is so justly reproached." I will only add one other testimony. "The great apostle," says Dr. Burton,†† "traveled through Syria and Cilicia; and the expression used by St. Luke of his confirming the churches in those countries, proves that he must have planted these churches at an earlier period. He now confirmed them: i. e. he gave them such regulations as were necessary for their welfare. Wherever deacons were wanted, he ordained them; he appointed others to the office of elders; and there can be little doubt, that to some or all of these ministers he imparted those miraculous gifts of the Spirit, which were so useful for the instruction of the converts, and furnished such convincing evidence of the gospel."

SECTION VI.

Heb. 6. 1, 2, examined.

We proceed, therefore, to notice the only other passage quoted in proof of confirmation, as a permanent and fundamental rite of the church, and that is Heb. 6. 1, 2, where the apostle enumerates among the principles which constituted first prinicples in the catechetical instruction of religious inquirers, who were seeking their way from heathenism and Judaism into the light and liberty of the gospel of Christ, the following doctrines of repentance, of baptism, of laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. The doctrine concerning each and all of these, that is, their nature and design, their relation to Christianity and to the salvation of men, this the apostle considered as the very alphabet, or axiomatic principles, with which the inquirer (or, as he was technically called, the catechumen) ought to be made acquainted and be familiar. These are not "the meat and drink," "the wine and strong meat," which were to be given to those who had become "men in Christ Jesus," but "the milk" and pap which were to be administered to those who were still but "babes in Christ." Such persons having sat under the teaching of the shcoolmaster, and imbibed the rudiments of Christian education, were to go on unto perfection, and to the complete development of that hope set before us in the gospel (v. 18), and which alone, like an anchor of immutable security and strength, can hold fast the soul amid all the swelling floods of temptation and sin. The apostle, therefore, does not magnify these principles, but shows that they are "in order to goodness," and that

††Lectures upon the Eccl. Hist. of the First Three Cent., Lect. vi. Oxf., 1839; and see also vol. i. p. 95, Lect. iv.

they are valuable only as they lead to the sanctification of the soul. Instead, therefore, of making them-supposing for a moment that they do contain the doctrine of the church-its sacraments and its order, the very essentials of faith and salvation, and the very channels of heavenly grace, he calls upon his readers to look beyond these for that justification, sanctification, and complete redemption, which are to be found in Christ; and warns them that a man may have become partaker of all the knowledge and ordinances and privileges here enumerated or implied, and yet fall away, and crucify to himself the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame (v. 6). And that church, therefore, which makes these things take pre-eminence of the doctrines of grace, and the life and practice of holy devotedness to Christ, has never got beyond the porch and outer wall of Christianity, and is still found feeding its children with the milk of babes, the husks, hay, and stubble which can never invigorate or impart spiritual strength. And hence it is, says Cartwright, that even "their confirmed persons are always such babes, and so infirm that they can never learn to call God, Abba, Father, but are always like a shaken reed, and like the waves of the sea which are moved by the winds," having no root in themselves, and looking, like craven and hungry dependents, for very food and life to their priestly guides.

But can these words, we ask, in any way refer to confirmation? Assuredly not. For in such a ceremony, and for the purpose now attributed to confirmation, we have found no use made of imposition of hands in the word of God. In imparting miraculous gifts and healing diseases, we do find it used by Christ and the apostles, and by THEM ALONE; but as a ceremony perfecting baptism and imparting a grace which baptism neither promises or gives, NEVER. On the contrary, "Christ baptized not," and Paul baptized little, and even among the few cases of apostolic baptism there was no connexion with such a ceremony as imposition of hands. Besides these cases in which imposition of hands was employed, we find this ceremony used by ordinary presbyters, the pastors of the churches, as at Antioch, and at the ordination of Timothy, in introducing ministers into their sacred office.* As a rite whereby, accompanied with solemn prayer, benediction and official designation, ministers were set apart and invested with authority to teach, and as thus signifying the whole doctrine of the church, its ministry and its authorized proclamation of the gospel, and whatsoever things Christ has commanded in his word-in this sense, "the laying on of hands," must here be understood. The words cannot refer to baptism, of which, for ages, confirmation was an imme

*See these passages fully explained in Presbytery and Prelacy, pp. 129, 174, and 187, &c.

diate accompaniment, for then would baptism alone, like Pharaoh's lean kine, swallow up the fat kine of that very church and ministry, of which it is but one ordinance, and that, the initiatory one; because, further, "we know of a certainty" that in some cases imposition of hands did not accompany baptism, as in that of the thousands at the day of Pentecost, of Cornelius, of the Ethiopian eunuch, of the jailor, of Lydia, and of others; and finally, it cannot refer to baptism, because many are of opinion that between the words "baptism" and "laying on of hands," the word didaxn should be inserted, and constitute another principle, to express that catechetical instruction by which converts were prepared for full membership in the church of Christ.†

To apply these words to the present ceremony of confirmation is, therefore, a glaring presumption, and an imposition upon the word of God. No instance of laying on of hands, in such a sense, can be found in the whole Bible. Facts there stated prove, contrariwise, that this rite was not invariably connected with baptism by the apostles, as it was universally when first used in the church at a subsequent period. And the very sense and bearing of the passage demand that the rite, as indicating and holding forth the ministry of the church, and its whole economy and value, should be here understood in accordance with the weight and authority of all impartial and critical inquirers. "It is most probable," says Walch,§ "that the Eileσis xeiρwv, which the apostle in this place mentions, refers to the ordination of the church ministry: since it is evident, as we learn from 1 Tim. 4. 14, and v. 22, and 2 Tim. 1. 6, that the sacred office was solemnly conferred by the laying on of hands.

See Gillespie's Miscellany Quesvol. ii. p. 460.

† So Erasmus and the Greek Scholiasts. tions, p. 21. See Hey's Lect. on Divinity, Stuart on the Hebrews, vol. ii. p. 138. McLean on the Hebrews, Wks., vol. v. p. 188. Gillespie's Miscellany Questions, p. 21. Cartwright's Confut. of the Rhemists, pp. 606, 607. Divine Right of the Gospel Ministry, pt. i. pp. 175-177. Dr. Ames in his Bellarminus Enervatus, tom. ii. p. 76, who refers it to the totum ministerium. Bullinger also confirms this in loco. Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 532. See also a Dissertation on, in Walch's Miscellanea Sacra on the Catechetical Instruction of the Apostles, to be seen in the Biblical Repertory for 1827. Suiceri Thesaurus under the word, tom. ii. pp. 1514-1516. Spanheim Diatrib. de Impos. Manuum, tom. ii. p. 871.-Bloomfield, in his Greek Test. and Crit. Digest. vol. viii. p. 443, ascribes to the best commentators, ancient and modern, the opinion that it refers to the symbol then used of the spiritual gifts vouchsafed to many, and of whose nature they should be informed, and as this accompanied, in his opinion, baptism, it could not of course refer to confirmation. See Greek Test., vol. ii. p. 491. Wolfii Curæ Phil., tom. iv. p. 660. Rosenmuller Scholia in Nov. Test., tom. v. pp. 208, and 45, 46. Koppe in Nov. Test., vol. viii. p. 99. Kuinoel Comment. in Epist. and Heb., p. 177.

See as above referred to, pp. 61, 63. Of the same opinion_are Schmidius, Boltenius, Carpsovius, in Kuinoel in loco. Gill, in his Commentary (see on Acts, 8. 17), thinks that even in that case the ceremony was connected with ordination.

Hence the phrase, laying on of hands is here used for the ordination, or the constitution itself of the church ministry, as in this sense the term is elsewhere employed. The apostle Paul himself, in those passages just quoted, uses the term to denote the constitution of the church ministry; and it occurs also in the same signification among ecclesiastical writers." "In the enumeration of these heads of instruction, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the doctrine of the church ministry very properly succeeds that of baptism. For those who were baptized ought next to apply to the servants of God, so that hearing them, they might make progress in saving knowledge; might receive from them the remission of sins, and the sacrament of the Holy Supper, and might hence obtain the necessary helps for preserving and confirming their faith in Jesus Christ."*

SECTION VII.

Why Imposition of Hands was continued in the Church.

We may here ask, in passing, why imposition of hands should be employed during the apostolic age, and by apostolic men, and yet not remain as a permanent rite in the church; and how, also, a rite thus peculiar, should come to be so generally and so commonly adopted? And to these questions an easy answer may be given, since the same reasons which made it necessary that there should be miracles, and tongues, and supernatural gifts, and inspired men, and prophets, and visible inflictions of divine wrath, and miraculous healing of diseases, made it also wise that there should be some outward signs and symbols by which these high and peculiar prerogatives of the apostles and others gifted by them, should be accompanied, in order to justify them in the sight of others; to bear witness to their authority; to silence clamor and opposition; and to give an outward sign of confirmation and assurance to the recipients of such gifts themselves. This was the true nature of the anointing of the sick, and of the laying on of hands, in connexion with miraculous healing and miraculous gifts. The descent and operation of the Holy Ghost, in his ordinary saving influences, was then, as now, unseen and unfelt, except by the recipient, and therefore the object of faith only. Some assurance was therefore requisite in order to prove that these

*"Paul, from this point of view, designated the whole of the solemn proceeding, without separating it into its various elements, by that which was its external symbol, as in Scripture phraseology, a single act of a transaction consisting of several parts, and sometimes that which was most striking to the senses, is often mentioned for the whole." Neander Apost. Kirch. i. 213.

effects, though impalpable, were real. And this consisted in miraculous gifts and powers, manifested in the one case by prayer and imposition of hands, and in the other by anointing of the body. This subject has been very candidly stated by Dr. Hinds, an eminent Episcopalian writer of Queen's College, Oxford, and at present chaplain of Archbishop Whately. In his History of the Rise and Progress of Christianity, which deserves to be more generally known, after having explained why the church continued to claim the power of working miracles he says: "But not only miracles ceased, because designed solely for the establishment of the church; but the obligation to perpetuate those customs which were connected with miraculous agency ceased also together with it. As instances of these, may be noticed the practice of anointing the sick, and that of laying on of hands by the apostles, subsequent to baptism.

"The first of these customs, evidently, was established as a form of miraculous cure, similar to that wrought by the pool of Bethesda. It was, no doubt, the mode in which the apostles fulfill the Lord's special injunction to 'heal the sick.' When, therefore, such cures ceased, the cessation itself was equivalent to a formal annulment of the practice by God. Nevertheless, as nothing could have been more mortifying to the spiritual pride of a Christian, than the loss of so splendid an appendage to the church as miraculous power, (agreeably to the remarks above made,) the designing, the superstitious, and, perhaps the truly pious themselves, would naturally be slow to admit the evidence that its virtue had ceased. To the dying man and to his distressed friends, even the faintest possibility of success would be a sufficient motive for the experiment. Thus it would be continued, by some from a hope that its efficacy might be renewed; by others from reverence for a custom, which, although ineffectual, had once been blessed by the Spirit; by others, finally, it would be persisted in from a view, created by enthusiasm or fraud, that where no palpable miracle was wrought, a secret miraculous influence must be communicated in lieu of the specific benefit attached to it. Hence, in later ages, its invariable use in a great part of the Christian world as a means of grace to the departing Christian.-Had the custom, when its miraculous use ceased, been in its nature at all applicable to edification, the reverence which retained it for such a purpose, in preference to the introduction of any new ceremony, would have been even praiseworthy. As it is, its

Vol. ii. pp. 76-79. See also Lord Barrington's Wks., vol. i. p. 133. The same view is presented by Burnet in his Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 352, Page's ed. Lond. 1837.