Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/447

 OHAP. XIV.] EXTRZME UMC'nON. 441 but we my properly contrast the two, since the Church of Rome ideutio ties them as one and the same. "The Council"of Trent "declares that this unction is'to be applied to the sick, and especially to those who lie in a dangerotto state, as in all appearance to be appointed to death, whence it is called ' THE SACRAMENT OF THE DVtNO.'" The Catechism says, "Extreme unction is to be administered to THOSE ONLY whose malady is such as to excite apprehensions of APPROACHING DISSOLU- 'rOS." But what saith the Scripture ? Mark's account, in the passage brought forward by the council, and according to the Rhemish transla- tion, is, "And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and HEALED THEM," Mark vi, 13. Then what says St. James in the passage on which the tenet is founded ? "Is any man sick among you &c.; AND THE LORD SHALL RAISE HIM UP." But the Church of Rome will only administer to THE DYING, in their EX- TREME or LAST STATE; and it is mosdy accounted an unlucky event if the sick man recover after having gone through the ceremony. It is as difficult to discover the t/as it is wonderful to contemplate the consummate cred, dity with which this glaring inconsistency is re* ceived. 6. T testimony of antiquity, o tkis doctrine. Though Roman Catholics on this, as well as on others of their new doctrines, claim the suffrage of antiquity, nothing is worse founded than such an assertion. We have proofs to show that this pretended sacrament is a mere novelty of the dark ages, and that it was entirely unknown to the Christians of the earlier ages. (1.) We have already seen that the words of the apostle James re* iated to the healing of the sick, or their restoration to health, and that therefore they furnish no authority for anointing the dying, solely with a view to their death. We read of many instances of persons being anointed, while in sickness, during the first four or five centuries; but dl these instances seem to be connected with the hope of restoration of health. And there is reason to think that the practice was super- stitiously continued after the miraculous power of healing had ceased; but as a sacrament to be administered to the dying for their spiritual bonetit, we read nothing of it for many centuries after Christ. (2.) There is not the least mention of it in Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Tertullian, or Cyprian, or any of the writers of the fu'st three centuries, who yet discourse frequently and ainly of the discipline and aera- menta of the church, and therefore it was not known unto them. (3.) Neither was it known to the fourth century, which afforded so many Christian writers, since not one of them mentions it, not even when writing of the sacraments and rites of the church. Epiphanius treats largely of the doctrines, discipline, and rites of the church, in his work against heresics, but not a word of extreme unction. The counter- feit Dionysius lays down with wonderful particularity all the mysteries of the church, from the baptism to the burial of the faithful; yet of ex- treme unction he is altogether silent. And so is the author of "Apos- tolical Institutions," in his eighth book, in which he undertake8 to describe all ecclesiastical forms. (4.) The biographies of the first six centuries, containing narratives of the life and death of many extraordinary persons, give no intimation I hat any of them underwent the process of extreme unction. This .

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