Commenting on the different “forms” (wording) of baptism in Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglican theologian Darwell Stone wrote:
The form of Baptism consists of the words ‘In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,’ together with the mention of Baptism. These were the words commanded by our Lord when the Sacrament was instituted; and they have been used in the common practice of the Church. At the present time the Roman and English forms are identical, ‘N. I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’ The Eastern form differs only by avoiding the phrase which appears to ascribe the act of Baptism to the minister. It is ‘The Servant of God N. is baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’ In the Acts of the Apostles Baptism in, or upon, or into the Name of Jesus Christ, or the Lord, or the Lord Jesus is spoken of. Probably this phraseology means that the Baptism was the means of enrolling those who were baptized in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ, not that a different form from that which has been mentioned was used. (Darwell Stone, Outlines of Christian Dogma [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900], 156)
Elsewhere, on the form for extreme unction (“last rites”) in various traditions, Stone writes:
The form consists of words of prayer, which have differed greatly in different parts of the Church. The Roman form is, ‘By this holy anointing and His most sacred pity, the Lord forgive thee whatever thou hast sinned,’ repeated seven times, with the addition at the seven anointings of ‘by sigh,’ ‘by hearing,’ ‘by smelling,’ ‘by sensual delight,’ respectively. In practice the seventh is generally omitted. The Eastern form, and the form used by Easterns in communion with Rome, consists of a long prayer beginning, ‘Holy Father, healer of souls and bodies,’ the crucial words in which are ‘heal this thy servant from that weakness of body and soul which holds him down.’ The English Prayer-book of 1549 had a long prayer specifying inward anointing with the Holy Ghost, health of body and mind, pardon of sin, strength against temptation. (Ibid., 205)
