from Paganism to Christianity, treats this sacrament as one of the seven, specifies the usual mode of blessing the matter of it, and of administering it to the sick with an accompanying form 1.

If to these authorities, we add the constant and perpetual practice of the Greek schismatical churches, and indeed of the Eastern churches of every description, we have such a weight of evidence in favour of the use of this sacrament, as bigotry can never reject2.

But what says my learned opponent to this weight of reasoning and authority on the subject of this consoling sacrament. He produces many assertions and statements, which have been completely obviated in the course of these remarks.

I. He denies the institution of Christ; a condition undoubtedly necessary to the existence of a sacrament. In answer to this I beg to restate what I have before said, that if the word of an apostle deserves any credit, we must believe Christ to have authorized him to promulgate the use of a rite, to which an inward grace is annexed. That he has published such a rite, is clear beyond all controversy; that the nature of

Vid. Sacramentar. St. Greg. Mag. ad Artic. Extrem. Unct.

2 See the proofs of the belief of the Eastern churches in the learned work so often referred to in these pages. Perpet. de la Foi, tom. iii. liv. viii. pp. 411, et seq.

the rite so published, demanded an authority altogether divine, is equally incontestable: from the sanctity of the apostle, therefore, and from the public character with which he was invested, we are inevitably led to conclude, that what was done, was performed by the absolute direction of our Redeemer.

II. In this corresponding number, the catechist confounds the unction used for miraculous purposes, with that which was administered to the sick; and contends, that because the first has been discontinued, the other should not be preserved. The differences of both practices I have already explained in terms so clear, that it becomes superfluous to repeat the statement.

III. It is asserted that the unction mentioned by St. James, is different from what is used in the church of Rome; 1st, because it has no miraculous effects, as that used by the apostles had; 2d, because they anointed persons to recover in the Roman church, persons past recovery are anointed; 3d, no such ceremonies are ascribed to the apostles, as are used in the church of Rome; 4th, because grace is ascribed not to the unction, but to the prayer of faith; 5th, because such a sacrament is unnecessary after the Lord's supper.

To all these flimsy and idle objections, I beg briefly to reply, First, That this statement supposes the unction mentioned by St. Mark, and

used by the apostles before their priesthood, to be the same as that recorded by St. James; whereas we have shewn, by incontrovertible arguments, that they are essentially different. Secondly, I answer, that the observations in the corresponding number are founded on the same false assumption. Thirdly, If we read in the sacred Scriptures, of no such ceremonies performed by the apostles, as are used in the Catholic church, it is notorious that the sacred Scriptures do not record all that the apostles performed. If the reader will turn to the Sacramentary of St. Gregory before referred to, he will find these ceremonies extremely ancient. Fourthly, If the saving of the sick man is ascribed to the prayer of faith, the use of the oil is no more excluded by such an affirmation, than the waters of baptism would be by a similar proposition, which should attribute the effects of this latter sacrament to the solemn invocation of the three divine persons. Fifthly, If our Lord has thought proper to grant to the dying an additional help, besides the holy eucharist, it belongs not to the catechist, nor to any human being, to question the propriety of the concession.

Why do

QUESTION XXII.

you look upou the church of Rome as in an error, for forbidding priests and clergymen to marry?

ANSWER.

1. Because St. Paul plainly permits a bishop and other clergymen to marry. 1 Tim. iii. 2, 11. Tit. i. 6.

2. The same apostle saith to all men in general, “It is better to marry than to burn." 1 Cor. vii. 9.

3. The same apostle calls forbidding to marry, a doctrine of devils. 1 Tim. iv. 1, 3.

4. St. Peter himself, an apostle, and a priest, and, in the sense of the church of Rome, a Pope too, was a married man. 5. Several of the bishops of the primitive church were married men, such as Spiridion, Chæremon, Hilary, and others. 6. The priests of the Greek church do not observe this law of celibate, or single life.

7. The first Council of Nice approved of Paphnutis's opinion, that clergymen ought to be permitted to cohabit with their

wives.

OBSERVATIONS.

THE candid and learned catechist, in stating the question concerning the celibacy of the clergy in the Catholic church, cannot refrain from a slight degree of misrepresentation. He supposes, that Catholic clergymen are absolutely and unconditionally forbidden to marry but the real truth is, that they are restrained by severe penalties from violating a solemn engagement, knowingly and deliberately formed. No one obliges them to contract this obligation; it is a

matter of their own free and unbiassed choice, and to carry it into effect, they have every help which religion can supply. If they should fail in the observance of a sacred and solemn duty, they fall under the censure denounced by St. Paul against the faithless widows. When they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, HAVING DAMNATION, because they have cast off their first faith'. The Catholic church, therefore, prohibits in its clergy, what St. Paul stigmatizes in the wanton widow, a violation of a sacred vow, solemnly and deliberately made.

Does the catechist wish to know the real grounds, which induce the Catholic church to admit those only to holy orders, who are willing to contract this engagement? Let him not distort the real meaning of the apostle, in various passages, which I shall explain in the proper place; but let him turn to a text where scepticism cannot raise a doubt. The real policy of the Catholic church in this concern, is to be sought for in a plain and undisguised statement of St. Paul. But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried, careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married, careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife.

1 1 Tim. v. 11, 12.

21 Cor. vii. 32, 33.