# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1858_S163
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Martin Chemnitz on Extreme Unction.    163

blots out the remnants of sin, and lightens and strengthens the soul of the sick person, in that it arouses in him a great trust in the divine mercy, whereby the sick person, thus supported, both bears the discomforts and hardships of the illness less heavily, and also more easily withstands the temptations of the devil who lies in wait for his heel, and at times obtains bodily health also, where this may serve the welfare of the soul.

Third Chapter.
On the Minister of this Sacrament, and the Time at which it Should be Administered.

That which concerns the precept regarding those persons who are either to receive or to administer this sacrament is likewise not obscurely taught in the aforementioned words; for it is there shown at the same time that the proper ministers of this sacrament are the priests of the Church; by which designation is to be understood at that place not the elders or the most eminent among the people, but rather either the bishops, or the priests duly ordained by them through the laying on of hands to the priesthood. It is also explained that this anointing is to be applied to the sick, especially, however, to those who lie so dangerously ill that they appear to be near the end of their life: hence it is also called the sacrament of the dying. Should the sick recover again after this anointing, they may then, if they should again fall into similar danger of life, be strengthened once more through the aid of this sacrament. Therefore no heed whatsoever is to be given to those who teach, against the so manifest and clear declaration of the apostle James, that this anointing is either a human invention, or a rite handed down from the fathers, but containing neither a divine command nor a promise of grace; nor to those either who maintain that it has already ceased, as though it were to be referred only to the grace of healings in the early Church; nor to those who say that the rite and the practice which the holy Roman Church observes in administering this sacrament is contrary to the declaration of the apostle James, and must therefore be transformed into another; and finally, nor to those who maintain that this extreme unction may, without sin, be despised by the faithful: for all of this most manifestly contradicts the plain words of so great an apostle. And truly, the Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all other churches, observes in the administration of this anointing, as regards that which constitutes the essence of this sacrament, nothing other than what the holy James prescribed. The contempt of so great a sacrament could not, however, take place without a grave crime and without an offense against the Holy Spirit himself.