James 5:16

Verse 16. Confess, therefore, your sins, and so forth Divers interpreters expound this of sacramental confession, though, as the authors of the annotations on the Rheims Testament observe, this is not certain. The words one to another, may signify that it is not enough to confess to God, but that we must also confess to men, and not to every man, but to those whom God appointed, and to whom he hath given the power of remitting sins in his name. I cannot but observe that no mention at all is made, “in the visitation and communion of the sick,” in the Prot. common prayer book, of this comfortable passage out of Saint James, of calling in the priests of the Church, of their anointing him with oil … and that his sins shall be forgiven him. Perhaps having laid aside that sacrament, it seemed to them better to say nothing of those words. But such a confession as is practised by all Catholics, is at least there advised. “The sick person,” saith the book of common prayer, “here shall be moved to make a special confession of his sins … After which confession, the priest shall absolve him after this sort. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his Church to absolve all sinners, who truly repent, forgive thee … and by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father,” and so forth Here is a special confession, or a confession of particular sins; here is a power of forgiving sins in God’s name, acknowledged to be given to the Church, and to priests; here are the very same words used by every Catholic priest in the sacrament of penance. This is clearly ordained in their liturgy: how far it is complied with, I know not. Witham.—One to another. That is, to the priests of the Church, whom (verse 14) he had ordered to be called for, and brought in to the sick: moreover, to confess to persons who had no power to forgive sins, would be useless. Hence the precept here means that we must confess to men whom God hath appointed, and who, by their ordination and jurisdiction, have received the power of remitting sins in his name. Challoner.—Pray for one another. Here is recommended prayer in general, as a most necessary Christian duty. He encourages them to it by the example of Elias. [4] in the beginning of the third age, (hom. ii. in Levit.) who numbering up the different ways by which sins are forgiven in the new law, says, that they were remitted when priests anoint the sick with oil, as in the epistle of Saint James; Saint John Chrysostom [5] in the end of the fourth age, (in his third book de Sacerdotio, tom. i. p. 384. Nov. Ed. Ben. written before the end of the fourth age, about the year 375) says, that priests (and his word expresseth sacrificing priests, not elders) have now a power to remit sins, which he proves from those words in Saint James, Is any man sick among you? and so forth This shews, as do also Origen’s words, that this custom was then continued in the East, in the Greek Church, and that it was believed a sacrament, of which the priests only were the ministers. Innocent I. [6] in his answers to Decentius, bishop of Eugenium, in Italy, at the beginning of the fifth age, an. 416, calls this anointing and prayer over the sick, set down in Saint James’ epistle, a sacrament in the same sense as other sacraments in the new law. See Labbe’s Councils, tom. ii, p. 1248. And as to what Innocent I. and Ven. Bede relate of a custom by which lay persons, when a priest could not be had, anointed and prayed over a person in danger, it was only to testify their desire of having the sacrament: as it was likewise a pious custom in some places for sinners to make a confession to a layman, not that they them looked upon it as a sacrament, but only that they hoped God would accept of their private devotions and humiliation, when they could not have a priest to administer the sacraments to them. It is needless to mention authors in the following ages. Saint Gregory (Sacramentarium. fer. 5. in Cœna Dni.) describes the ceremony of blessing oil to be used in the anointing of the sick. Theodore, made archbishop of Canterbury, an. 668, among other decrees, ordains that sick persons receive the holy unction, set down by Saint James. The Capitularia of Charles the great, say that no one, when about to depart out of this world, ought to want the anointing of the sacrament of oil. The same is ordained in a council of Chalons, an. 813, can. 48; by a council at Aix la Chapelle, an. 830, can. 5; by the council of Mayence, an. 847, can. 26, and so forth Now since we find this anointing made use of as a sacrament at least from the fourth age, let our adversaries tell us when this anointing prescribed by Saint James was left off, and when and how it came to be taken up again. They have no manner of proofs for either; and yet we have a right, as the authors of the annotations on the Rhem. Testam. observe, to demand clear and convincing proofs in this case, when the Scripture seems so clear for us and against them. Dr. Fulk affirms boldly, that this anointing was never to this day received in the Greek Church as a sacrament. This only shews how little credit is to be given to him. He might have found great reason to doubt of his bold assertion, since neither Photius, in the ninth age, nor Michael Cerularius, in the eleventh, ever objected this difference betwixt their Greek and the Latin Church, at a time when they reckoned up even the most minute differences either in doctrine or discipline, so as to find fault with the Latins for shaving their beards. He might have found it by what happened at the time of the council of Lyons, in the thirteenth age, when the pope, in his letter to the emperor of Constantinople, wrote that the Latin Church, and all in communion with him, acknowledged seven sacraments, which the Greeks never blamed. He might have observed the same when the Greeks and Armenians came to an union in the council of Florence, in the fifteenth age. The same Dr. Fulk, who wrote about the year 1600, could scarce be ignorant of the ill success the Augsbourg confession met with among the Greeks, to whom, when the Lutherans had sent copies of their faith and of their reformation, Jeremy, the patriarch of Constantinople, with a synod of the Greeks, condemned their articles, and among other points, declared that they held “in the orthodox Catholic Church seven divine sacraments,” the same as in the Latin Church, baptism … and the holy oil. Had Dr. Fulk lived a little longer, he must have been more and more ashamed to find other Greek synods condemning him and all the said reformers. For when Cyrillus Lucaris, advanced to the see of Constantinople by the interest of the French Calvinists, began to favour and support the doctrine of the Calvinists, the Greeks in several synods under their patriarchs, (an. 1639, 1642, 1671, and 1672) condemned Cyril and the new doctrine of the said reformers, and expressly declared that they held seven sacraments. See Menochius. Arnauld, tom. iii. Perpetuitè de la Foy; and the dissertations of Menochius. Le Brun, tom. iii. p. 34, and 572, disert. 12, where he shews that all the churches of the East, and all the Christian churches of the world, though separated from the communion and subordination to the Pope, agree with the Latin Church, as to the sacrifice of the Mass, as to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and as to the seven sacraments. Witham.—If, with holy Scripture, we must allow that charitable persons on earth may prove instrumental, under God, to their neighbour’s salvation, why are we to deny this to the saints in heaven, whose charity for man is much greater?

1 PETER

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FIRST EPISTLE OF S. PETER,

THE APOSTLE