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tion of his child. Set the Lord, and his promises, and the glory of his kingdom perpetually before you. Point your children. affectionately to the shining light of the land that is yet afar off. Let it be the daily business of a lively overcoming faith to realize the gracious purpose of God, in the system of parental discipline; and in due time you shall reap if you faint not. And look to the recompense of reward:-as the child whom God has given you, the offspring of your own loins, delivered from the power of evil, crowned with the amaranthine crown of light and blessedness, and placed eternally before the throne of God, to enjoy all the glories of his kingdom! Who is there amongst us that thinks seriously on this matter, who would not, for such a glorious object, trample the world, its allurements, its opinions, and its frowns, resolutely beneath his feet.

SERMON XXII.*

CONFIRMATION.

By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES P. McILVAINE, D. D.,
Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Ohio.

HEBREWS vi. 2.

The doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands.

UNTIL that storm of persecution under which Stephen was the first Martyr, had burst upon the Church of Christ, the Apostles had, since the Ascension of the Lord confined their ministry to Jerusalem and its vicinity. No messenger of the Gospel seems to have gone from that metropolis of Christianity, to carry the terms

* This sermon is nearly the same as Bp. McIlvaine's Pastoral Letter to a Candidate for Confirmation.

of salvation to any village in Judea or Samaria. But now that Saul made havoc of the Church, and the Christian disciples "were all scattered abroad except the Apostles;" the heralds of glad tidings "went every where preaching the word." Among them, was Philip, one of the seven Deacons. He "went to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them." His word was blessed of God. The Samaritans believed, and "were baptized, both men and women." When the Apostles, at Jerusalem had heard of this, they sent two of their own number, Peter and John, to confirm and carry on the work which Philip had so auspiciously commenced; who, when they had reached Samaria, and had prayed for the baptized believers, "laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost."

In this historical fact, we have the evidence that, in the earliest period of the Apostolic ministry, there was the practice, on the part of the Apostles, of the laying on of hands, upon the baptized, and that it was specially connected with the receiving of the Holy Ghost.

A similar transaction is recorded in the 19th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where another Apostle (St. Paul,) is mentioned as having first baptized certain persons who had previously received only the baptism of John, and then " laid his hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost."

Were these passages unattended by any subsequent portion of Scripture to indicate that the "laying on of hands" upon the baptized was intended to be practised generally in the Church, in subsequent, as well as Apostolic times, nothing very material perhaps could be inferred from them in regard to the duty of the Universal Church.

But we are not left without a more decisive evidence of the station occupied by it in the Primitive Church, nor of that which it was intended to hold in all succeeding times.

In the 6th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have an enumeration of what St. Paul called "the principles of the doctrine of Christ." Among these, is the rite we are speaking of. The passage is thus: "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms and laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal jupgment." Now what

St. Paul here calls "principles of the doctrine of Christ," are what, in the preceding chapter, are called "the first principles of the oracles of God;"-those parts in which men were usually and properly first instructed; the rudiments of Christianity, as the letters of the alphabet are the elements of reading.* But among these rudiments, we find not only repentance, and faith, and the resurrection, and the judgment, but we find baptisms, also, and the laying on of hands.

But what was that "laying on of hands," of which the Apostle so emphatically speaks? Could he have referred to that practised in the ordination of ministers? Certainly not; for ordination being confined to a small portion of the Church, could not be ranked with baptism and repentance, &c., as a first principle of the doctrine of Christ. For the same reason, could he not have referred to the imposition of hands in the healing of the sick. But these are the only applications of that outward sign recorded in the New Testament, as connected with the ministry of the Apostles, except that of which we are speaking-the "laying on of hands" which is now called, Confirmation. We have, therefore, no alternative, unless we suppose the passage in Hebrews to be unintelligible, but to conclude that it was this to which the Apostle there referred. Now let it be distinctly observed that this rite is here called a "first principle," or a rudiment of the doctrine of Christ; that it is placed in company with an ordinance and with doctrines so elementary, so universal, so certainly intended for all places and all ages of the Church as baptism, Repentance, Faith, &c.; that in the order/in which these are mentioned, repentance and faith precede baptism, as its essential preparation, and baptism precedes the "laying on of hands," as if the latter were then, as it is now, the supplement of the former; that in this Apostolic enumeration, not a word is said to indicate that any difference was intended, in point of permanence and universality in the Church, between baptism and the laying on of hands, but both are spoken of as alike elementary, and are ranked alike with doctrines which we are sure must continue as long as the sun and moon endure. What can be more satisfactory evidence that "the laying on of hands" was intended for the Church in all ages, and among all people?

It is of no force to object that in the case of the Samaritan

* See Owen on Hebrews.

converts, this imposition of hands was accompanied by the conveying of the "miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost." For even supposing that all those converts received those gifts, of which there is no assurance, yet as such gifts were not intended for all times and all Christians, the "laying on of hands" could not have been inseparable from them; but, as "a principle of the doctrine of Christ," must have been intended, just as much as repentance, and faith, and baptism, to be continued without them.

Again. We have no reason to suppose that miraculous gifts were a more universal accompaniment of the imposition of hands upon Christians generally, than they were of the same outward gesture when used in ordaining to the ministry. But we have not ceased to imitate the Apostolic practice of the laying on of hands, with prayer for the Holy Ghost, when persons are set apart for the ministry, because we cannot, like the Apostles confer the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. And we see not why, in the same circumstances, we should not as well continue to follow their example in reference to Christians in general, and thus when sinners profess "repentance from dead works" and "faith towards God" and have obeyed "the doctrine of Baptisms," confer upon them that which is next in the Apostles catalogue of "principles of the doctrine of Christ," "the laying on of hands," with solemn prayer that they "may increase in the Holy Spirit more and more," and so be prepared for the two last of those principles, "resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment."

As to how the above passages of Scripture should be applied, we have the undivided testimony of the earliest centuries of the Church. The earliest writers refer to the narrative concerning the Samaritan converts as one of the grounds on which the rite was observed in their days;-they uniformly ascribe the origin of Confirmation to the Apostles, declaring that it was practised, in subsequent times, because of Apostolic example, and because the Church believed that the Apostles expected it to be an ordinance of the Church for all times and places. We might as well doubt whether the sacrament of baptism and the Lord's Supper were practised in the Church during the earliest centuries, as whether the rite of laying on of hands upon the baptized was in universal The same books, the same legislation, the same councils, that speak of either, speak of all-and of all, as alike notorious and universal. Tertullian, in the 2d Century speaks of it as

use.

universally practiced in his time, 'Hands (he says) were laid upon them; (baptized persons) by benediction, calling for, and invoking, the Holy Ghost.' Cyprian, in the 3d Century, speaking of the laying on of hands of the Apostles, upon the converts when Philip baptized in Samaria, adds; "Which is still practiced among us."Jerome of the 4th Century speaking of the rite says: "Dost thou ask me where this is written? In the Acts of the Apostles. But if there were no authority of Scripture, at all, for it, the consent of the whole world to this point might well challenge the force of a precept.' Again the same Father says: "The Bishop is to impose his hands on those who are baptized by Presbyters and Deacons. for the invocation of the Holy Spirit.' Another holy Father of the same Century, Augustine, says: 'We acknowledge imposition of hands with prayer, that they which were so taught might receive strength of God's Spirit, so to continue.' It is impossible to suppose that this rite could have been at so early a period, universal among Christians, and without a question traced to the example and sanction of the Apostles, had it not been of such high origin and intended originally to be thus perpetuated in the Church.Perpetuated it was, without exception, until the sixteenth Century. Confounded, then with the corruptions with which it had been encumbered under the deforming hand of Popery, some leaders of the Reformation despairing of a separation between the primitive institution and its modern abuses, abandoned both together.

It is one of the instances of that eminent wisdom and modera· tion with which the Church of England conducted her reformation from the corruptions of the papacy, that this ordinance instead of being renounced because grievously corrupted, was cleansed, reformed and retained because, though defiled and corrupted, it was still Apostolic. As she retained the Scriptures, though found at the reformation almost buried under the traditions of men, and joined in equal fellowship with books uninspired; as she retained Episcopacy, though crushed under the polluting foot of Popery ; and the Liturgy, though mingled in all directions with idolatrous services to the Virgin and Saints and Angels; not thinking that the pure gold was any the less to be valued and kept, because it had been associated with 'wood, hay and stuble ;' so did she retain the laying on of hands as derived from the Apostles and intended. for the Church in all ages. But even among those who have laid aside this ordinance, some of their most standard theologians have VOL. II.-31

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