expiatory sacrifice, which, he remarks, when the New Testament was written, was well understood both by Jew and Gentile, was, that the sin of one person was transferred on a man or beast; who upon that was devoted and offered up to God, and suffered in the place of the offender; and the punishment of sin being thus laid on the sacrifice, an expiation was made for sin, and the sinner was believed to be reconciled to God. Through the whole book of Leviticus this appears to have been the design and effect of the sin and trespass offerings among the Jews, and more particularly of the scape goat, that was offered up for the sins of the whole people on the day of atonement. These were said to be sacrifices offered for, or instead of sin, and in the name, or on account of the sinner; to be the bearers of sin, and to become sin; and to be the reconciliation, the atonement, and the redemption of the sinner, by which the sin was no more imputed to him, but forgiven, and for which the sinner was accepted. "When, therefore," the bishop further observes, "this whole set of phrases, in its utmost extent, is very often, and in a great variety, applied to the death of Christ, it is not possible for us to preserve any reverence for the New Testament, or the writers of it, so far as to think them even honest men, not to say inspired men, if we can imagine that in so sacred and important a matter, they could exceed so much as to represent that to be our sacrifice, which is not truly so." And then, after having adduced numerous passages from the New Testament, in which these and similar phrases are directly applied to Christ, as the sole propitiator of the sins of the whole world, "from these," he remarks, " and a great many more passages, spread in all parts of the New Testament, it is as plain as words can make it, that the death of Christ is proposed to us as our sacrifice and reconciliation, our atonement and redemption." This reconciliation, however, so made by the death of Christ between God and man, is not absolute or without conditions. God has established the covenant, and having performed his part, offers it to the world on the terms on which it is proposed; but those who do not accept of it upon these conditions, and perform what is enjoined on their part, cannot partake of it.-See article, Atonement, and the authorities there referred to.

EXTRAVAGANTES, such decretal epistles as were published after the Clementines. They were originally so denominated from their not being attached to or arranged with the other papal constitutions; they continued, however, to be so called after they had been inserted in the body of the

canon law. The first extravagantes were those of John XXII. The last were brought down to the year 1483, and were called Communes Extravagantes.

EXTREME UNCTION, one of the seven sacraments of the Romish Church, which, from the following passage in St. James's epistle, is considered by those of this persuasion to have been instituted by that Apostle. "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord."c. v. v. 14. They look upon this as purifying the soul from such sins as remain after the usual means of grace and reconciliation have been sought, or when it may not be possible to have recourse to these means; as fortifying the sick person against the temptations of the devil, to which he is then. supposed to be peculiarly liable; as enabling him to support his bodily pain with fortitude and patience; and as the means of restoring him to health, should God deem it expedient so to do.

The oil made use of for this purpose, as in the administration of baptism and confirmation, is always that of olives, and is consecrated by a bishop on Maunday Thursday in holy week. The mode of administering this sacrament is the anointing the principal organs of the body, the priest praying at each separate unction that the sins, which have been committed through that particular organ, may be forgiven, Per hanc sacram unctionem, et suam püssimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Deus quidquid peccasti, per visum, auditum. olfactum, gustum, et tactum.

"Here is an institution," says Bishop Burnet, in his exposition of the twenty-fifth article of our church, " that, if warranted, is matter of great comfort; and if not warranted, is matter of as great presumption." The bishop then plainly shows us that in the early ages of the church the above cited words of St. James were always considered as relating to a miraculous power of healing diseases, and not to a function that was to continue in the church, and to be esteemed a sacrament. "Of this anointing," he adds, "many passages are to be found in Bede, and in the other writers and councils of the eighth and ninth centuries. But all these do clearly express the use of it, not as a sacrament for the good of the soul, but as a rite that carried with it health to the body; and so it is still used in the Greek church. No doubt they supported the credit of this with many reports, of which some might be true, of persons that had been recovered upon using it. But because that

failed so often, that the credit of this rite might suffer much in the esteem of the world, they began in the tenth century to say, that it did good to the soul, even when the body was not healed by it; and they applied it to the several parts of the body. This began from the custom of applying it at first to the diseased parts. This was carried on in the eleventh century. And then in the twelfth, those prayers that had been formerly made for the souls of the sick, though only as a part of the office, [which had been made for the performance of this ceremony,] the pardon of sin being considered as preparatory to their recovery, came to be considered as the main and most essential part of it. Then the schoolmen brought it into shape, and so it was decreed to be a sacrament by Pope Eugenius, and finally established at the Council of Trent."

F.

FAGGOTS, in times when popery was the predominant religion in this country, were certain marks or badges affixed on the sleeve of such persons as had recanted, or abjured what were then considered to be heretical doctrines; and which it was customary to compel those to wear who had been adjudged to carry a faggot, by way of penance, to some appointed place of solemnity. The putting off this badge was sometimes interpreted a sign of apostacy.

FAITH, the judgment or assent of the mind to a proposition, the truth of which is not immediately acknowledged or perceived by reason or experience, but is admitted upon the testimony or authority of him who reveals or relates it. Hence faith, as resting on the testimony either of God or of man, has been distinguished into divine or religious, and human or civil.

Divine Faith is the assent of the mind to the revealed word of God, or a belief in the Holy Scriptures; or, according to Tillotson, this sort of faith may be considered as comprehending three things under it :

1. A persuasion of the principles of natural religion, which are known by the light of nature, as the existence of a God, the immortality of the soul, and a future state.

2. A persuasion of things supernatural and revealed; that is, a persuasion concerning the things which are revealed from God, that they are

true.

3. A persuasion of supernatural revelation; that is, a persuasion concerning the revelation itself, that it is divine and from God.-Sermons, 219, and 221.

Considering, therefore, faith as "the evidence" or conviction "of things not seen," a faith in Christ has been considered by some to be a mere belief in, or assent of the mind to, the history of the life, transactions, and doctrines of our Saviour, as set forth in the Gospel. In a scriptural sense, however, faith in Christ is more generally taken to signify such a persuasion that Christ is the promised Messiah, and such a desire and expectation of the blessings offered in the Gospel to his sincere disciples, as may be sufficient to engage the mind to fix its dependence solely upon him as the Mediator

and Redeemer of mankind. Neither did Tillotson mean to speak of a mere or naked assent to the truths of the Gospel, for in a subsequent sermon he expressly says, "faith is a necessary condition, without which men cannot be religious. And where there is true faith, it will have this effect upon men, to make them religious.”—Sermon, 224. And in another discourse he adds, "If our lives be not answerable to our belief, our faith will be ineffectual to all intents and purposes." And "a life unsuitable to our belief is the highway to infidelity and atheism."-Sermon, 228. And in various other passages he enforces the same sentiments.

Archbishop Cranmer, in his Review of The Erudition of a Christian Man, as preserved by Strype in an appendix to his life, says, "It is to be considered that there is a general faith, which all that be christened, as well good as evil, have. As to believe that God is good; that he is the Maker and Creator of all things; and that Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer of the world; and that for his sake all penitent sinners shall have remission of their sins; and that there shall be a general resurrection at the end of this mortal world, at which Christ shall judge all the good to joy without end, and the evil to pain without end. And all these the devils also believe, and tremble for fear, &c. But they have not the right Christian faith, that their own sins by Christ's Redemption be pardoned and forgiven; that themselves by Christ be delivered from God's wrath, and be made his beloved children and heirs of his kingdom to come."

66

These, indeed, were the sentiments of all the great leaders of the Reformation; a belief, nevertheless, in the revelation of the Gospel, and particularly in that main article of it, of Christ being the true Messiah, who came to offer himself up as the sacrifice of the new covenant, is not unfrequently represented as the only condition of this covenant to be performed on the part of man; or in other words, that faith is sufficient to salvation without good works. But," as it is forcibly remarked by Bishop Burnet, "this faith must receive the whole Gospel, the precepts as well as the promises of it, and receive Christ as a prophet to teach, and a king to rule, as well as a priest to save us." Those who maintain the doctrine of salvation by faith alone chiefly rely on certain passages of St. Paul's Epistles, particularly in those to the Romans and Galatians, wherein he says we are to be justified by faith, without the works of the law. It is to be remarked, however, that St. Paul nowhere says we can be justified by faith without good works, or without works generally, but without works of the law; and it is evident that