JaS. V. 14.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 449
aculous effect. I answer — So he did the water of Siloara to heal the blind, John ix. 7, the pool of Bethesda to cure the diseased, John v. 2, Jordan for ISTaaman's leprosy, &c. ; and yet these cannot be set up as sacraments and standing ordinances.
2. In the apostles' time it was^ promiscuously used and ap- plied to every member of the church, but with great prudence and caution, for the apostles only anointed those of whose recovery they were assured by the Holy Ghost, as James here seemeth to restrain it to such an object where they could pray in faith. He that gave the gift did always suggest the seasons of using it ; with the power he gave discretion, that by a common use they might not expose the gift to scorn. It was a mistake in our learned Whitaker to say, that oleum synibolum erat valetudinis recuparatcc, et quod apostoU mdlos umjue- rent nisi d morho liheratos — that anointing was a symbol of health already recovered, and that the apostles anointed none but those that \vere in a fair way of recovery. However, it is true that they anointed none but those of whom they were persuaded that they would recover, otherwise the apostle Paul would never have left Trophimus sick at Mile- tum, 2 Tim. iv. 20, or sorrowed so much for Epaphroditus' sickness, if he could so easily have helped it by anointing with oil, Phil. ii. 27. But now among the Papists it is not given but to those that are half dead, or at the point of death ; so the Council of Florence decreed, Hoc sacramentnm illi de cujus morte non tionetur, dari non debet.
3. In the more common use of it afterward, all were not healed that were anointed ; God gave out his grace and power as he saw good, for the effect did not depend upon anointing, but the prayer of laith, and if all that were anointed had recovered, there would have been no mortality in the primitive times. God wrought then as he worketh now, by the ordinary means, sometimes blessing them, some- times leaving them ineffectual, all depending upon his free pleasure and operation.
4. When it did cease we cannot tell ; when it should cease we may easily judge, if we will but understand the nature, use, and end. The rite ceased when the gift ceased, which God hath taken from the world almost these fifteen hundred years. Gifts of healing are coupled with other miraculous gifts. Mat. x. 8 ; Mark vi. 13 ; xvi. 17, 18 ; and ceased when they ceased. At the first mission of the apostles to gain the world, Christ invested them with these gifts. As a tree newly set needeth watering, which afterwards we discontinue, so after some space of time these dispensations ceased, for miracles would not have been miracles, but reckoned among ordinary effects, if still continued. He still pro vide th for his own, but not in that supernatural way ; and healeth as he seeth cause. When men can restore the effect, let them restore the rite, otherwise why should we keep up a naked and idle ceremony ? Thus we see when it should cease ; but when miracles did cease is not easy to be defined. If the story be true in Tertullian,"- they continued some two hundred years after Christ, for he speaketh of one Proculus, a Christian, that anointed Severus and recovered him : Procidum Christianum qui Tovpacion oiominahatur, Evodice pro- curatorem, qui eumper oleicm cdiquando curaveraf, et in palatio sico
^ Qu. ' was not ' ?— Ed. ■* Tertiil. ad Scapular.
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450 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [Jas. V. 14.
habuit usque ad mortem ejus. Some suspect the stoiy because of the strangeness of the names, Proculus and Evodia, and the silence of other authors about this thing ; though Pamele saith that in the Martyrologies, on the Calends of December, there is mention made of one Proculus, a priest near Rome, in a place where Severus did use to resort. Ever since that passage there is a deep silence of it in histories.
5. Popish anointing, or extreme unction, is a mere hypocritical pageantry. It must be prepared by a bishop, heated with thus many breathings, enchanted with uttering so many words. The members anointed are their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and, for greater entireness, the reins and feet ; in women the navel. The form — By this holy oil, and his tender mercy, piissimam misericordiam, God forgive thee whatever thou hast sinned by thy sight, thy hearing, thy smell, thy touch. Nay, to make the blasphemy more ridiculous, ^gidius Conink, a schoolman, saith those words, i^er inissimam misericordiam, by his most tender mercy, may be left out. The administrator must be a priest, may be a bishop ; the object, a person that must be believed to be at the point and danger of death ; the end of it they make to be the expulsion of the relics of sin, healing the soul, and helping it against temptations, and in the congress with Satan, or combat with the powers of the air. So the form of Milan and Venice, which are somewhat different from others, Unguo ie oleo sancto in nomine Patris, (&€., ut more militis ^wceparatus, dtc. To propose these things is to confute them ; for the most ignorant cannot but see the great differ- ence between a miracle and a sacrament, curing the body and the expul- sion of sin. Besides, in the circumstances of it there is a great deal of difference among themselves. But let this suffice ; I come to the points.