21.

2.

ART. the spiritual blessing, comes afterwards, upon supposition that XXV. the sick person had committed sins. The saving and raising

up must stand in opposition to the sickness: so since all acknowledge that the one is literal, the other must be so too. The supposition of sin is added, because some persons, upon whom this miracle might have been wrought, might be eminently pious; and if at any time it was to be applied to ill men who had committed some notorious sins, perhaps such sins as had brought their sickness upon them, these were also to be forgiven.

In the use of miraculous powers, those to whom that gift was given, were not empowered to use it at pleasure; they were to feel an inward impulse exciting them to it, and they were obliged upon that firmly to believe, that God, who had given them the impulse, would not be wanting to them in the execution of it. This confidence in God was the faith of miMatt. xxi. racles, of which Christ said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and nothing shall be impossible unto you.' 1 Cor. xiii. Of this also St. Paul meant, when he said, 'If I have all faith.' So from this we may gather the meaning of the prayer of faith, and the anointing with oil; that if the elders of the church, or such others with whom this power was lodged, felt an inward impulse moving them to call upon God, in order to a miraculous cure of a sick person, then they were to anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord: that is, by the authority that they had from Christ to heal all manner of diseases: and they were to pray, believing firmly that God would make good that inward motion which he had given them to work this miracle; and in that case the effect was certain, the sick person would certainly recover, for that is absolutely promised. Every one that was sick was not to be anointed, unless an authority and motion from Christ had been secretly given for doing it; but every one that was anointed was certainly John xiv. healed. Christ had promised that 'whatsoever they should ask in his name, he would do it.' His name must be restrained to his authority, or pursuant to such secret motions as they shall receive from him. This is the prayer of faith here mentioned by St. James: it being an earnest application to God to join his omnipotent power to perform a wonderful work, to which a person so divinely qualified felt himself inwardly moved by the spirit of Christ. The supposition of the sick person's having committed sins, which is added, shews that sometimes this virtue was applied to persons of that eminent piety, that though all men are guilty in the sight of God, yet they could not be said to have committed sins in the sense in which St. John uses the phrase; signifying by it, either that they had lived in the habits of sin, or that they had committed some notorious sin: but if some should happen to be sick, who had been eminent sinners, and those sins had

13.

drawn down the judgments of God upon them, which seems to ART. be the natural meaning of these words, 'if ye have committed XXV. sins;' then, with his bodily health, he was to receive a much greater blessing, even the pardon of his sins. And thus the anointing mentioned by St. James was in order to a miraculous cure, and the cure did constantly follow it: so that it can be no precedent for an extreme unction, that is never given till the recovery of the person is despaired of, and by which it is not pretended that any cure is wrought.*

Trid. Sess.

1. 3. c. 16.

The matter of it is oil-olive blessed by the bishop; the form is the applying it to the five senses, with these words, Per Rituale hanc sacram unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam in- Rom. Con. dulgeat tibi Deus quicquid peccasti, per visum, auditum, olfac- 14. tum, gustum, et tactum. The proper word to every sense being repeated as the organ of that sense is anointed. It is administered by a priest, and gives the final pardon, with all necessary assistances, in the last agony. Here is then an institution, that, if warranted, is matter of great comfort; and if not warranted, is matter of as great presumption. In the Con. Apos. first ages we find mention is made frequently of persons that 1. vii. c. 42, were cured by an anointing with oil: oil was then much used 44. in all their rituals, the catechumens being anointed with oil Tertul. de bapt. c. 7. before they were baptized, besides the chrism that was given Cypr. Ep. after it. Oil grew also to be used in ordinations, and the 70. Clem. dead were anointed in order to their burial: so that the Alex. pædag. ordinary use of oil on other occasions brought it to be very ..c.8. frequently used in their sacred rites; yet how customary Dionys. soever the practice of anointing grew to be, we find no men- Areop. de tion of any unction of the sick before the beginning of the Hier. 7, 8. fifth century. This plainly shews that they understood St. James's words as relating to a miraculous power, and not to a function that was to continue in the church, and to be esteemed a sacrament.

Eccles.

Decent.

That earliest mention of it by pope Innocent the First, how Innocent. much soever it is insisted on, is really an argument that Ep. 1. ad proves against it, and not for it. For not to enlarge on the many idle things that are in that Epistle, which have made

*This passage in St. James speaks of the sick person, anointed and prayed over, being RAISED Ur. How then do you prove a sacrament of extreme unction from unction not extreme, not to be used, as Trent says, on those past being raised up, but on those that were to be raised up, "and the LORD shall raise him up?" Again, how can you promise remission of the sick man's sin, when you cannot promise the sign of it, viz. the recovery of the sick person? Two questions more. If extreme unction confers grace, wipes away and remits sin, and resists the assaults of the devil, as Trent says, why do you not give it to criminals about to die? Is it because they have no need of what this sacrament professes to give? Surely they have more need than other persons. Again, if extreme unction remits sin and wipes away the remainder of sin, why is it necessary, that those who receive this sacrament, should have masses said afterwards for the release of their souls from purgatory, where they are supposed to be detained, until all their sins be wiped away? If unction be effectual to do all that Trent says, why send those to purgatory who receive this unction? If it be not effectual to the wiping away the remainder of sin (as Trent says it is) in the dying person, of what use is it?' Page's Letters to a Romish Priest. -ED.]

ART. some think that it could not be genuine, and that do very XXV. much sink the credit both of the testimony and of the man;

for it seems to be well proved to be his: the passage relating to this matter is in answer to a demand that was made to him by the bishop of Eugubium, whether the sick might be anointed with the oil of the chrism? and whether the bishop might anoint with it? To these he answers, that no doubt is to be made but that St. James's words are to be understood of the faithful that were sick, who may be anointed by the chrism; which may be used not only by the priests, but by all Christians, not only in their own necessities, but in the necessities of any of their friends: and he adds, that it was a needless doubt that was made, whether a bishop might do it; for presbyters are only mentioned, because the bishop could not go to all the sick; but certainly he who made the chrism itself, might anoint with it. A bishop asking these questions of another, and the answers which the other gives him, do plainly shew that this was no sacrament practised from the beginnings of Christianity; for no bishop could be ignorant of those. It was therefore some newly begun custom, in which the world was not yet sufficiently instructed. And so it was indeed, for the subject of these questions was not pure oil, such as now they make to be the matter of extreme unction; but the oil of chrism, which was made and kept for other occasions; and it seems very clear, that the miraculous power of healing having ceased, and none being any more anointed in order to that; some began to get a portion of the oil of chrism, which the laity, as well as the priests, applied both to themselves and to their friends, hoping that they might be cured by it. Nothing else can be meant by all this, but a superstitious using the chrism, which might have arisen out of the memory that remained of those who had been cured by oil, as the use of bread in the eucharist brought in the holy bread, that was sent from one church to another; and as from the use of water in baptism sprung the use of holy water. This then being the clear meaning of those words, it is plain that they prove quite the contrary of that for which they are brought; and though in that Epistle the pope calls chrism a kind of sacrament, that turns likewise against them; to shew that he did not think it was a sacrament, strictly speaking. Besides, that the ancients used that word very largely, both for every mysterious doctrine, and for every holy rite that they used. In this very Epistle, when he gives directions for the carrying about that bread, which they blessed, and sent about as an emblem of their communion with other churches; he orders them to be sent about only to the churches within the city, because he conceived the sacraments were not to be carried a great way off; so these loaves are called by him not only a kind of sacrament, but are simply reckoned to be sacraments.

We hear no more of anointing the sick with the chrism, ART. among all the ancients; which shews, that as that practice XXV. was newly begun, so it did not spread far, nor continue long. No mention is made of this neither in the first three ages, nor in the fourth age; though the writers, and particularly the councils of the fourth age, are very copious in rules concerning the sacraments. Nor in all their penitentiary canons, when they define what sins are to be forgiven, and what not, when men were in their last extremities, is there so much as a hint given concerning the last unction. The Constitutions, and the pretended Dionysius, say not a word of it, though they are very full upon all the rituals of that time in which those works were forged, in the fourth or fifth century. In none of the lives of the saints before the ninth century, is there any mention made of their having extreme unction, though their deaths are sometimes very particularly related, and their receiving the eucharist is oft mentioned. Nor was there any question made in all that time concerning the persons, the time, and the other circumstances relating to this unction; which could not have been omitted, especially when almost all that was thought on, or writ of, in the eighth and ninth century, relates to the sacraments, and the other rituals of the church.

It is true, from the seventh century on to the twelfth, they Lib. Sabegan to use an anointing of the sick, according to that men- cram. Gretioned by pope Innocent, and a peculiar office was made for gor-Menarit; but the prayers that were used in it, shew plainly that it was all intended only in order to their recovery.

di Notæ.

c. 15.

408.

Of this anointing many passages are found in Bede, and Bede Hist in the other writers and councils of the eighth and ninth cen- Angl. 1. iii tury. But all these do clearly express the use of it, not as a Euchol. sacrament for the good of the soul, but as a rite that carried sive Ritual. with it health to the body; and so it is still used in the Greek Græc. p. church. No doubt they supported the credit of this with many reports, of which some might be true, of persons that had been recovered upon using it. But because that failed so often, that the credit of this rite might suffer much in the esteem of the world, they began in the tenth century to say, that it did good to the soul, even when the body was not healed by it; and they applied it to the several parts of the body. This begun from the custom of applying it at first to the diseased parts. This was carried on in the eleventh century. And then in the twelfth, those prayers that had been formerly made for the souls of the sick, though only as a part of the office, the pardon of sin being considered as prepara- Dec. Eug. tory to their recovery, came to be considered as the main and in Con. most essential part of it: then the schoolmen brought it into Flor. shape, and so it was decreed to be a sacrament by pope Eu- Sess. 14. genius, and finally established at Trent.

The argument that they draw from a parity in reason, that

Con. Trid.

ART. because there is a sacrament for such as come into the world, XXV. there should be also one for those that go out of it, is very

trifling; for Christ has either instituted this to be a sacrament, or it is not one: if he has not instituted it, this pretended fitness is only an argument that he ought to have done somewhat that he has not done. The eucharist was considered by the ancients as the only viaticum of Christians, in their last passage: with them we give that, and no more.

Thus it appears upon what reason we reject those five sacraments, though we allow both of confirmation and orders as holy functions, derived to us down from the apostles; and because there is a visible action in these, though in strictness they cannot be called a sacrament, yet so the thing be rightly understood, we will not dispute about the extent of a word that is not used in scripture. Marriage is in no respect to be called a sacrament of the Christian religion; though it being a state of such importance to mankind, we hold it very proper, both for the solemnity of it, and for imploring the blessing of God upon it, that it be done with prayers and other acts of religious worship; but a great difference is to be made between a pious custom begun and continued by public authority, and a sacrament appointed by Christ. We acknowledge true repentance to be one of the great conditions of the new covenant; but we see nothing of the nature of a sacrament in it: and, for extreme unction, we do not pretend to have the gift of healing among us: and therefore we will not deceive the world, by an office that shall offer at that, which we acknowledge we cannot do: nor will we make a sacrament for the good of the soul, out of that which is mentioned in scripture, only as a rite that accompanied the curing the diseases of the body.

6

The last part of this Article, concerning the use of the sacraments, consists of two parts: the first is negative, that they are not ordained to be gazed on, or to be carried about, but to be used: and this is so express in the scripture, that little question can be made about it. The institution of baptism is, Go preach and baptize and the institution of the eucharist is, Take, eat, and drink ye all of it:' which words being set down before those in which the consecrating them is believed to be made, This is my body;' and 'This is my blood; and the consecratory words being delivered as the reason of the command, Take, eat, and drink;' nothing can be more clearly expressed than this, that the eucharist is consecrated only that it may be used, that it may be eat and drunk.

6

The second part of this period is, that the effect of the sacraments comes only upon the worthy receiving of them; of this so much was already said, upon the first paragraph of this Article, that it is not necessary to add any more here. The pretending that sacraments have their effect any other