What is extreme unction?

Extreme Unction

Like every false system, popery is glaringly inconsistent with itself. Falsehood, the mother of lies, is written upon her forehead, though there may be many honest and godly hearts in her communion. How unlike the perfect unity of divine truth! Though written by so many different persons, on so many different subjects, under so many different circumstances, and in so many different places and ages of the world, yet we have a perfect whole. Who can fail to see the glories of the cross, the riches of divine grace the lost condition of the sinner, and his full salvation, ail through scripture; for example, in Abel's lamb, Noah's ark, and in the cleansing of the leper? But in passing from one sacrament to another of the Romish system we find the flattest contradictions. Thus it is with purgatory and extreme unction. If there be any truth in extreme unction, purgatory is a mere delusion. There can be no such place, and no need for such a place. The declared object, and the effect of the sacred oil according to the Council of Trent, is to wipe away the remains of sins. The heretic who despises it must go straight to the depths of hell. Thus it is administered.

"The priest, having entered the house, shall put over his surplice a violet-covered stole, and present the cross to the sick person, to be devoutly kissed. Prayers having been recited, and holy water sprinkled, the priest dips his thumb in the holy oil, and anoints the sick, in the form of the cross. Beginning with the sense of sight, he anoints each eye, saying, 'The Lord, through His holy unction, and His most gracious compassion, forgive thee whatever sins thou hast committed by seeing.' After this manner there are seven annointings, one for each of the five senses — eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, and the other two are the breast and feet." After many prayers and crossings and the ceremony of burning the cloth which wiped the oil off the different parts of the anointed body and the priest's thumb, the dying man or woman is pronounced in a fit state to pass with safety to the port of eternal happiness.

This sacrament is never administered while there is any expectation of recovery to health. It is called extreme because it is the last to be administered. By means of this so-called infallible sacrament for the dying, one would naturally expect that purgatory would receive very few subjects from the church of Rome, so that it must be peopled by Protestants who despise the priestly ointment, or by those in the Romish communion who were disqualified to receive the sacrament. But there is great variety of opinion amongst Romanists on this subject. Some think that every soul without exception, from the pope downwards, however saintly the life may have been, or however properly the last sacrament may have been administered, must pass through purgatory — that no soul can pass direct from earth to heaven. They argue that, as no man has complete control over his thoughts, foolish and even sinful thoughts may pass through his mind during the administration of extreme unction, or immediately after it; therefore the soul must pass through the realm of purgatory on its way to heaven. Of course the sin may be so small that the detention may be very short. But even a Gregory or a Bernard must be purified by the fires of purgatory. Alas for the children of Rome! we would exclaim, they must all be the slaves of the prince of purgatory before they can taste the liberty and happiness of heaven. How dreadful, how gloomy, the thoughts of death must ever be! How different from the thoughts and feelings of the great apostle, when he said, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." If he lived, he lived Christ; he enjoyed the fullest and sweetest fellowship with Him: if he died, he made a gain upon that . . . . "Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." Besides, the word of God is positive as to all believers in Christ Jesus — "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." (Phil.

The allusion in the New Testament to the ancient practice of anointing has given the Catholic writers great boldness in pressing the necessity of this sacrament. But they carefully overlook or conceal the fact, that scriptural anointing was for the miraculous healing of the body, and the lengthening of the days of the living. Romish unction is for the soul — a permanent sacrament for the conveyance of grace, the pardon of sin, the attainment of salvation, in the hour of death. Apostolic unction was for the recovery of health; extreme unction is the last preparation for death. "And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." (Mark 6:13; James 5:14-15)

It is not difficult to see how superstition would use such passages for the accomplishment of its own ends; but it is perfectly plain that the original anointing was used for the recovery of health in particular persons, and continued while the gift of healing and the power of working miracles remained, which probably scarce survived the apostolic age. And extreme unction, in its present form, was unknown in the church during the first eleven centuries of her history. It was established during the reign of ignorance and priestcraft in the twelfth century, and ultimately received the stamp of the great seal of the Council of Trent.

If I turn to scripture, which alone has authority with me, I find distinct reference in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, and an allusion in chapter 12:13 to these two ordinances as characterizing Christians, while their institution by the Lord is unquestioned. Thus if I take ancient authority even — still more if I take the sure word of God — I find you wrong as to the sacraments; if I would take modern, you allege the Greek church. But this is an additional difficulty; for then how am I to choose between you by this sign? I find two who have it, and both unscriptural.

Father O. And what do you make of extreme unction?

N*. Anointing was used not for the dying, but as a sign when people were healed. Your sacrament of extreme unction has not the least ground to stand upon. Thus, in Mark 6:13 we read, the disciples, sent forth to work miracles, anointed many that were sick with oil, and healed them. So in James, the elders of the church were by the prayer of faith to restore to health, and the Lord should raise them up. But if your anointed sick man, on the contrary, is raised up, the unction goes thenceforth for nothing; it is only pretended to wipe away the remains of sin when men are dying; and yet people go to purgatory after all.

Dr. Manning refers to James 5:14 for extreme unction. It is really wearying to follow step by step the impudent way these doctors seek to impose on souls. The Roman doctrine is that extreme unction "abstergit reliquias peccatorum," wipes away the remains of sin. What they go to burn in purgatory for after would be hard to tell; but that is the pretended effect; and if a man gets up again and eats and drinks, its efficacy is gone. If in a dying state again, he must be anointed again.

Now in James the prayer of faith saves the sick, the discipline is removed; and if sins have been the occasion of the chastisement, they are forgiven in the holy government of God. In a word the anointing of James was connected with the recovery of the sick and taking off the affliction by which they were chastened, and the extreme unction of Romanists is given only when this is supposed to be impossible, and, if he does recover and this discipline is removed, is worth nothing at all.

There may also be the general or special need created by sickness. "Is any sick among you? let him call to him the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of [the] Lord." It is good where any dealing of the Lord leads us to turn to Him, expecting not evil but good. In those days too, elders of the assembly were there, men of moral weight and spiritual judgment, whose place it was to intervene in difficulties of a personal as well as public nature. They might not be evangelists or teachers; but apt to teach they were required to be, men able to take up in love and truth and faithfulness the burdens of their brethren. The sick man is exhorted to summon such as they are to pray for him with that application of oil which Romanism has distorted so wholly from God's mind. Extreme unction is a mere invention of superstition, to smooth the way when hope of recovery is gone.

It is remarkable that the inspired writer, though encouraging honour to the elders, attaches healing virtue, not to their official place or special art, but to prayer, and this of an efficacious sort through faith. He says "And the prayer of faith shall save [or, heal] the sick, and the Lord will raise him up." What a contrast this is with the gloomy superstition which sends "a priest" to absolve him and give extreme unction, because his death is regarded as inevitable! For if he recover, he will need the same hateful parody over again. Yes, unclean and drunken harlot, dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, with no resurrection as being without life, nothing but a system of darkness and death.

Then comes the special character of the sickness, carefully discriminated from the common, "and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him." It is a nice and notable point in the true rendering of the clause that the sins are in the plural, the forgiveness is in the singular. It is right that each and all should be judged in order; but grace gives the forgiveness in full.

109 Next we have extreme unction, for which you have not much to say. What has the account in the Acts, of the apostles healing the sick by anointing them, to do with extreme unction? Intimated by Mark, says Trent. Why intimated? Was healing the sick the sacrament of dying men, to go prepared into God's presence? This is too absurd. And James says, "Is any sick?" not when they are dying, but when chastened for sickness for sin — "Let him send for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." That is, he was to be healed by their prayers; and, if sin occasioned it, be forgiven and relieved, not "prepared" to die. So the quotation you give from Augustine states — "Will deserve to obtain the restoration of his health"; and it is most certain that for centuries, up to Bede's time, that is, the ninth century, it was looked at as a remedy to restore health. The Greek church so uses it still, and the Council of Trent says, it may be so interdum. Indeed there is nothing to be said for it, as the short article of the author shews.

110 And why, if extreme unction wipes away the very remains of sin, do people who have had it go to purgatory? What ineffectual means all the Romanist sacraments are! A man is absolved, but that will not do; he has his viaticum, the Eucharist, in which is remission, they say, but that will not do; extreme unction to wipe off the remains of sins — "reliquias peccati abstergit" (Conc. Trid., sess. 14, C. 2.) — yet the poor man goes to purgatory after all, to burn there for them himself; and then they say masses for him to get him out, though they could not keep him out. How different the peace of him who trusts the word of the living God, who believes His testimony! "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth from all sin." "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." "Being justified by faith we have peace with God … . and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us." "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Such is the peace given, and the certainty of divine love, by the faith of the gospel. We know no hard God, who will keep us down to the last farthing: Christ has paid it for us, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. The Lord grant many poor souls labouring under this cruel bondage may know His love who gave His Son for sinners, and the salvation which is in Christ!

Fifthly, may be noticed the strange doctrine of Rome as to the extreme unction. The Greeks are depraved and superstitious enough; but their practice approaches far nearer to that of early days among Jewish believers. For if they anoint the sick with oil, it is that the prayer of faith may heal him and the Lord may raise him up. Not so the unhallowed Romish system. In open departure from James 5 the aim is some faint hope of solace for the dying. Remission of sins in baptism suffices not; and no wonder, whatever the strong language employed. Penance again with its satisfaction and absolution has failed, no matter how often repeated. Of another resource we may speak presently, still more their boast during life; but now that death approaches, it too has proved a broken reed. Then the priest is anew called in to administer the viaticum and extreme unction. The Council of Trent (Sess. xiv. c. 2) perverts the scriptural text, though not without prevarication, to the saving of the soul as the Jesuit commentator, Cornelius van der Steen, boldly, Delicta, si quae sint adhuc expianda, ac peccati reliquias abstergit. Yet after all this round of appliances, however diligently used throughout life and in the hour of death, the soul at last goes to purgatory and must endure exquisite torments from God. What a contrast with the saving grace of God revealed in His word! How deplorable the ignorance, among Westerns or Orientals, of the unction from the Holy One, whereby even the babes of God's family know and enjoy the grace wherein they stand! For want of it in vain do they wrest the scriptures to inaugurate means of quieting consciences, which need to be and can only be purged by the blood of Christ.

"I profess also, that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the salvation of mankind, though all are not necessary for every one; namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony, and that they confer grace; and of these, baptism, confirmation, and orders cannot be reiterated without sacrilege.

245 This is the more strange, because their authentic doctrine declares that extreme unction wipes away the remains of sin, "abstergit peccati reliquias." It is strange that, after absolution, and the viaticum, and extreme unction, each of which is alleged to be efficacious to clear a man from sin, he should go into the torment of purgatory after all. Is this all the efficacy which belongs to the church's acts — that, after she has done all she can in order to their being cleansed, she lets the souls go into a place of fire, whose efficacy does not flow from her at all? And remark here, that she then offers the mass to get the soul out of the purgatory which God, they say, has sent it into, out of which she was not able to keep it by all she did for it when in the body! Are these the Lord's ways, or like the Lord's power? But this only in passing. I can understand that a conscience troubled by sin and fearing wrath, will fly to anything to get relief, where the true efficacy of Christ's precious blood to cleanse it and give it peace, is not known.

363 I conclude: scripture is positively and clearly against it, as destructive of Christ's work. The Fathers are one mass of confusion as to it, its true source being heathenism and Judaism; and the oldest half of Christendom rejects it to this day. Yet it is practically the great doctrine of Romanism in connection with the Mass. It is to get people out of it that Masses are constantly said. The poverty of the system is shewn, and the character it gives to God, in that it proceeds on the ground of God's exacting the last farthing (an interpretation denied by Augustine and Jerome), and that after the use of all the means the Roman system has at its disposal — absolution, the viaticum, and extreme unction, which wipes off the remains of sin — so utterly unprofitable are they (by their own confession) that the faithful have to go to purgatory to get these remains burned out by the relentless and exacting hand of God.