practice had therefore been going on for nearly five hundred years, and it was no doubt that practice which was present to the minds of our Bishops, when they drew up the Article. The Unction came to be regarded not so much as a supernatural means of obtaining health for the sick, as a means of preparing a dying person for death. The great Jesuit theologian, Suarez, teaches that the primary purpose of the rite is to give such help and comfort to the sick man as will aid him to overcome the difficulties which crowd upon him, when he is in the article of death. And the Council of Trent in the preamble to its decree on Extreme Unction teaches much the same doctrine. Now there is nothing in the Epistle of S. James or in any other part of the New Testament which speaks of Unction as a rite to be administered to people, when they are in the article of death; nor is there any trace of any such notion in the writings of the Holy Fathers or in the liturgical formulas of the Church. No doubt the Apostles anointed the sick, but they did not anoint them to help them in the last struggle of dying. Our Bishops were therefore justified in regarding Extreme Unction, as they knew it, as being a "corrupt following of the Apostles."

It would have been well if the compilers of the Prayer-book had drawn up an office for the consecration and administration of the oil of the sick, together with

1 Suarez, Opp., ed. 1748, tom. xix. p. 438.

2 But it is worthy of note that, while forms for the consecration of the oil of the sick are found as early as the fourth century, I know of no forms for its administration earlier than the ninth century. In particular there are no forms for the administration of the oil either in the Gelasian Sacramentary or in the original Gregorian Sacramentary or in the copy of the Gregorian Sacramentary sent from Rome by Pope Hadrian I. to Charles the Great in or about the year 788. It would seem as if during

proper directions which would make it clear that the oil was to be normally administered to sick persons who were capable of recovery, and that the unction was not to be postponed until the moment preceding death. This however was not done; though in the first Prayerbook published in the reign of Edward VI., in 1549, a short office for the anointing of the sick was provided. But the Church of England has never forbidden her Bishops and Priests to carry out the directions given by S. James in his Epistle, and at the present time, with ever-increasing frequency, the sick members of the Church are sending for the Priests and are being anointed by them.1

The first of the paragraphs of the 25th Article, which I shall quote, runs thus :-"There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ in the Gospel, that is to say Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord." This paragraph states a truth which cannot be denied. The two Sacraments, which are generally necessary for all who would be admitted into and abide in the new Covenant, are the only two Sacraments which, as far as we know, were directly instituted by Christ, while He was here on earth, and concerning which a record of their institution has been preserved in the Holy Gospel. In order that these

the first eight hundred years the Clergy were left free to compose their own forms for administering the oil, so as to adapt the prayers to the special circumstances of the several cases with which they had to deal.

1 A learned Anglican writer on liturgical subjects, the late Mr. W. E. Scudamore (Notitia Eucharistica, second edition, 1876, pp. 1002, 1003) says: "If a sick person, having faith in the prayers of the Church, were to send for his Parish Priest or Priests (the Presbyters or 'elders of the Church'), and, appealing to the Scripture, were to request them, on its authority, to 'pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,' I do not see how they could refuse compliance without incurring the guilt of disobedience to the voice of God in Holy Scripture."

two great Sacraments may be distinguished from all other Sacraments, the English Church has been accustomed to call them "Sacraments of the Gospel."

The next paragraph of the Article is thus worded :— "Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction,1 are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed (probati) in the Scriptures: but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God." As Dr. Edgar Gibson, the Bishop of Gloucester, observes, "the description is somewhat carelessly drawn," as Confirmation, one of the five Sacraments, is not included in it, for it is certainly not a state of life, nor does the Church of England regard it as a " corrupt following of the Apostles," since she has always practised it and attached great importance to it.

2

I will end what I have to say on this Article by quoting a passage from Bishop Jeremy Taylor, a muchreverenced Bishop of our Communion, and also a thesis adopted by the Bonn Conference held in 1874. Bishop Taylor says:-"It is none of the doctrine of the Church of England that there are two Sacraments only, but that of those rituals commanded in Scripture, which the

1 It is to be noted that Hugh of S. Victor (Summ. Sentent. tract., 5–7) mentions five sacramenta majora or spiritualia, amongst which he does not reckon either Ordination or Penance. On the other hand Robertus Pullus does not discuss Marriage when he is dealing with the other Sacraments, but when he is dealing with the three states of life, viz. the state of the praelati, the state of the continentes, and the state of the conjugati.

2 Bishop E. Gibson, The Thirty-nine Articles, edit. 1908, p. 604.

Ecclesiastical use calls Sacraments (by a word of art,) two only, are generally necessary to salvation."1 The Bonn Conference of 1874 adopted the following as its eighth thesis: (a) We acknowledge that the number of Sacraments was fixed at seven first in the twelfth century, and then was received into the general teaching of the Church, not as a tradition coming down from the Apostles or from the earliest times, but as the result of theological speculation. (b) Catholic theologians (e.g. Bellarmine) acknowledge, and we acknowledge with them, that Baptism and the Eucharist are 'principalia, praecipua, eximia salutis nostrae sacramenta.'" 2

1 Jeremy Taylor's Dissuasive, p. 240, edit. Cardwell.

2 Dr. Liddon's English edition of the Report of the Bonn Conference of 1874, pp. 20, 21.

CHAPTER III

THE LEGAL AND SPIRITUAL CONTINUITY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH BEFORE AND AFTER ITS REFORMATION (PART II.)

I HAVE now dealt with all the Articles which I have time to discuss in this Course of Lectures. I have also said something about the other doctrinal formularies of the English Church, namely the doctrinal decrees of the General Councils, the Creeds, the Catechism, and the Book of Common Prayer, and I have explained to you how the Church of England draws her faith primarily from Holy Scripture; but I have pointed out that she uses as an authoritative help in the interpretation of Scripture the Holy Tradition handed on from the Apostles by the Fathers. So far as time has allowed, I have, I hope, made it clear that, when the Church of England was separated by the Pope from his communion, she not only maintained intact her legal continuity with her old self, as she existed before her breach with Rome, but she also maintained her adherence to the Catholic faith, as it was delivered once for all to the Saints; and therefore, so far as her faith is concerned, she has maintained her spiritual continuity and identity with the Church, as it was founded by our Lord. But in order to complete the demonstration of her spiritual continuity it is necessary that I should say something about her preservation of a validly ordained ministry.

This question has been very thoroughly discussed