of failure, he may still reap no small 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.*

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 in you.”† The rite of Confirmation, if not of express Apostolical origin, was at least derived from Apostolical practice. We cannot indeed identify it with that imposition of hands, which appears to to have been followed invariably with miraculous influence; but the concurrent testimonies of the earliest fathers and councils afford strong presumptive evidence that it was the continuance of the same rite, as an ordinary means of spiritual edification, for a purpose and objects somewhat varied from its original institution.§ Calvin admits it to have

* The substance of this section appeared in the Christian Observer, February and March of this year. (1829.) Acts viii. 17. xix. 6.

† Gal. iv. 19.

§ The authorities may be seen in Wheatley 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. iv. and an excellent treatise lately published by the Rev. T. H. Kingdon. Dr. Hammond's View of the

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.* 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 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.'

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 handsconsecrated as it is by the frequent usage of the Old Testament Church, by the example of our Lord, and, as Calvin remarks'the ordinary rite among the Jews, in commending any one to the blessing of God.' Calv. in Acts. xiii. 3.

*Calv. Instit. lib. iv. c. 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.

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

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 substantiæ in Ecclesiis nostris religiose servatur.'-Synopsis Purioris Theologiæ, Lugd. 1625. Disput. xlvii.

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 parent's or sponsor's profession was sufficient for the infant covenant; but for a personal covenant a personal profession is indispensable, and without which, indeed, 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 as a part of its parent; and having therefore a covenant interest in the promises to the seed of believers.* 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 Church privileges of the covenant. The profession made at the Eucharist by no means answers this design, being connected with high privileges, to which it is necessary to prove a valid title, as a complete member of the visible church.

It is plain, therefore, 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. can only therefore determine by outward signs. Apostles even hesitated to receive Saul into their

She

The

sect. 13. a work deservedly of high estimation. Compare also Baxter's Infant's Church Membership.

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

company, though with the strongest evidence of sincerity, until the voucher had been given to the Church of the credibility of his profession.* 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;"† 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.

We need scarcely add, that the character of this engagement is distinctly spiritual. What else shall we say to the whole tenor of the covenant between God and the infant, in the baptismal service? How shall we denominate the preface, question and answer, and the prayer in the Confirmation service? Are they not eminently spiritual? Is-"I do" renew the solemn promise-any thing less than a purpose of the heart? Can that be solemn which is mere lip-profession? Our church regards the confirmed as

*Acts ix. 26, 27. VOL. II.

20

† 1 Pet. iii, 21.

ready for the communion; but she does not insist upon X spiritual qualifications for the reception of that holy sacrament?* Consider our spiritual catechism on the one side, and our peculiarly spiritual Communion Service on the other; and we cannot surely make the 'intermediate Service of Confirmation to be of a different or less spiritual mould. As the preliminary however for a course of ministerial instruction upon this important subject, the rubbish of superstition and ignorance, which debases this ordinance, must be cleared away. Most parochial Ministers, in the course of catechetical inquiry, have elicited from their catechumens notions, which, had not familiar intercourse brought them to light, might have been deemed traditionary relics of the dark ages, such as coming for the bishop's blessing, with no idea, desire, or expectation of the blessing of God-such, again, as relieving their sponsors of the burden of their sins and duties, as if personal responsibility were not coeval with the earliest period of "discernment between our right hand and our left hand;" or as if we, who are utterly unable to answer for ourselves, could answer for one another; or as if any one could be found to answer for one of us, but He, "who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree." The candidate for Confirmation in the true spirit of the rite, in the spirit of renunciation and faith, will come, not to take his sins upon himself, but hoping for the pardon of them through Christ; and in the simple devotedness of a pardoned and accepted sinner, to take his yoke upon him as his daily privilege and rule. With the more enlightened, who yet are ignorant of the spiritual requisitions of the service

* Compare the answer to the last question in the Catechism.