the punishment of sin, &c."* And Dr. John Scott† commenting on S. John v. 14, the case of the impotent man, says, "the main design" of our SAVIOUR'S caution, "Sin no more," is to convince us that those evils and calamities under which we suffer, are some way or other occasioned by our sin; either they are the natural effects of sin, or the just retribution of it, or the necessary antidotes against it." If then on the one hand the languishing soul of man needs revival by means of spiritual remedies, so also will the sick and expiring body. Both are languishing because of sin-both then need the necessary remedies to be employed against such, the effects of sin; and these in both cases are in the first instance spiritual. A bodily cure may of course be wrought without these precautions by the physician, but this does not prove but that the right way is to resort first to spiritual remedies. Dean Combert says, "I am sure the wise man adviseth us first to set our souls right, and afterwards to give place to the physician of the body. (Ecclus. xxxvi. 9, 10, 11, and 12.) And among the ancient Constitutions of this Church, the same method is enjoined: "We strictly charge the bodily physicians, (saith the Canon,) that when they happen to be called to the sick, they do before all things persuade them to send for the physician of souls, that when care is taken for the sick man's spirit, they may more successfully proceed to the remedies of outward medicines; (Constit. Richard. Ep. Sarum, An. 1217, ap. Spelm. Concil. tom. ii.) which course, if it were observed still, on sending for the Priest first, it would be better for the souls and bodies of sick persons: we do therefore detest that wretched proverb, "Ubi desinit medicus ibi incipit theologus." The means, then, a Priest under such circumstances would employ for the successful cure of the body and soul of his patient, will be, as speedily as may be, to assure himself of his reconciled state before GOD. This done, the natural consequences follow. The sick person being released from the effects of God's wrath against sin;- His judgment in the withdrawal, first of the health of the body, and secondly of the health of the soul, is in its operation as a judgment removed from him. It is thus seen that as well bodily as spiritual cures are in some sense influenced by the priestly function, although the former, only mediately and remotely, as one who removes the cause of the evil rather than the malady itself, He, in fact, goes before the healer's art, and removes by prayer the great impediments to a sick man's bodily cure, in GoD's wrath against sin. And agreeable with this our previous anticipation of the line a Priest would pursue in this important work, is S. James' precept, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, . . . and the prayer of faith shall save the sick."§ Here salvation is declared to be the general result of the *Sac. Priv. 351. Comber, 704. VOL. III. ... + Scott's Sermons on several occasions. 1704. Q Church's prayers. Then follows, "and the LORD shall raise him up," shall, if it be the will of God, restore him to health.* "And if he have committed sins" they shall be forgiven him a peσera aur, he shall be absolved, i.e. upon his confession, as Bishop Wilson renders it, or as Bishop Sparrow: "If he hath committed sins, pardon or absolution shall be given him, and so by this means the sick person shall be sure, if not to save his body, at least to save his soul.† These then are the two particular results of the Church's Prayers:-Bodily healing and remission of sins. But the main work productive of both these is to set the patient right with GOD-to procure for him reconciliation, or his salvation, as S. James expresses it, "The prayer of faith shall save the soul." We thus see that the cure of body and soul by procuring for the sick man reconciliation with God is as a very charitable, so a very simple and single design, and one that every good Priest would yearn to carry into effect. We may not, then, refuse to concede that it is highly probable that this would be the true end of the Church in appointing for the use and direction of Her Priests, the Office for the Visitation of the Sick. As it is therefore natural to expect that the Visitation Office would embrace both bodily and spiritual disorders in one common plan of mercies, let us now examine it, and see whether a view, which has a great probability on its side, corresponds really with the design which our Holy Mother has had before Her, as herein energising in our branch of CHRIST'S Catholic Church. And first we have Dean Comber's testimony to the proper ends of the Church's Office, as consisting in the cure of the body and the soul of the sick. Representing that in sickness the sending for the Priest should not be delayed, he says, "that then the Office is almost done in vain, because it can neither contribute to the sick man's recovery, nor his pardon, which were the great ends of its institution." And again, commenting on S. James v. 14, he says, "So that the benefits are two :-First, the recovery of healthSecondly, the remission of sins, both which may be obtained by the devout use of these prayers; "§ and he goes on to show within what limits these benefits are restrained: "not that they do as constantly and certainly follow," he says, "as the effects from natural causes; for then the sick would always have been cured by this Office, and none could have died, which is contrary to nature and GOD's decree, (Heb. ix. 27) and then even hypocrites should hereby obtain remission, which is contrary to God's declared will. They are, therefore, conditional promises, so that health shall be procured hereby, if GoD see fit, and pardon granted also, upon condition of the parties confessing and repenting, which is there A Scripture phrase for bodily health, Ps. xli. 10. Hos. vi. 2. See this further explained, Comber, fol. 706. + Bishop Wilson, Sacra Privata, p. 49. Sparrow's Rationale, p. 271. Oxon. 1843. Comber, 703. § Id. 704. fore enjoined in the very next verse, "Confess your faults, &c." The sum is, that though mortal men cannot expect immortality here, nor sinners pardon without repentance; yet if their disease be curable, and the person qualified for remission, GOD hath appointed this Office to be the means to convey both." As far then as the opinion of an eminent liturgical writer goes, we are fully warranted in our conclusion that the Office has both a definite end in view throughout, and this end which we are urging. And, we may say further, that no impartial person can examine the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, but must see that these are the ends which in the prayers, and throughout the whole service, are kept in view. And now we may consider how the means to procure these ends transpire in the Office-those means which are embraced under one common head-the process of the sick man's reconciliation with GOD. And, First-That the Office considers all afflictions as the fruit of sin, and contemplates sickness as a judgment, is rather curiously shown by the fact that in the passage taken from the Greater Litany, the words "neither take Thou vengeance of our sins" are omitted: as though it were an anomaly to beseech of GOD "not to take vengeance upon our sins" when the sick man is lying a sad example of His wrath against sin, as well actual in the individual, as original in mankind in general. And, Secondly, that the securing reconciliation with GoD is the means on which it relies, for this double work of curing body and soul, may be seen on a fair inquiry into the Office itself. And first, observing how the recognition of the sin of the patient-his sin original, sin actual, is the first impression that the Office conveys to the mind as seen in the words beginning, "Remember not our iniquities," when viewed in connexion with "Spare us, good LORD;" (an acknowledgment that the chastisement is, whether immediately or remotely, for sin,) let us trace our argument in the Versicles. First comes the general petition for salvation, "O LORD, save Thy servant, which putteth his trust in Thee." And in exact correspondence with what is here urged, the petitions of the remaining Versicles will be seen to apply equally to bodily and to spiritual maladies. The cure of both is sought-the former being of course always subordinate in interest and importance to the latter. Again, in the Collects, in accordance with the promise that the sick "shall be raised," bodily health, in the words "visit and relieve this Thy servant," is first prayed for, and then petition is made for the spiritual blessing. The same order is observable in the next prayer, "extend Thy accustomed goodness to this Thy servant who is grieved with sickness, &c." With all this the spirit of the exhortation is entirely conformable. It is designed to induce the patient to take the necessary steps, by "accusing and condemning himself for his own faults, to find mercy at our heavenly FATHER'S hand for CHRIST's sake," (i.e.) be so saved-reconciled with GOD, that all impediments to his bodily cure may be removed,—that all helps to his spiritual edification may freely flow in to him. Entirely with the same end is it that the Priest is to proceed to rehearse to the sick man the Articles of the Faith,-that he tries his faith and next examines his repentance,-that he is directed to ascertain whether the patient be in charity with all men-whether he have injured any formerly, that he may now make restitution, -that he is directed to counsel him as to the settling his affairs with justice to all parties concerned; and to advise him, if rich, to give liberally to the poor,-that if his conscience be troubled with any weighty matter the Priest is to move him to confession, and to absolve him if he humbly and heartily desire it,—the rest too, when examined, exhibits a corresponding tone and spirit. The object of the first prayer, for instance, after the Absolution, is by Dr. Comber declared to be in his Analysis of the Office "a prayer to confirm the Absolution."* Indeed we are told by Mr. Palmer that the prayer which immediately follows the preceding form is in fact "the original Absolution which has been given to dying penitents for more than 1300 years in the Western Churches." Of the Psalm, the Antiphon, and the Blessings, little more need be said, than that they are entirely in keeping with all that has been before urged. The prayer, the psalm, and the blessings are, indeed, the necessary complement of what is gone before, and bears the same relation to the previous portion of the Office as the Post Communion does to the Pre-Communion in the Liturgy. As regards the psalm, the original intention of the Church is perhaps still more apparent by the fact that, as originally used, "not only by our own but by the Eastern," and remaining portions of the Western Church, it comprised also the five concluding verses of the Psalm which allude to refreshing after trouble and adversity, to restoration from the deep, to comfort on every side, and to the deliverance of the soul. Surely now, we have satisfactorily shown that, so far from seeming to provide for many varying cases, the Office indicates unity of design, and tends to one uniform purpose of procuring the sick man's reconciliation with GOD. This, indeed, Mr. Palmer says, is the purpose of this formulary. "It has ever been customary for the Presbyters of the Church to visit the sick, and after praying for them, and (if necessary) reconciling them to the Church by the blessing of Absolution, to communicate to them the Sacraments of our LORD's Body and Blood. For these purposes the English Ritual contains a formulary, &c."§ Our Church, in fact, looks upon the sick man to whom Her Priests are summoned for the first time, in the light of a penitent, and accordingly provides a form to be used by the Priest in reconciling him. And whereas it has been supposed that the Church's intentions were not to impose it upon Her priests with the *Comber, 707. + Palmer's Origines Liturgicæ, p. 226, 3rd Edition. Oxford. Wheatley's Rat. Illus. 408, London, 1840. Palmer's Origines Liturgicæ, p. 220. same restrictions as other portions of Her formularies; the truth is, that it is a form of so flexible a construction that it supposes one or many visits in which the Priest is to proceed in no case to the prayers and psalm and blessings, nor to other prayers and offices (unless the very nature of the case compel it) until the sick penitent be, as far as the Priest can gather, reconciled truly, either virtually, by the exhibition of the fruits of a genuine repentance, or formally by Absolution: in either case rendering the patient so far reconciled as to be a meet recipient of the Holy Communionthe proper supplement and complement to the Visitation Office. And now we would go a yet further step, and venture to say that the Visitation of the Sick is an Office designed on the whole by the Church to secure to the sick man the benefits of Absolution. That this is indeed the Church's real aim, we cannot doubt, on a full view of the question. And first, let it be well considered how the office bears this appearance in its very structure. In its parts preceding and following the Absolution it looks very like the necessary preliminaries and after-acts of an action sacramental. We do not, indeed, say that it is an Office constructed entirely for the conveyance of the Sacramental Rite of Absolution, but we say that the end it contemplates is a Sacramental end. We would state it thus. The Church would bring her children to the benefits of Absolution if she could. Much important progress, she indeed supposes, may be made in reconciling the penitent to GOD; nay, we doubt not she considers that his entire reconciliation might be attained to without any use of the Sacramental Rite of Absolution. But then she feels that of this there is no visible seal. She may not doubt that GOD doth see the capacity of many a penitent for Absolution who does not receive it, and that in heaven He oft declares and ratifies that judgment, which on earth His Church has not been suffered to pronounce. She, however, looks on and sees with no small concern that the judgment of the keys is silent, and is deeply pained, that She Herself has given no assurance of-has no security for the safe state of any of her children so departing this life. For no reverent son of the Church can conceive otherwise than that Her true intention is not to throw obstacles in the way of the sick man's reception of so consoling a rite as Absolution; nor to represent it as unimportant, if the less sinning member be not confessed and absolved; but rather plainly to set forth the cases in which it is absolutely necessary to obtain the benefit of the riteunsafe to be without it. The cautious manner in which She speaks might be also to guard against a too hasty and careless administration of the solemn rite on the part of the Minister. She would, perhaps, oblige the Priest to seek that his patient be put into such a frame of mind as may lead him earnestly to desire to be absolved. He is therefore to encourage, incite, him to this end; and so we have Bishop Wilson saying thus: |