will give them repentance," exclude despondency. Successive disappointments must exercise faith, deepen humiliation, quicken our prayers, increase our anxieties-not induce a sullen, indolent heartlessness. We have a solemn responsibility on their account; nor must we readily venture to cast them off, as "the dogs and the swine," who stand excluded from our commission. However humbling may be our want of sensible encouragement, our rule must be- Sow in faith, and have long patience: wait on and for the Lord.' Fruit will be found under the most unpromising appearances ; but we must expect to wait for it. "The "patience of hope" is the preparation for the "assurance of hope." Through faith and patience we shall inherit the promise."

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Another point of great moment in this department of our Ministry, regards our watchfulness over those connexions, which young persons with a religious profession often incautiously form. The power to

throw in a word of seasonable warning, before the die is cast, on which perhaps depends eternity, is among the many advantages of confidential intercourse. The havoc which Satan has ever made in the church, through such fatal unions, is beyond all calculation. How many hopeful blossoms have been withered! How many apparently promising converts, thus sifted, have proved but chaff! How many sincere, but hesitating, Christians have been shaken by the infatuated attempt to unite "the temple of God with idols!" And yet to choose the moment, and to discover the safe extent, of interference; and for this purpose to combine the influence of confidence, and the knowledge

1 Tit. i. 13, with 2 Tim. ii. 25.

2 See Matt. vii. 6.

of character and circumstances acquired from that source, demands extreme delicacy, tenderness, and prudence. Indeed, there is no department of the Pastoral Ministry of the young, which requires more anxious consideration, than the developement of the sophistries and self-indulgent delusions, arising out of their temptations, and the application of the touch-stone of the Gospel requisitions, to animate or restore the spiritual system. Those instances, in which the wise counsels of a faithful Pastor are blessed in such a crisis, he will reckon among the most prominent tokens of Divine assistance; and in cases of failure, he may still reap much advantage to himself, in a deeper insight into the devices of Satan and the self-deceit of the human heart.

SECTION VI.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ON CONFIRMATION.1

THIS subject is a most important part of the Ministry of the young, and one that brings with it peculiar encouragements, anxieties, and responsibilities. Never perhaps are the affectionate yearnings of the faithful Pastor more drawn out towards his beloved flock, than at the season of Confirmation. Then, if ever, he is prepared to meet them with the Apostle's expression of parental interest-" My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed n you." The rite of Confirmation, if not of express Apostolical origin, was at least derived from Apostolical practice.

1 The substance of this section appeared in the Christian Observer, February and March, 1829.

2 Gal. iv. 19.

We cannot indeed identify it with that imposition of hands,' which appears to have been invariably followed with miraculous influence; but the concurrent testimonies of the earliest fathers and councils afford strong presumptive evidence, that it was the continuance of this rite, as an ordinary means of spiritual edification, and for a purpose and objects somewhat varied from its original institution. Calvin admits it to have been the custom of the ancient church, and wishes that it had been preserved in its simplicity in his own church, before the Papal heresy unduly exalted it into a sacrament.3 The ancient church of the Waldenses retained the substance of it as an Apostolical institution. The most eminent lights of the Reformed Churches (Peter Martyr, Rivet, Peter des Moulin, &c.) give it the weight of their 1 Acts viii. 17. xix. 6.

2 The authorities may be seen in Wheatly and Comber. The chief of them are referred to by the Rev. B. Woodd and the Rev. D. Wilson, in their valuable tracts on the subject. Comp. Bishop Hall's Polem. Works, vol. ix; and an excellent treatise lately published by the Rev. T. H. Kingdon. Dr. Hammond's View of the Directory, and Calvin's Institutes, (referred to in Christian Observer, 1829, pp. 71, 72, 143, 144,) will give some important views upon the subject, from very opposite schools of divinity. A scarce, but satisfactory treatise, by Jonathan Hanmer (1658), besides referring to the ancient authorities, gives the approving judgment of Baxter, Calamy, Venning, and others of the Puritan Divines, on Confirmation. Archbishop Leighton strongly recommended to his clergy the substance of the rite of Confirmation; though the turbulent spirit of his times did not allow him to introduce the ceremony. Works, ii. 450. It is difficult to conjecture any reasonable objection to the rite of imposition of hands-consecrated as it is by the frequent usage of the Old Testament Church, by the example of our Lord; and being (as Calvin remarks) 'the ordinary rite among the Jews, in commending any one to the blessing of God.' Calv. in Acts xiii. 3.

3 Calv. Instit. lib. iv. cap. xix. 4, 13, and on Heb. vi. 2; which text he conceives fully sufficient to prove the Apostolical origin of the present institution. Chrysostom expounds the passage to the same purport.

4 See their confessions and Apologies, quoted in Hanmer's Exercitation. pp. 37-40.

authority. The Bohemian and Lutheran Churches allow the ordinance; which indeed is (as Archbishop Secker has observed) of such acknowledged usefulness, that in the times of confusion, when Bishops were rejected, some of their adversaries took upon them to perform this part of their function; and within these few years (1741) the Church of Geneva hath restored it in the best manner their form of church government will admit, and added an office for it to their Liturgy.' 1

The intent of this rite is sufficiently obvious, as the complement and seal of infant baptism. In that ordinance the profession of the child's faith, requisite for the act of covenanting with God, had been made by a surety. In laying claim therefore to the personal benefit of the Christian covenant, there must be a credible personal profession of the terms of that covenant. The sponsorial profession was sufficient for the infant covenant; but for a personal covenant a personal profession is indispensable; and without it, the infant title to Church privileges must be considered, in the case of an adult, to be invalidated. In the covenant of baptism, the infant was passive; and indeed was received into the Church, not on its own account; but having, as a part of its parent, a covenant interest in the promises to the seed of believers.2 But, in the adult covenant, personal obligations are involved, and personal graces called into exercise; and hence arises the necessity of a personal profession, as a visible investiture into the

1 Secker's Charges, p. 52. The professors of Theology at Leyden, having with Calvin expressed their wishes for its restoration in the Church, add—' Cujus substantia in Ecclesiis nostris religiose servatur?-Synopsis Purioris Theologiæ, Lugd. 1625. Disput. xlvii. sect. 13. a work deservedly of high estimation. Compare also Baxter's Infant's Church Membership.

2 See Gen. xvii. 7-10. Deut. xxix. 10-12. Acts ii. 39.

Church privileges of the covenant. The profession made at the Eucharist by no means answers this design; being connected with high privileges, consequent upon the validity of his title, as a complete member of the visible church.

It is plain that the Church has a right to demand such a confession as is exhibited at confirmation. She cannot judge of what she does not know. She does not pretend to be a searcher of hearts. She can only therefore determine by outward signs. The Apostles even hesitated to receive Saul into their company, (though with the strongest evidence of sincerity) until the church had received a voucher of the credibility of his profession.1 If the necessity of this profession be disallowed, what hinders the infidel or the heathen from advancing a claim, on the ground of his infant baptism, to the full privileges of the church, and the church herself from being thus virtually unchurched? Every church, therefore, practising infant baptism, insists upon a confession of faith, as an indispensable requisite for full communion with the visible body; and, this being admitted, we feel warranted to decide, without any unkind feelings to those who may conscientiously differ from us, that the profession of confirmation is more conformable to the practice of the Apostolical churches, and the custom of the primitive ages, than any that prevails. It is indeed, in its intent, similar to the profession of adult baptism-" the answer of a good conscience towards God; "2 in which the grace that had been faithfully prayed for in baptism is publicly acknowledged, and its increase sought and expected by the renewed application of the same faith.

1 Acts ix. 26, 27.

21 Pet. iii. 21.