92 Universal essentialness of two Sacraments;

the Christian life. Confirmation enlarges the gift of Baptism, and was counted of old a supplement to it, or almost a part of it. The sacrament of Penitence were not needed, if we ever kept faithfully the gift in Baptism: it is but a second plank given to us by the mercy of God after shipwreck. The sacrament of Matrimony hallows an allowed, yet not the highest, state of the Christian. Orders are directly but for one class; although that class was instituted for the good of all, and its offices are necessary to all. The Unction of the Sick is not held to be necessary to salvation. But Baptism clothes us with Christ, and in the Holy Eucharist He is Himself our Food.

On the other hand, there cannot even be a question that in Orders and Confirmation the Church of England prescribed the use of an outward sign, and speaks of an inward grace. In Penitence it has preserved the essential words of the ancient ritual.

clysmo (c. iv.) in S. Aug. T. vi. In the Greek Church S. Chrysostom (in S. Joann. Hom. 85), the author of the Testim. de Adventu Dom. in S. Gregory of Nyssa (T. ii. pp. 161, sqq.), probably Apollinarius (ad loc. in Corderii Cat.), S. Cyril of Alexandria (ad loc.), S. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthod. iv. 9). The original and vivid language of S. Isaac the Great witnesses to an independent tradition of the Syriac-speaking Churches:-"Faith came to me, and called to me, and said to Ime that the sacraments of the Church came forth from the opened side of Christ" (Serm. de fide in Assem. B. O. i. 243). This and other passages of the Greek and Latin fathers are discussed in my "Scriptural Doctrine of Holy Baptism," pp. 294-297.

other Sacraments implied by our formularies. 93

For Christian Marriage it requires the benediction of the Priest, and directly calls it a "sacrament *." Of Absolution the Homilies say that "it hath the inward grace of forgiveness of sins," and speaks of "the visible sign, which is imposition of hands," although they advert to the fact (in distinction from Baptism and the Holy Eucharist) that that forgiveness is "not, by express words of the New Testament, annexed and tied to it." They only say that "neither Orders, nor any other sacrament else be such Sacraments as Baptism and Communion are." The Article itself, which distinguishes the five from the two, virtually declares them to be in some sense sacraments, since it says only that they "have not the like nature of sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper 5."

These things we have in fugitive words taught for full thirty years; and have, I suppose, been scarcely contradicted. This teaching has been part of a popular interpretation of the Articles. The young have been accustomed to it as much as they were, before, to that traditional mis-interpretation of certain Articles, which your own Tract XC. stripped off from them. It will now, I hope (as embodied in a thoughtful exposition of the Articles,

5

4 Homilies, Sermon of Swearing, P. 2.

Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments.

It is very characteristic of the imperceptible change which has gone on in the Church of England, that, although Tract XC. had been so long out of print, its principles of interpretation, when I was kindly permitted to republish it, were recognized at

94

Unction for the Sick; restored health

as a whole'), have a permanent and systematic influence upon the English Church.

In one case only, the Unction of the Sick, the superstition of the people, who seem to have dreaded it as though it were a herald of death, has produced a change which is a loss to us, both as to doctrine and practice. Our Article condemns only that practice which was almost forced on the clergy by the extreme unwillingness of the people to receive the Unction. It is strange that we, who so desire to build on Holy Scripture, should have laid aside a practice which has such distinct and almost peremptory authority from S. James'. But on that very ground, one may the rather hope. that there may be no ultimate difficulty in its restoration, whensoever it shall be made clear that one object at least of it is restoration to health, if

once by those relatively young, as the principles which they had always received and held.

"Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles, by A. P. Forbes, Bp. of Brechin, Art. xxv.

9 Dean Alford, e. g., on James v. 14, states that the words "in the name of the Lord" belong to the word "anointing;" and that, "thus joined, they show that the anointing was not a mere human medium of cure, but had a sacramental character;" comparing the use of "the same words, 'in the name' or 'into the name of," (Matt. 28. 19; Acts 2. 38; 10. 48; 19.5; 1 Cor. 1. 13, 15). And yet he declaims against the Roman use of the passage in defence of the practice of Extreme Unction [i. e. the last in life, not an unction in extremis] on the ground apparently of its being used when there is no hope or almost possibility of recovery.

prayed for both in Roman and Greek ritual. 95

10

God so will. Meanwhile, we have for ourselves this comfort, that it is (as I said) not counted by any necessary to salvation 1o; that by Absolution God forgives our sins, and that our souls are fortified for their last struggle by the Body and Blood of Christ. In regard to doctrine, we know that our Article condemns only a practice which is contrary alike to the prayers of the Latin' as well as the Greek2 ritual, since both pray for the restoration of the sick to health, and in principle in no way differ from that of our first English Prayer Book3, which was omitted through an unhappy temporizing, in the attempt to win those who would not be won, and has not yet been restored.

4

I have spoken elsewhere of the difficulty of attaching a definite meaning to the Tridentine statement about "the remains of sin," or what sins remain to be remitted by "Extreme Unction" after Confession and Absolution. But, in case of reunion, possibly a general acknowledgment of meaning whatever S. James means, might suffice; and that the more, since Roman theologians have not come, as yet, to any agreement upon it.

10 Extreme Unction, or Confirmation, which are neither of necessity of salvation," &c. S. Thom. Aq. in iv. dist. 23, q. 1. art. i. fin.

1 Translated in the Bp. of Brechin's Explan. pp. 468, 469. 2 Translated, "Eirenicon," p. 227.

See at length ibid. pp. 221, 222.

4 "Eirenicon," pp. 223-227.

96 Rom. statements of suffering after death one-sided.

แ

i) The Intermediate State.

In regard to the Intermediate State, we have been, as it were, looking on the two sides of the shield-we, on "the joy and felicity" of those who are delivered from the burden of the flesh," the "blessedness" of "the dead which die in the Lord," their "rest from their labours," and their being with God; the writers and preachers before the Reformation dwelt, as far as we are acquainted with them, upon sufferings "which gave no rest."

The Council of Trent (to which you drew attention formerly, as illustrating the meaning of our Articles) reformed some abuses, and, so, owned that there were abuses to be reformed.

665

Among the rude people let more difficult and more subtle questions, and which make not for edification, and from which mostly there arises no accession to piety, be set aside from popular sermons. Let them [the Bishops] not permit things uncertain, or which have the semblance of falsehood, to be published or preached. But those things, whose aspect is to a sort of curiosity or superstition, and which savour of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling-blocks to the faithful."

But, apart from abuses, I suppose that it has been common among your writers to dwell exclusively upon the sufferings, whether of the temporary

5 Sess. xxv. init.