CHAPTER III.

AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH FOR THE PRACTICE OF

CONFIRMATION.

IF we now consider the reasons for which the Church has prescribed this ordinance, we shall at the same time discover the grounds of duty and of benefit which enforce the observance of it.

Of these reasons the chief is the practice of the Apostles: they laid their hands on such as had been baptized, and, as the consequence of their so doing, those persons received the Holy Ghost. But you are not, with regard to this point, to imagine that the Bishop has any power to give the Holy Spirit: this the Apostles themselves did not. They laid on their hands, and God gave his Holy Spirit, as a grace and blessing attendant on their sacred ministration. And the Church piously and humbly trusts that, in consequence of the fervent prayers of the congregation, those on whom the Bishop now lays his hands, will, if they duly pre

• Acts viii. 17. xix. 6.

pare for the reception of that benefit, be blessed with the divine influences and sanctifying graces of the same Holy Spirit.

To justify this expectation we have, in the first instance, a general promise of God; and such a promise as may be confidently applied to the present case. For we are directed to pray, not for ourselves only, but for each other also: for our encou ragement to do so Christ has promised to grant, whatever by the joint suffrages of his Church is asked of him: and, in particular, he has declared that God will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him.

Add to this, that it is a part of the ministerial office, not only to instruct the people, but also to bless and to pray for them. For Christ came to bless and to save mankind: and as, while on earth, he prosecuted this work in his own person; so did he commit the same work to be, after he should be taken up into Heaven, carried on by the Bishops and pastors of his Church. For to them, in the persons of his holy Apostles, he thus delivered his commission and authority: "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you*." Consider then the nature of the present occasion: here the serious

and solemn supplication of the Bishop, of the inferior ministers, and of the congregation, is offered up to God in behalf of those who now come to dedicate themselves to his service: this is accompanied by the laying on of hands, as an ancient and solemn method of designating and distinguishing the persons to whom the prayer relates. We cannot then but discover in such a ministration, every thing required for the warrant of a hope, that God will favourably regard the prayers thus offered, and dispense the comfort and succour of his Holy Spirit to those for whom he is thus entreated. If then we look no farther than the particulars now stated, we must needs acquiesce in the judgment which Bishop Burnett* has pronounced upon this subject: "In this action," says he, "there is nothing but what is in the power of the Church to do, even without any other warrant or precedent. The doing all things to order and to edifying will authorize a Church to do all this."

But our authority for the practice of Confirmation is not limited to those general promises of Scripture, which declare to us the effect and benefit of prayer. The Apostles themselves did, as you have seen, lay

On the Article. XXV.

See Wake on the Catechism, §. 52.

their hands on those Christian converts who had been previously baptized: and you have also seen, that as a consequence of this apostolical ministration, the Holy Spirit was given to the persons thus confirmed. Now certainly the power of sanctification, being uniformly and indispensably necessary in order to qualify man for the service and favour of his Maker, must be equally needful for him under all circumstances of his condition, and in every period of his existence: the purpose therefore and propriety of this ministration, cannot be justly viewed as reaching no further than the Apostles' age.

For it cannot, as we conceive, be said with justice, that the imposition of hands thus recorded was practised with a sole regard to those extraordinary and miraculous powers, which God, with a view to the speedy and effectual diffusion of his holy faith, abundantly conferred on the early Church: there is, on the contrary, most weighty reason for believing, that it related in an equal degree to those ordinary gifts and graces, which are at all times needful for the personal sanctification of Christians. We, therefore, maintain the propriety of teaching, that the Apostolical ordinance of Confirmation was, as a standing and perpetual ordinance, intended to

be applied, through every age of the Church, to the spiritual benefit of God's elect people.

Among the grounds which present themselves for the justification of this view, the strongest is that afforded by a passage of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews. Here the doctrine of the laying on of hands is found enumerated and classed (along with those of baptism, faith, repentance, the resurrection, and a future judgment,) among those first elementary principles of general Christianity which are suited to the condition, and needful to the circumstances, of every disciple of Christ. This laying on of hands can, I believe, justly be viewed in no other light than as an Apostolical usage, of which the present practice of Confirmation by the Bishop discovers to us the legitimate continuance.

We, therefore, have reason to believe, that the rite of Confirmation has been handed down to us from the very earliest age of the Church; and that it did, as a means of spiritual advantage to all baptized persons, originate in that age, under the sanction and authority of the Apostles themselves.

This view does not militate against a just and proper estimate of the sacrament, by which we are first admitted to the grace of the Evangelical cove

Heb. vi. 2.