ADDRESS I.

On the Origin and Nature of Confirmation.

My dear young people, the ceremony of confirmation, or laying on of hands, as it is otherwise called, in which you are going ere long to engage, is a very interesting and important one. I wish to make you well acquainted with its nature and object. I am anxious that you should attend upon it in an intelligent manner, understanding why it is observed, what it requires of you, and what benefit you may expect from it. And I desire that you may go to it with your hearts suitably affected, that so you may truly and faithfully enter into the engagements which it requires you to make, and thus receive the blessing which God is pleased to bestow by it, when it is rightly observed.

To understand its origin and nature, to learn for what persons it is intended, by whom it is to be administered, and the gift which is conferred in it, we will consider the accounts which the Scripture gives us of it.

In the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles and at the fifth verse we find that Philip, one of the seven Deacons of whose appointment we read in the sixth chapter, had gone down to the city of Samaria and had

preached Christ unto the people there, and that they gave much heed to the things which he spake to them, perceiving that God must be with him, by the many miracles which he wrought in their sight. Then we find at the twelfth verse that several believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, and were baptized both men and women." At the fourteenth verse we find that when the Apostles, who were at Jerusalem, heard of these things, they sent Peter and John, two of their own body, to visit them, and these learning that the Holy Ghost was not given to them, they being as yet only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, prayed for them that they might receive that blessed gift, and then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

There is an account of a similar case in the nineteenth chapter of this same book of the Acts of the Apostles. There we read that when St. Paul came to Ephesus, he found there some disciples, who had only been baptized unto John's baptism, and who had not only not received, but not so much as heard that there was any Holy Ghost. Upon further instruction by him in the Christian doctrine, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, not by St. Paul himself, as we learn from the first chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, but by some other person. When this had been done, the Apostle laid his own hands upon them, and the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. Thus we find, in both these cases, that the

persons spoken of had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, by ministers of an inferior rank to that of the Apostles, that the hands which were laid on them were the hands of the Apostles, the highest ministers and rulers of the church, and that then they received the Holy Ghost.

If we now proceed to examine a passage in the sixth chapter of the epistle of the Hebrews, we shall be led to conclude that this was the orderly and regular succession of these two ceremonies in the Apostolic practice. We read there of what the Apostle calls the principles, that is, the first parts or rudiments, of the doctrine of Christ; and among these he enumerates (the one immediately after the other) the doctrine of baptism and of laying on of hands. This seems to shew that the laying on of hands regularly and in all cases succeeded after baptism.

These are the passages in Scripture from which the Christian church has derived, and by which she justifies, this ceremony of confirmation. And you perceive that the persons, upon whom it is to be performed, are those who have been baptized, as you have been; that the person who is to perform it, must be a Bishop, that order having succeeded to the order of the Apostles, who alone performed it in the places of Scripture which we have examined; and that the ceremony itself consists in prayer, and the laying on of the hands of the Bishop, for the purpose of obtaining from God the gift of the Holy Ghost upon you.

We find from history that this ceremony is often mentioned as being in constant use and observance in

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the earliest days of the church. This is a great corroboration of our belief that it was established by the Apostles. These early writers all shew that it was a ceremony in constant use and observance among all Christians. Tertullian, within a hundred years of St. John's time, says, "After baptism succeeds the laying on of hands, with prayer, calling for and inviting the Holy Ghost." Cyprian, a very distinguished Bishop of Carthage, about sixty years after, speaking on that passage in the eighth chapter of Acts, says, "The same thing is practised among us; they who are baptized in the church are presented to the rulers of the church, that by our prayer, and the laying on of our hands, they may be perfected with the seal of Christ." council of the church held in Spain, in the beginning of the fourth century, required that all persons baptized should be brought to the Bishop, in order that they might be perfected by his blessing and the laying on of his hands. Jerome also, a very distinguished writer, about the end of the same century says, speaking of this ceremony, "If you ask where it is written, it is in the Acts of the Apostles; and the custom of the whole Christian church has adopted it as law. Where persons have been baptized in inferior towns by Priests and Deacons, the Bishop travels out to these, to lay his hands upon them and invoke the Holy Ghost." This, you perceive, is an exact description of what is about to take place among ourselves at the present time. You have been baptized in one of these inferior towns by a Priest or Deacon, and the Bishop is now about to

travel hither in order that he may lay his hands upon you and pray for you that you may receive the Holy Ghost.

Thus it appears evident that this ceremony was founded by the Apostles; it descended after their example and on their authority through each successive age of the church; it is still observed in both the Roman and the Greek churches; and the Church of England retains it, and retains it, I may add, in the simplicity and purity in which it was first performed by the Apostles themselves, adding no other forms or observances, as some other churches have done, such as anointing with oil and signing with the sign of the cross, but using only prayer and the imposition of hands.

This laying on of hands is an action that is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, and always denotes that the person doing it acts by divine authority. Thus Jacob

laid his hands on the two sons of Joseph, and gave them

his prophetic blessing. appointed Joshua to be his successor as the leader of the children of Israel. In like manner our divine Lord laid his hands upon the children who were brought to him, and blessed them. And with this same form the ordination of ministers is also conducted according to the Apostolic rule and practice. Hence this ceremony has often the name of "laying on of hands," as it stands in our own Prayer-book, where it is called, "Confirmation, or the laying on of hands upon those that are baptized, and are come to years of discretion." And indeed it seems as if St. Paul himself had given it this

In this manner Moses solemnly