# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1858_S164
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

164 Martin Chemnitz on Extreme Unction.

Canon 1.

If anyone says that extreme unction is not a true and real sacrament,
instituted by Christ our Lord and proclaimed by the blessed apostle James,
but only a rite adopted from the fathers or a human invention: let him be
anathema.

Canon 2.

If anyone says that through the holy unction no grace is imparted to the
sick, nor sins forgiven, nor the sick thereby relieved; but that it has
already ceased, as though it were formerly only the grace of healing: let
him be anathema.

Canon 3.

If anyone says that the rite of extreme unction and the usage which the
holy Roman Church observes are contrary to the statement of the blessed
apostle James, and that they must therefore be altered and may be
disregarded by Christians without sin: let him be anathema.

Canon 4.

If anyone says that the priests of the congregation, whom the blessed
James exhorts to be called in to anoint the sick, are not the priests
ordained by the bishop, but the elders of each congregation, and that for
this reason the proper minister of extreme unction is not the priest
alone: let him be anathema."

To this Chemnitz now offers the following critique:

There is no doubt that, as the Tridentine decree affirms, our adversary
the devil, who throughout the whole of life seeks the opportunity to
devour our souls, applies all his cunning chiefly at that time when he
foresees that the end of our life is drawing near, to destroy us utterly
and, where possible, to wrest us by force from trust in the divine mercy.
To this is added, in this weakness, fear and terror before approaching
death at the sight of our sins. From this arises the extreme and heaviest
struggle of faith against sin and against the temptations of the flesh
and of the devil, which then storm in upon us in droves and more heavily
than usual, and at last against death itself. And if faith should then
succumb and our adversary prevail, it is all over with our salvation.
For after this life there is neither repentance nor reconciliation.
Hence this too is certain, that our most gracious Redeemer, whose will
it is that his servants be provided at all times with wholesome means
against all dangers to salvation, has prepared not only helps by which
Christians, while they live and are in health, are kept in grace; but
especially that in the last act of life, where the most perilous moment
of decision arrives, they should be guarded and made strong, by a firm
safeguard and by a mighty support for wavering faith, so that they, at
the evil