Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/131

Rh the inconveniences and pains of sickness; and more readily resists the temptations of the devil, who lies in wait for his heel; and sometimes obtains bodily health, when it is expedient for the welfare of the soul.

CHAPTER III.

On the Minister of this Sacrament, and on the Time when it ought to he administered.

And now, as pertains to the prescribing who ought to receive, and who to administer this sacrament, this also was only obscurely delivered in the words aforesaid. For it is also shown there, that the proper ministers of this sacrament are the elders of the Church; by which name are to be understood, in that place, not the elders by age, or the foremost amongst the jpeople, but, either bishops, or priests by them rightly ordained by the laying on of hands by the presbytery. It is also declared, that this unction is to be applied to the sick, but especially to those who lie in such danger as to seem placed at their departure from this life hence, also, it is called the sacrament of the departing. But if the sick should recover, after having received this unction, they may again be aided by the succour of this sacrament, when they fall into another like danger of death. "Wherefore, they are on no account to be hearkened unto, who, contrary to so manifest and clear a declaration of the apostle James, teach that this unction is either a human figment, or is a rite received from the others, which neither hath a command from God, nor a promise of grace: nor those who assert that it hath already ceased, as though it were only to be referred to the grace of healing in the primitive church; nor those who say that the rite and usage which the holy Roman Church observeth in the administration of this sacrament is repugnant to the declaration of the apostle James, and that it is, therefore, to be changed into some other: nor finally, those who affirm that this Extreme Unction may without sin be contemned by the faithful: for all these things are most manifestly at variance with the distinct words of so great an apostle. Neither, assuredly,