# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1858_S194
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

194 Martin Chemnitz on Extreme Unction.

But you say: James does not there prescribe anything to the apostles,
who had the gift of healing, but to other elders of the church. And
indeed he there expressly mentions the forgiveness of sins. I answer:
When Christ, in Mark 16, speaks of the signs or wonders that would
follow the preaching of the Gospel, he applies those gifts not to the
apostles alone, but also to other believers. At that time, then, when
the gift of healing was present in the church not only among the
apostles but also among other elders, James prescribed to them how
those who had that gift, as well as those on whom it was exercised,
were to use it in a godly, wholesome, and edifying manner, for as long
as that gift should remain in the church. From this, therefore, no
general and perpetual command for the use of anointing is to be made,
even after the gift of healing, of which the anointing was a symbol,
has ceased; as may be seen from 1 Cor. 14:2ff. For some abused the
gifts of tongues and prophecy; Paul, therefore, prescribes the manner
and form in which those gifts, as long as they were present in the
early church, ought to be used in a wholesome way and for edification.
But now they have ceased. So also James, when many in the early church
either abused, or at least did not rightly use, the gift of healing
then present, prescribes the manner and form in which that gift was to
be used in a godly, wholesome, and edifying way; namely, that it not be
applied like a surgical or medical technique, but that it lift the mind
to the contemplation of our sin and our misery, that is, to repentance
and to the knowledge of the spiritual benefits of the Son of God. For
this was the use of all miracles. James therefore teaches that the sick
person, if he was to be healed by anointing, had to be reminded of the
cause of his sickness, so that he might recognize his sins; he also
wills that he be instructed concerning faith, so that through the
forgiveness of sins the cause of the sickness, namely sin, might be
removed.

He wills also that common prayer be joined with it, and that the sick
person himself likewise pray in faith; for to an unbeliever or
blasphemer, even if others pray for him, sins are not forgiven. In this
way, he gives us to understand, the gift of healing, in which the
outward symbol of anointing was used, could be put to wholesome use.
But the forgiveness of sins he ascribes not to the outward symbol of
anointing, but expressly to the prayer of faith, as Lyra too rightly
perceived. And in what immediately follows he shows, by the example of
Elijah, that ordinary miracles — of which sort the gift of healing was
also, at that time — come about through the prayer of the righteous.

That is the sum of James's meaning. And if the gift of healing were
still found in the church today, then this