. He will not always be chiding, neither keepeth He his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickednesses. For look how high the heaven is in comparison of the earth, so great is His mercy also toward them that fear Him. Look how wide also the east is from the west, so far hath He set our sins from Him. _Yea_, _like as a father pitieth his own children_, _even so is the Lord merciful unto them who fear Him_. For He knoweth whereof we are made, He remembereth that we are but dust.” {37a} Let him hear St. John, who has stated the full extent of Christ’s atoning and mediatorial power: “If _any man sin_, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” {37b} Let him hear St. Paul, who has supplied a sure ground of unfailing trust in God: “_He that spared not His own Son_, but delivered Him up for us all, how _shall He not with Him also freely give us all things_?” {37c} Should any one still hesitate to come unto Christ as their Saviour, let him hear His merciful expostulation, “_Ye will not come to me that ye might have life_.” {38a} Let him listen to His gracious enquiry, “_Wilt thou be made whole_?” And if he still cannot persuade himself, that there is mercy in store for such a sinner