before the people: that uncertain things, and such as have the appearance of falsehood, be not allowed to be made public, nor be discussed: and that whatever may tend to encourage idle curiosity, and superstition; or may savour of filthy lucre, be prohibited as scandalous impediments to virtue." Sess. xxv. Decretum de Purgat. p. 286.
THE SACRAMENT OF EXTREME UNCTION.
PROPOSITION XIII.
The Sacrament which is administered to dying persons, to strengthen them in their passage out of this life into a better, from the oil that is used on the occasion, Catholics call Extreme Unction, and they believe it to be divinely instituted.[1]
SCRIPTURE.
Mark vi. 12, 13.—“And going forth, they preached that men should do penance: and they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.”
This may be understood to refer to that institution which St. James afterwards promulgated in his epistle, v. 14, 15.
- ↑ “It has been used, as a Sacrament, both by the Latin and Greek Churches, from the earliest times. In the Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great, are found the ancient rite of blessing the holy oil, with which the sick are to be anointed, and the form of administering this Sacrament, by prayer, and the unction of the senses of the sick person with the blessed oil. It is there prescribed, that he should be anointed in the form of a cross. The Priest says, “I anoint thee with the holy oil, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, &c......and may this sacred unction of oil be to thee an expulsion of disease and weakness, and the wished-for remission of all thy sins.” Then he communicates him, with the body and the blood of the Lord.” - Dr. Poynter's Christianity, p. 172.
