SERMON VIII.

ON THE VISITATION OF THE SICK.

JAMES V. 14.

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him.

THE office of the Church, which comes this day under our notice, is that appointed for the Visitation of the Sick. It is an office which brings the Church into our chambers, to mingle with our domestic concerns, and to weep with them that weep. And though not a public office, yet it is one in which we, all of us, either have been or shall be interested. Some among us there doubtless are, who have already been benefited by sickness and sorrow; who look back to the time when, in obedience to the Divine direction in our text, they sent for the Presbyters of the Church to pray over them: there are some, perhaps, who can date their conversion from that affliction which was to them a blessing in disguise. Who is there that expects to escape the ills to which all flesh is heir? Who but must feel that the time may come, and come soon, when he shall lie on the bed of languishing; when his limbs, however strong, will be feeble; his body racked with pain,

and his proud spirit humbled by the prospect before him, of an eternity of misery or of bliss?

Now, the formulary which is provided in our Prayer Book for the Visitation of the Sick, is one which has been used from a remote antiquity: all the directions and prayers are to be found in the most ancient manuals, while some of them may be traced to the primitive ages. And, assuredly, this adds to their affecting solemnity. It is an affecting thing to the imaginative mind, when stretched upon the bed of sickness, to feel that we are receiving consolation through the self-same formulary, by which so many departed spirits, now in the triumphant Church, have been comforted and consoled; and colder natures cannot reprove the sentiment in our case, since the service, though ancient, was, at the Reformation of our Church, revised, and whatever was not authorized by

Holy Scripture and ancient authors" abscinded. How powerful this service has been in kindling a holy fervour of feeling, in enabling those who have been tortured with bodily suffering to forget their agonies for a while, and to catch even a foretaste of the joys of heaven, those among us can tell, who having been reduced by disease to the gate of death, have availed themselves of the office ;-yes, they can tell, that in speaking as I do, I speak the words of soberness and truth. Although, therefore, this office is performed in private, it is one in which we all are interested.

It is sometimes asked whether a Clergyman is tied to this service. And the question is to be answered by inquiring, under what character the Clergyman is sent for. A Clergyman may visit us as a private friend; and a private friend may join his prayers with ours, and pray with us, and pray for us. But if you send to him as a Presbyter, if you call upon him to visit you as a ministerial act, then, of course, he is bound to use this service,

and this service only, the service by which he, as a Clergyman, is to officiate. The practice of the Clergy frequently is, to use this service, when the illness is protracted, once a week or oftener; paying, in the mean time, friendly visits, in which, not acting officially, they are at liberty to act as they see fit. But so far as any one expects any species of sacramental benefit from the prayers of the Church, he will seek for them under this form, and require its use from his Pastor.

The office commences with a Salutation and the shorter Litany, which are followed by the Lord's Prayer and two collects, the one for support under the affliction, and the other for the sanctification thereof. Then follows an Exhortation, the most perfect model of a sermon that we possess: but, since the same sermon often repeated would be wearisome, latitude is given, and the Minister may use "any like form.”

The articles of the Apostles' Creed are rehearsed to the sick man, that he may know whether he doth believe as a Christian man should, or not;—the Apostles' Creed containing, not every thing that we ought to know and believe to our soul's health, but the very least that we can believe, and be called a Christian. It is that Creed, without believing the articles of which a heathen cannot be baptized. Then the Minister is directed to examine the sick man, whether he repent him truly of his sins, exhorting him to forgive, from the bottom of his heart, all persons that have offended him; and if he hath offended any other, to ask them forgiveness; and where he hath done injury or wrong to any man, that he make amends to the uttermost of his power. And if he hath not before disposed of his goods, let him be admonished to make his will, and to declare his debts,-what he oweth, and what is owing to him; for the better discharging of his conscience, and the quietness of his executors. But men

should often be put in remembrance, to take order for the settling of their temporal estates while they are in health. These words before rehearsed, continues the Rubric, may be said before the Minister begin his prayer, as he shall see cause. The Minister should not omit earnestly to move such sick persons as are of ability, to be liberal to the poor. Here, the Church proceeds, shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the Priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners, who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences; and by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Then follow a Prayer, the seventy-first Psalm, and the Benedictions.

It is observable here, that the Church makes a twofold provision for the sick. If the Priest or Elder of the Church is sent for to a person who has been under grace, and who has led a godly life, the service, without reference to Confession or Absolution, is to be employed,—a calm, a soothing, a quieting service. But if there is reason to suppose that the sick man's conscience is troubled with any weighty matter, he is to be moved to confess; and in so moving him, the Minister is left to his own discretion, to use what words and to refer to the topics he may consider best adapted to the case; and after Confession, the sick person may have, if he desires it, Absolution.

The fact that, both here and in the exhortation to the Holy Communion the duty of Confession is recognized, the fact that Absolution is directed to be given in the most direct form, — these facts are seized upon by the

Protestant opponents of the Church of England, and made grounds of cavil. But from the facts, observe, we cannot escape. There they are, Confession and Absolution, just as they were before the Reformation, in our office for the Visitation of the Sick; there they are, Absolution in the very terms used by the Roman Catholic Priesthood, as well as by our own: there they were left when our Prayer Book was revised, by the Reformers of Edward the Sixth; there they were still left by the Reformers of Elizabeth's reign; still were they left by those who revised the Prayer Book in the reigns of James the First and Charles the Second. There is no ground, therefore, for what is sometimes said, that they were left there at the time of the Reformation to conciliate the Romanists; for they have been continued there at all subsequent reviews or reformations. However they may be designated, there they are, forming part of that Sacred Book, to all and every thing "contained and prescribed in and by which," the Bishops and beneficed Clergy of the Church of England declare "their unfeigned assent and consent." No man, except the most ungodly of all men, can indulge in those idle declamations, with which some of our so-called religious publications abound, against Confession and Absolution, who has given his unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in and prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer.

We cannot alter the facts. The Church, in the Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments, remarks, that "Absolution is no such Sacrament as Baptism and the Communion are." This we must maintain; but as to any condemnation of Confession and Absolution, from this, as consistent Churchmen, we must abstain: to the principle, the Clergy give their unfeigned assent and consent. Nay, upon this principle the Church has legislated; for in the 119th canon it is provided, that "if any man confess his

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