203 at once too long and too painful for insertion here. Pontiffs and prelates continually re-enacted the odious law: Councils denounced suspension or deprivation against those who by its rigour were tempted into sin. In spite of both, vice among the clergy was ever on the increase, and the priesthood were degraded by the very discipline which was meant to raise them to an exceptional sanctity. "The Church of God and the whole clergy (says the Council of Paris in 1429) is held in derision, abomination, and reproach among all nations."

5. Reasonableness of reform. So great a scandal loudly called for reformation; and the experience of ages had shown that but one kind of reformation would be permanent. The unnatural and unscriptural restriction on holy matrimony must be taken off. The prohibition was doubtless of long standing, but it had never been decreed by the Universal Church; and "from the beginning it was not so." It had not the sanction of the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. Above all, it had not the sanction,-it contradicted the distinct permission,-of Holy Scripture. Our English Reformers were therefore at one in this matter with Luther and Calvin. Without binding the English clergy to a married life, without even asserting the expediency of such a life for ordained men, they laid down the broad principle which set the consciences of the priesthood free from the shackles of a tyrannical constraint. What God's law had not commanded, what the earliest and purest ages had not required, the English Church refused to enjoin. She declined to tempt God by putting a yoke upon the neck of her Clergy, which their fathers had proved themselves unable to bear.

CHAPTER XII.

OF EXTREME UNCTION.

I. Position of the 'English Church with regard to Extreme Unction. The Church of England denies to the Unction of the Sick the name of a "Sacrament of the Gospel," i. e. a Sacrament in the strict sense of the term (see ch. viii.). It was not instituted, so far as we know, by Christ Himself; in its modern Roman form it is at best a "corrupt following of the Apostles ;" it has no promise of spiritual grace. Whether in any shape it was entitled to a place amongst ecclesiastical rites seems to have been a question on which the English Reformers were not at first prepared to pass judgment1. The first Prayer-book of King Edward VI. retained an Office for anointing the Sick. But the

1 The progressive steps taken by the Reformers in this matter were three: (1) The Institution of a Christian Man (1537), warned the people against deferring the administration of this Sacrament till the approach of death; (2) The Prayer Book of 1549 substituted, for the elaborate mediæval form of applying the unction to all the organs of the senses, a direction to anoint the sick person, at his desire, upon the forehead or breast only, making the sign of the cross; (3) The Prayer Book of 1552 omitted the ceremony altogether. In the face of these facts it is hard to see how it can be used by clergy who desire to be loyal to the spirit as well as to the letter of the Church's laws.

2 The form ran thus: "As with this visible oil thy body outwardly is anointed; so our Heavenly Father, Almighty God, grant of His infinite goodness that thy soul may be anointed with the Holy Ghost... and... vouchsafe... to restore unto thee thy bodily health and strength to serve Him ... and ... we His unworthy ministers and servants humbly beseech the Eternal Majesty... to pardon thee all thy sins and offences," &c.

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In the Roman ritual the priest, after quoting S. James v. 14, proceeds, Cure, we beseech Thee, Our Redeemer, by the grace of Thy Holy Spirit the languor of this sick person, and heal his wounds, and forgive his sins... and mercifully restore full health within and without." Similarly the Greek Euchologion: Holy FATHER, Healer of souls and bodies... heal this Thy servant of the sickness of soul and body which

second omitted it, and no subsequent revision has effected its restoration. Thus the Church of England, if she has not directly forbidden, has at least since the year 1552 tacitly discouraged the practice: it has no recognised position in her system; it has been ejected from the position which at one time it held.

2. Scriptures urged by Rome. It is argued from S. Mark vi. 13, that "the Saviour seems to have given some indication of this unction when He sent His disciples two and two before His face1." The Sacrament, however, was "first promulgated to the faithful by the Apostle S. James” (ch. v. 14).

"Is any sick among you? Let him call for the 'presbyters' 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.” Here, it is said, is a distinct institution of a sacramental rite, with matter, form, and accompanying grace; even the proper ministers of the rite being specified.

Those who reject Extreme Unction answer that the anointing prescribed by S. James was a channel of bodily healing rather than of spiritual grace, and that it became meaningless when the gifts of healing ceased. In the Church of Rome unction is administered as a preparation for death: recovery of bodily health is held forth as at the most a remotely possible consequence. With S. James, on the contrary, bodily healing is evidently the first object; the forgiveness of sins is in the background; the gift of

encompasses him, and quicken him through the grace of Thy Christ." Each of these prayers, it will be observed, asks for bodily as well as spiritual healing.

1 Cat. Council of Trent, part II. ch. 6.

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strength to meet the last Enemy is not in his thoughts at all. In the earlier Apostolic use of unction (S. Mark vi.) this purely physical or miraculous effect of the ceremony is still more apparent; not a hint is dropped of any spiritual result. They anointed with oil many that were sick, and "-a Romanist would have added 'prepared them for death:' the Evangelist's account is the exact converse- "and healed them." Those who see in such statements the institution of a permanent sacrament of spiritual grace, ought in consistency to retain and invest with a Sacramental character the imposition of hands on the sick, which was not only practised by the Apostles, but distinctly suggested by our Lord, as a means of healing (S. Mark xvi. 18). If the Church, in the exercise of a wise discretion, has judged the latter to have been an ordinance of temporary authority, she is equally at liberty to discontinue the use of the former, experience having long shewn that God is no longer pleased to use it as a vehicle for the healing power which it formerly served to convey1.

3. Practice of Antiquity. Did the Early Church think it right to practise the unction of the sick after the cessation of miraculous gifts? It seems clear that she did not. The silence of the first four centuries on the subject is incomprehensible on the supposition that the sick were habitually anointed; the more so,

1 The Council of Trent asserts that Unction does still "at times obtain bodily health, when expedient for the welfare of the soul." Failure is to be attributed to defects of faith on the part of the sick or of the minister. The epithet "extreme" refers not to the approaching end of the sufferer, but to the fact that this is the last of the various unctions administered by the Church...In practice, however, bodily healing is not expected to ensue; nor is unction of the sick administered except when dissolution appears to be imminent.