the Soul obtains the recovery of his Bodily Health But then as to the Persons who are designed whether to receive or to administer this Sacrament this also is delivered and that not obscurely in the foregoing Words For it is there shewn that the proper Ministers of this Sacrament are the Presbyters of the Church by which Word here we are not to understand the more Aged or Honourable amongst the People but either Bishops or Priests c. It is declared also that this Unction is to be ministred to the Sick but to those especially who are so dangerously ill that they seem to be past Recovery whence it is also called the †Sacramentum excuntium Sacrament of the Dying If the sick Persons recover after having received this Unction they may again be relieved by it when the like danger of Death happens Wherefore they are by no means to be hearkened to who against the manifest and clear Sense of the Apostle James teach either that this Unction is a device of Men or a Rite received from the Fathers that has neither a Divine Command nor a Promise of Grace and who assert that it is of no longer use as having been applied in the Primitive Church to the Gift of Healing only or who say that the Rite and Usage of the Holy Roman Church in the Administration of this Sacrament is repugnant to the Sense of St. James and therefore to be altered Lastly who affirm that this Extreme Unction may without Sin be contemn'd by the Faithful For all these things are most evidently contrary to the perspicuous Words of so great an Apostle c. So that in the Church of Rome Extreme Unction is a Sacrament administred to dying Persons the proper Effect whereof is the cleansing of them from the Remains of Sin by the Grace of the Holy Ghost and as appears by the Form of Words used in the Administration it is applied in order to the forgiveness of all Sins that have been committed by means of any of the Senses That Authority which they pretend for this Sacrament is indeed the highest for they say it was instituted by Christ The proof which they produce for this Institution is that it was insinuated by St. Mark and publish'd by St. James That the Evangelist did insinuate it and the other Apostle publish it we have the Word and Authority of the Council of Trent But I will be bold to say that if Men are not content to rely upon the Authority of the Council but will examine its proofs they may easily be convinced that neither did St. James publish nor St. Mark insinuate any such Doctrine or Practice as it has established And therefore the wisest Passage in the Declaration of the Council concerning this matter is that they are by no means to be hearkened unto who teach otherwise than it teaches For if we can but persuade Men to give us the hearing or the reading we are very confident to make it plain that not our Objections against this pretended Sacrament but their Pleas for it are most evidently contrary to the perspicuous Words both of the Evangelist who is said to insinuate it and of the Apostle who is said to publish it §. 2. That Extreme Unction can by no means be proved from St. James chap. v. 14 15. THE clearest proof they have for this pretended Sacrament are doubtless those Words of St. James ch v. 14 15. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with Oil in the Name of the Lord And the Prayer of Faith shall save the Sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed Sins they shall be forgiven him Now supposing that the Institution of a Sacrament were implied in these Words and that the outward Sign thereof were anointing with Oil yet this could not by any means be the Sacrament of Extreme Vnction in the Church of Rome For according to St. James the Sick Person was to be anointed in order to the raising of him up or his Recovery from Sickness But the Sick are anointed in that Church for purging away the remains of their Sins when they seem to be past hopes of Recovery And tho perhaps one or other may recover afterward yet this is meerly accidental and besides the intention of administring their Sacrament which they therefore call the Sacrament of the Dying Nay the Sick Person in St. James was not to be anointed only in order to his Recovery but his Recovery was certainly to follow for 't is said the Prayer of Faith shall save the Sick and the Lord shall raise him up Which one Observation is sufficient to overthrow all the hope they have in this Text. For St. James does indeed advise anointing with Oil but 't is in such a Case when most assuredly the sick Person should not die The Church of Rome also does require the same but 't is when nothing can be well expected but the Death of the Patient Now which way they can gather a Sacrament of Extreme Vnction from an Authority that requires an Vnction which is not Extreme how they can prove a Sacrament which they pretend to be proper for dying Persons from those Words of Scripture that mention a Rite never used upon dying Persons a Man must have a great deal of Wit or rather a good share of the contrary to be able to imagine Which one thing seems to have been so well considered by †Bellar. de Extr. Unct. c. 3. Dico secundo illa verba duo c. Bellarmin and others after him that they found it necessary to interpret these Words The Prayer of Faith shall save the Sick and the Lord shall raise him up not so much of restoring Health to the Body as of cleansing forgiving and quieting the Soul And so they have made St. James to use Expressions in such a Sense as never Man of Understanding did either before or after him till the Cause of the Church of Rome made it necessary for these Men to interpret Words against all Rules of Speaking For according to the perpetual use of Words what is it to save the Sick but to save him from his Sickness What is it to raise up a sick Man but to restore him to Health And who would interpret these Expressions otherwise but they whose Cause is desperate if they be not otherwise interpreted But if it be asked what Grounds they pretend for this Liberty of Interpretation you must know that the Word saving indifferently refers to the healing of the Body or to the restoring of the Soul and the Word raising tho properly used of something that belongs to the Body yet by a Metaphor frequently used in Scripture signifies also to drive away sadness and dulness from the Mind Which is true indeed but nothing to the purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For tho these Words saving and raising may have
blind Jesus answered Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents i. e. It was for no sin either of him or his Parents that he was born blind but that the works of God should be made manifest in him In like manner the supposition of the sick Man's having committed sins is to be limited by reference to the Case now discoursed of that is of his Sickness For whether it came in the ordinary and natural course of things or whether God sent it for the trial of his patience and submission the Prayer of Faith should save the sick or if it were inflicted as a punishment and for his Correction God would release him of the punishment and raise him up and his sins should be forgiven It is not perhaps unfit to remember in this place that in the beginning of the Church it pleas'd God to inflict bodily Diseases upon many Christians that had grievously offended in any kind and this not only in pursuance of Church Censures but sometimes without them which was the Case of those in the Church of Corinth who for their unworthy behaviour at their Assemblies for Celebrating the Holy Communion were visited with Gods hand 1 Cor. 11.30 For saith St. Paul For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep i. e. Many are dead of those Sicknesses which God sent to chastise you for that great fault that reigned amongst you and many of you remain under those Sicknesses still being not yet humbled under the mighty hand of God V. 31. If we would judge our selves we should not be judged i.e. By care to do our duty we should prevent Gods Chastisements but if upon neglecting our selves we are chastned by the Lord V. 32. it is that we should not be condemned with the World For God did not strike them with sudden Death but with some sudden Sickness and gave them time to repent to confess their fault and to satisfy the Church Now altho it was the congruity of this place to the passage in St. James concerning the supposition of having committed sins that led me to interpret the one by the other yet upon farther inquiry I found the notion not to be altogether destitute of Antiquity For Venerable Bede in his Notes upon this Clause applies St. Paul's Text to it in this manner * Bed in loc Tom. 5. Many for sins done by the Soul are punished with the sickness or with the death also of the Body Whence it is that the Apostle saith to the Corinthians who were wont to receive the Lords Body unworthily For this cause many among you are sick and weak and many sleep If therefore the sick are under the guilt of sins and shall confess them to the Presbyters of the Church and shall make it their business to forsake and amend them with a perfect heart they shall be forgiven them And then he goes on shewing That sins of the greater sort had need to be confessed in order to this end ‖ De Eccles Offic. lib. 1. c. 12. Tom. 10. B. P. Amalarius also delivers the very same interpretation in the account he gives of the Unction of the sick in his days as I shall have farther occasion to observe in a more proper place So that besides the reason of the thing we have some Authority too to interpret this place as I have done viz. That those words And if he has committed sins are to be referred to such Cases as that which St. Paul discourses of where the Sickness was inflicted for the punishment of some notable and scandalous fault not excluding those instances of such punishment for sins secretly committed But for whatever sin the sickness was sent it should be forgiven and God would shew that he had received â—he sick person into favour again by taking off his sickness For in this case also the Prayer of Faith should save the sick Thus our Saviour demonstrated the Truth of that saying to the Man sick of the (a) Matt. ix 2 6 7. Palsie Son be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee by adding Arise take up thy bed and go unto thy house and by that miraculous Cure that followed Thus after he had healed the diseased Man at the Pool of Bethesda he said unto him (b) Joh. v. 14. Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee plainly intimating that his infirmity was the punishment of some sin that he had been guilty of which was now forgiven because he was made whole and should be dealt with hereafter not according to what he had been but as he should behave himself for the time to come In like manner and with like expression St. James does promise That upon the Prayer of Faith the Gift of Healing should take place even where the Disease was inflicted for the punishment of sins Which construction of the place is so natural and agreeable that I shall pursue the illustration of this passage no longer but leave the Reader to judge of it by what has been said already SECT VI. That our Interpretation of the use of Anointing in St. James and not our Adversaries is favoured by the following passages to the end of his Epistle THE third way of inquiry was to see what light is given to the meaning of St. James's Unction by those following passages that are in connexion with the place under debate 1. The very next words that follow are these Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed But whether by praying one for another in this Verse be meant the Prayer of Faith in the former Verse which referred to the Gift of Healing and was accompanied with a persuasion that God would raise up the sick or only praying that God would raise him up when they had no absolute persuasion that so it would be is what I dare not positively say having no clear reason to determine me one way or other But in which sense soever the words be taken as they must be in one of them they seem to have a very reasonable connexion with what went before and either way this Exhortation is to be referred to that special Case mentioned just before And if he has committed sins they shall be forgiven him If the Prayer of Faith is here meant as I think it is then St. James exhorts the sick person whom God had visited for his sins to humble himself and give glory to God by confessing to the Elders those sins which lay upon his Conscience and likewise intimates that the gift of healing would not otherwise take place in his Case and therefore he was first to confess and then the Elders to pray over him As for Anointing with Oil it was enough that the Apostle mentioned that before it being a Ceremony which or some other of like signification was customarily used in the Church upon Healing by a miraculous Gift The main matters
of Anointing the Sick in that Church as the Ritual it self speaks in these words (t) Ibid. p. 412. Regard favourably our prayers who meet in thy holy Temple this day to anoint thy infirm persons with holy Oyl This goes before the Consecration of the Oyl But after that (u) Ibid. p. 417. the Priest takes the holy Oil and anoints him that is to receive the Vnction and is to be prayed for saying the following Prayer Holy Father the Physician of Souls and Bodies who didst send thy only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ healing every disease and redeeming us from death heal this thy servant of his bodily and spiritual disease which has laid hold upon him and revive him through the Grace of thine Anointed by the Intercessions of our Holy Lady the Mother of God c. By the Protection of the Heavenly Incorporeal Powers by the virtue of the precious and life-giving Cross of John the Baptist the Apostles the Martyrs and our Godlike Fathers the Holy Physicians that received no Fees Cosmas and Damian Cyrus and John Pantaleon and Hermolaus c. In this Prayer indeed here is a great deal of wretched stuff of another kind but not a word that looks towards Extreme Vnction the whole relating to the intention of the Antient Unction which was to recover the Sick and therefore the Priest pleads in particular the Intercession of those Saints that were said to have been particularly famous for the cure of Diseases And that which is remarkable in the case is this that the Rubrick requires every one of the other six Priests when he anoints the Sick to use this very Prayer which plainly shews that every one of them anoints for the same end and purpose Neither is it any advantage towards the Roman pretence that the Priest prays also for the cure of the spiritual infirmity which holds the sick person it being evident as Simeon Thessalonicensis observes that the disease of the body being inflicted for the sin of the soul the cause is to be removed that the effect may cease Nor indeed is it fit that we should pray for any blessing of this life without imploring Gods pardon of those sins which make us unworthy of it At length the second Priest prays (w) Ibid. pag. 418. O God great and high who art adored by every creature c. look upon and hearken unto us thy unworthy servants and when in thy name we bring forth this Oyl do thou send forth the medicines of thy free gift and the pardon of sins and according to the multitude of thy mercies heal these persons c. Then the Third Priest to the same purpose * Ib. p 420. Almighty Lord Holy King who dost chastise and not deliver to death who supportest those that fall and settest straight those that are broken and repairest the bodily infirmities of men we beseech thee O our God to send forth thy Mercy upon this Oyl and upon those that are anointed with it in thy Name that it may become to them the healing both of Soul and Body their deliverance from all grief and every disease and malady and lastly from all defilement of Flesh and Spirit So Lord send thou from Heaven thy healing Virtue Do thou touch the Body extinguish the Fever mitigate the pain and expel every hidden Infirmity Be thou the Physitian of this thy Servant raise him up from the Bed of grief and the Couch of sickness Be pleased to restore him safe and every way healthy to thy Church to please thee and to do thy will Of the same nature are the Prayers of the following Priests this being repeated after every Gospel in each administration We still pray for Mercy Life Peace Health and Deliverance I shall only add the beginning of the Prayer offer'd by the Fourth Priest because it shews how that Church understands the place of St. James so often mentioned (x) Ib. p. 421. Lord who art Good and the lover of Mankind the God of tender Compassion and great Mercy c. who by thy Holy Apostles hast given us Authority to undertake the cure of the Infirmities of thy People do thou also cause this Oyl to be a means of Healing all those that are to be anointed with it to be a remedy against every disease and every malady and a deliverance from evils to those that expect Health from thee c. For by this it appears that the Greeks as the Antients did understand St. James's Unction to be the same with that of the Apostles in St. Mark and consequently refer it to bodily cures And that they ground their Authority to anoint the sick in order to bodily Health upon these places of Scripture so understood And now I shall make bold to say That there is nothing in their whole Office of Holy Oyl that does in the least favour Extreme Vnction but take it all together 't is in effect a flat contradiction to it And therefore to make it look a little Roman like the Latin Translator Father Goar by name has falsified the Rubrick before the Prayer that is to be repeated by every Priest and with very convenient impudence rendered it thus (y) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So is the Greek Rubric but Goar renders it Et post Orationem accipit Sacerdos Sanctum Oleum extremam unctionem suscipientem ungit sequentem orationem dicens p. 417. And after the Prayer of Consecration the Priest taketh the Holy Oyl and anointeth him that receiveth EXTREME VNCTION saying the following Prayer Whereas he ought to have translated it thus and Anointeth him that waiteth there for Vnction and Prayer Not that receiveth Extreme Vnction as the false Translator would have it (z) Orat. Tert. Sac. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated Qui Corporeas hominum infirmitates in utilitatem eorum disponis whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies here afflicta reparans as is translated above Other Prevarications of less moment I have observed whereby he has shewn a good will to bend the Office by Translation even where he could get next to nothing by it But if Testimonies are not to be had and yet men will not be content without them there is no help for it but they must be made And now I may leave any one to judg betwen Simeon and Arcudius who is the True and who the false Greek and likewise between Bellarmin and me whether the Testimony of the Greek Church be for or against Extreme Vnction The truth is tho' the Greek Church hath in some things innovated no less than the Roman yet in others she has kept to ancient Tradition where the Roman has not and of this their Unction is one notable instance which is apparently that Unction which began to take place in the Seventh Age after Christ But the Roman Unction is so far from having Primitive Tradition that 't is not so much as an ancient Innovation as the Unction of the
upon these reasonings against the Divine Institution Nor do I now offer them as Arguments to prove that God hath not instituted any such thing for the true ground upon which we affirm there was no such Institution is That there is not the least evidence of the Fact but only to shew that the Cardinal was not less unfortunate in his Reasonings themselves why God ought to have instituted Extreme Vnction than presumptuous in offering to prove it by any such Reasonings whatsoever For tho presumptions of this kind are not to be brought either for or against an Institution under question yet the presumptions on our side are much more reasonable than those of his SECT IV. An Apology for this Controversie about Extreme Vnction from the great moment of it BUT now perhaps it may be asked by one or other To what good end all this serves Why must it be made to appear that Scripture Reason and Antiquity are all vainly pretended in behalf of Extreme Vnction The Opinion and Practise of it does not stand in defiance to any Institution of our Saviour or any express Rule of the Gospel and might therefore without great harm be indulged at least not opposed now it has spread as far and wide as the Roman Communion goes especially since we charge them with so many Doctrines and Practices which as we say do manifestly contradict the Scriptures To insist upon small faults is to heighten animosities and to make our breaches desperate And while we charge our Adversaries with Innovation in the use they make of an Antient Rite as Unction of the Sick is confessed to be they have this at least to return upon us that we are guilty of as great an Innovation in making no use of it at all Now as to letting the dispute fall there had been some reason for it if the Church of Rome had either kept to the Ancient Unction which directly referred to bodily Cures or if when they were perhaps grown ashamed of anointing the Sick for the recovery of their health after long experience had shewn that the Remedy was all in vain if then I say they had retained the Rite of Unction under the notion of a Rite meerly standing upon Ecclesiastical Authority and whatsoever plausible signification they had given it if they had ascribed no more spiritual effect to it than to the observation of any other mutable custom of the Church Had they ordered matters thus and not intermedled against the liberty and authority of other Churches I for my part am of opinion that neither breach of Communion ought to have followed such a provision nor any such controversies raised about it as would hazard the peace of the Catholick Church But the matter is far otherwise They thought it not worth the while to retain it as a mutable Rite but have given it the venerable name of a Sacrament and as much as they can the nature of a Sacrament too They have found out a Grace for it which they say it confers and they have put the invention upon our Lord Jesus and the recognition of it upon the Christian world They have Anathematized all that dare to call it into question nor are they content to train up their own people in the belief that it takes away sin but they would make us such hypocrites as to say that we believe it too for with these men we can have no Communion unless we (k) Bulla Pii supra Formâ Juramenti c. profess that there are seven Sacraments of the new Law truly and properly so called instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord and necessary to the Salvation of mankind of which number Extreme Vnction is one and that they do confer Grace Thus the case stands and as it stands let our enemies themselves be our Judges if the truth be on our side in this Question whether we have not all the reason in the world to avow it openly and defend it Besides that relation of Bishops and Presbyters to the particular Churches that are under their especial care they are also Ministers of the Catholick Church and by virtue of that relation wherein they stand to the whole are bound to declare against intolerable abuses and corruptions that do notoriously prevail in any part of it There are not many errors of more pernicious consequence to the souls of men than to be made to believe that forgiveness of Sins Grace and Salvation may be attained by things that are blest by man without any appointment of God Nor is it easie to give a worse instance of Treachery in managing the care of souls than to support so dangerous a superstition by pretending that God is the Author of those Institutions which he never established and of those promises which he has no where made What is this but under a pretence of carrying men to heaven to venture the diverting them out of the only way to it which God has shewn and to cherish a fatal superstition in the people to which of themselves they are strangely prone instead of reproving and correcting it as the Priests of the living God ought to do It is seldom seen that people are very much concerned for Ecclesiastical Rites and Customs for which no other reasons are pretended but those of Prudence Order and Expedience But when they are made Mysteries good to take away sin and to save the soul no degree of zeal is thought to be too great for them Men love to be saved by a multitude of Ceremonies and a Priest to administer them But surely it is not so much the business of a Christian Priest to make himself necessary by deceiving and pleasing others as to please God and to profit the flock of Christ He should be content with so much dependence of the people upon him as may be kept by speaking truth and doing his duty But as for them that do not think this to be enough but pretend to have ways of Gods appointing to take away sin which yet are meer inventions of their own do they not at once abuse the name of God and gratifie their own ambition at the price of mens souls Certainly if any occasion of declaring the truth can be just even when we know before hand that many will be offended with it this is such an occasion Express warning ought to be given against the deceitful insinuations of those men who talk of nothing more violently than the Salvation of souls and who would almost make one believe that no body can be saved who does not pass through their hands nor any body damned that does For if what they say of two of their Sacraments be true the Sacraments of Penance and of Extreme Vnction there is as little cause to fear damnation in their Church as they say there is to hope for Salvation in ours Of Confession in Penance they say thus (l) Catech ad Par. P. II. de Paenit Sect. 46 47. Granting that sins are