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SERMON XXXIII.

1 PET. V. 12.

-Exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.

AFTER fixing the rule of Christian faith and practice, I proceeded to compare with this rule the chief things which distinguish the Church of Rome from ours. Great numbers of these I have already considered, and shall now, for your fuller satisfaction, go on to some others.

Several of their notions concerning the pardon of sin I have mentioned and confuted; but there still remains one more to be spoken of: their custom, when a sick person is near death, of anointing his eyes, and ears, and nostrils, and mouth, and hands, sometimes also his feet, and reins, with oil consecrated by the Bishop, and praying, that in virtue of that anointing, the sins which he hath committed, by the several organs of his body, may be forgiven him. This they call extreme unction, or the Sacrament of dying persons; and teach, that besides forgiveness of sins, it gives composure and strength of mind to go through the agonies of death. All this they build wholly on the following passage of St. James. 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*. But a little consideration will show that what St. James appoints is very different from what the Church of Rome does. In those days miraculous gifts were common: that of healing diseases in particular: and the persons who had these gifts were usually the Elders of the Churches, whom the Apostle here directs to be sent for. And as miracles, in condescension to the genius of the Jewish people, to whom this Epistle is directed, were accompanied, for the most part, with some outward act of ceremony, by the performer of them; (a practice which our Saviour himself often complied with ;) so the ceremony used in healing the sick by miracle, viz. anointing them with oil, was one to which the Jews had been accustomed; oil being a thing of which much use was made in the Eastern countries, on many occasions †. Accordingly we read, that, when our Saviour sent out his Disciples with a power from Heaven to cure diseases, though he prescribed to them no particular form for that purpose, yet they adopted this: they anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. Now what the Evangelist tells us they did, is evidently the very thing which St. James directs the Elders of the Church to do. And therefore, since the anointing mentioned in the Gospel was James v. 14, 15.

+ See Wheatley, on the Office for the Sick. And Grotius on Mark vi. 13. says, the Jews used it when they prayed for the sick, to express their hope of obtaining from God in their behalf that joy and gladness which oil signifies. Preservative against Popery. Tit. vii. c. ii. §. iv. p. 62.

Mark vi. 13. The Council of Trent had at first said that Extreme Unction was instituted in this place, but afterwards changed that word for insinuated. F. Paul in Preserv. p. 64.

only a mere circumstance used in the miraculous cures; that also mentioned in the Epistles can be nothing more. Accordingly we find St. James neither appoints any consecration of the oil, nor ascribes any efficacy to it, as the Papists do: but says, the prayer of faith shall save the sick. Now if this means only prayer offered up in a general faith of God's Providence, we use it for the sick as well as they, and may hope for the same good effect from it. But faith in many places of Scripture, signifies that supernatural persuasion and feeling of a power to work miracles, which in those days was frequent. Thus St. Paul says, though I had all faith, so that I could remove mountains*, &c. And therefore the prayer of faith, since it is so absolutely promised here that it shall save the sick, probably means, a prayer proceeding from this extraordinary persuasion and impulse; such a one as, in the next verse, we translate an effectual fervent prayer, but should translate an inwrought or inspired prayer. And therefore unless, in the Church of Rome, the priest, as often as he administers extreme unction, acts and prays by immediate inspiration, his prayers are not of the sort St. James speaks of; nor are they directed to the same end. The benefit, which he promises from the prayers that he appoints, is the recovery of health: The prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up; whereas they of the Church of Rome never use this ceremony with any hope of recovery, nor indeed, unless they happen to mistake, till the person is quite past recovery. And for this reason again, his anointing and theirs are quite different things. For though St. James does add; And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him: yet the very doubt implied.

* 1 Cor. xiii. 2. See also Matt. xvii. 20. John xiv. 12, 13.

in the word if, shews, he is not speaking of a Sacrament instituted purposely for the remission of sins, as the Church of Rome make their unction to be. And indeed this relates to the very same thing with his former words. For, as bodily sickness and infirmity was frequently a punishment for sin; (whence, to mention no other proofs, St. Paul tells the Corinthians*, For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep;) so, the very form of miraculously healing a person of these infirmities, used by our Saviour is, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee: that is, the illness inflicted on thee for thy sin is removed. Since therefore St. James promises forgiveness of sins in just a like case, we are certainly to understand him in just the like sense; viz. that if the sickness of any person prayed for were the punishment of any sin; that punishment should be remitted, and his health restored. Now this forgiveness of the temporal punishment of some particular sins, which is what St. James promises, the Church of Rome does not promise from this ceremony; and the forgiveness of the future punishment of all those sins, that the sick person hath ever committed by his bodily organs, which St. James does not promise, they do. Though indeed it is a little hard to conceive, when all a man's sins have been already forgiven; (as they say they are, by the priest's absolution :) how any of them should want to be forgiven again, perhaps by extreme unction, the moment after. But the truth is, they themselves lay not near so much stress on this ceremony's procuring pardon of sin, as its procuring composure of mind, against the terrors of death. Now most evidently this expectation St. James hath not said one word to countenance: so * 1 Cor. xi. 30. + Matth. ix. 2. See also John v. 14.

that his precept, which seems at first sight to be some ground for their practice, and is the only ground they have, relates indeed to a quite different thing, as one of their Cardinals, Cajetan*, acknowledges. Though the Council of Trent, Sess. 14. hath thought proper since to curse all that shall say it. The anointing prescribed by St. James therefore, being intirely of a miraculous nature, was in all reason to cease, when miracles were no more. And accordingly the primitive Christians, though they speak more than once of anointing with oil in miraculous cures; yet, in common cases, never mention it as a custom, much less as one appointed in Scripture, for the first 600 years †. After that indeed, they came to use it upon all sick persons in the beginning of sickness, for a means of recovery, as the Greek Church doth yet; till finding it of little benefit in that way, the Church of Rome, about the twelfth century, began to use it, in the extremity of sickness, as a Sacrament of preparation for death: which if it were in reality, they are surely much to blame for not giving it under the apprehensions of an approaching violent death; for instance, before a malefactor is executed; where it cannot but be as needful, as in the fears of a natural one. Upon the whole, you see our laying aside a ceremony which hath long been useless, and, by leading persons into superstitious fancies, might be hurtful, can be no manner of loss, whilst every thing that continues truly valuable in St. James's direction, is preserved in our Office for visiting the Sick: concerning which, I shall only add, that it is much to be wished men would so live in

* Preservative, Tit. vii. c. 2. §. 2. p. 60.

+ Concerning a passage of Innocent I. in the beginning of the 5th century, see Preser. P. 75.

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