tuals appertaining to their doctrines." These men, to serve ends, destroyed the article, and overthrew the ancient discipline and unity of the primitive church. But they were justly censured by the theological faculty at Paris, and the censure well defended by Hallier, one of the doctors of the Sorbonne; whither I refer the reader that is curious in little things. But for the main: it was ever called 'confirmatio episcopalis, et impositio manuum episcoporum;" which our English word well expresses, and perfectly retains the use; we know it by the common name of "bishopping of children." I shall no further insist upon it, only I shall observe that there is a vain distinction brought into the schools and glosses of the canon law, of a minister ordinary, and extraordinary; all allowing that the bishop is appointed the ordinary minister of confirmation, but they would fain innovate, and pretend, that in some cases others may be ministers extraordinary. This device is of infinite danger to the destruction of the whole sacred order of the ministry, and disparks the enclosures, and lays all in common, and makes men supreme controllers of the orders of God, and lies upon a false principle; for in true divinity, and by the economy of the Spirit of God, as there can be no minister of any divine ordinance but he that is of divine appointment, there can be none but the ordinary minister. I do not say that God is tied to this way; he cannot be tied but by himself: and therefore Christ gave a special commission to Ananias to baptize and to confirm St. Paul, and he gave the Spirit to Cornelius even before he was baptized, and he ordained St. Paul to be an apostle without the ministry of man. But this I say, that though God can make ministers extraordinary, yet man cannot; and they that go about to do so, usurp the power of Christ, and snatch from his hand what he never intended to part with. The apostles admitted others into a part of their care and of their power; but when they intended to employ them in any ministry, they gave them so much of their order as would enable them; but a person of a lower order could never be deputed minister of actions appropriate to the higher which is the case of confirmation, by the practice and tradition of the apostles, and by the universal practice and doctrine of the primitive catholic church, by which VOL. XI. : T bishops only, the successors of the apostles, were alone the ministers of confirmation: and therefore if any man else usurp it, let them answer it; they do hurt indeed to themselves, but no benefit to others, to whom they minister shadays instead of substances. SECTION V.. The whole Procedure or Ritual of Confirmation is by Prayer and Imposition of Hands. THE heart and the eye are lift up to God to bring blessings from him, and so is the hand too; but this also falls upon the people, and rests there, to apply the descending blessing to the proper and prepared suscipient. God governed the people of Israel by the hand of Moses and Aaron: et calidæ fecère silentia turbæ Majestate manûs: and both under Moses and under Christ, whenever the president of religion did bless the people, he lifted up his hand over the congregation; and when he blessed a single person, he laid his hand upon him. This was the rite used by Jacob and the patriarchs, by kings and prophets, by all the eminently religious in the synagogue, and by Christ himself when he blessed the children which were brought to him, and by the apostles when they blessed and confirmed the baptized converts; and whom else can the church follow? The apostles did so to the Christians of Samaria, to them of Ephesus; and St. Paul describes this whole mystery by the ritual part of it, calling it "the foundation of the imposition of hands"." It is the solemnity of blessing, and the solemnity and application of paternal prayer. Τίνι γὰρ ἐπιτίθησι χεῖρα ; τίνα δὲ εὐλογήσει ; said Clement of Alexandria ; "Upon whom shall he lay his hands? whom shall he bless ?" -"Quid enim aliud est impositio manuum, nisi oratio super hominem?" said St. Austin; "The bishop's laying his hands on the people, what is it but the solemnity of prayer for them?" that is, a prayer made by those sacred persons who Pelag. lib. 3. c. 11. r Heb. vi. 2. by Christ are appointed to pray for them, and to bless in his name and so indeed are all the ministries of the church, baptism, consecration of the blessed eucharist, absolution, ordination, visitation of the sick; they are all in genere orationis,' they are nothing but solemn and appointed 'prayer' by an intrusted and a gracious person, specificated by a proper order to the end of the blessing then designed. And therefore, when St. James commanded that the sick persons should" send for the elders of the church," he adds, "and let them pray over them;" that is, lay their hands on the sick, and pray for them; that is praying over them: it is 'adumbratio dextræ' (as Tertullian calls it), the right hand of him that ministers, overshadows' the person, for whom the solemn prayer is to be made. This is the office of the rulers of the church; for they in the divine eutaxy are made your superiors: they are indeed 'your servants for Jesus's sake,' but they are over you in the Lord,' and therefore are from the Lord appointed to bless the people; for "without contradiction," saith the Apostle, "the less is blessed of the greater ;" that is, God hath appointed the superiors in religion to be the great ministers of prayer, he hath made them the gracious persons, them he will hear, those he hath commanded to convey your needs to God, and God's blessings to you, and to ask a blessing is to desire them to pray for you; them, I say, "whom God most respecteth for their piety and zeal that way, or else regardeth for that their place and calling bind them above others to do this duty, such as are natural and spiritual fathers "." It is easy for profane persons to deride these things, as they do all religion which is not conveyed to them by sense or natural demonstrations: but the economy of the Spirit and "the things of God are spiritually discerned."—" The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and no man knows whence it comes, and whither it goes ;" and the operations are discerned by faith, and received by love and by obedience. "Date mihi Christianum, et intelligit quod dico;" "None but true Christians understand and feel these things." But of this we are sure, that in all the times of Moses's law, while the synagogue was standing, and in all the days of Heb. vii. 7. "Hooker's Eccl. Pol. lib. 5. sect. 66. Christianity, so long as men loved religion, and walked in Post inscripta oleo frontis signacula, per quæ "We are consigned on the forehead with oil, and a royal unction and an eternal chrism are given to us:" so Prudentius gives testimony of the ministry of confirmation in his time. Τοῦτο φυλάξατε ἄσπιλον· πάντων γάρ ἐστι τοῦτο διδακτικὸν, καθὼς ἀρτίως ἠκούσατε τοῦ μακαρίου Ιωάννου λέγοντος καὶ πολλὰ περὶ τούτου χρίσματος φιλοσοφοῦντος, said St.Cyril: "Preserve this unction pure and spotless: for it teaches you all things, as you have heard the blessed St. John speaking and philosophizing many things of this holy chrism 2." Upon this account the holy fathers used to bless and consecrate oil and balsam, that, by an external signature, they might signify the inward unction effected in confirmation. Μύρον τοῦτο οὐκ ἔστι ψιλόν, οὐδ ̓ ὡς ἄν τις εἴποι κοινὸν κατ ̓ ἐπίκλησιν, ἀλλὰ Χριστοῦ χάρισμα, καὶ Πνεύματος ἁγίου παρουσία, τῆς αὐτῆς θεότητος ἐνεργητικὸν γινόμενον, “ This chrism is not simple or common when it is blessed, but the gift of * Prudenti in ψυχομαχία. y A.D. 400. z Catech. Mystag. 3. a Christ, and the presence of his Holy Spirit, as it were effecting the divinity itself;" the body is indeed anointed with visible ointment, but is also sanctified by the holy and quickening Spirit: so St. Cyril. I find in him and in some late synods other pretty significations and allusions made by this ceremony of chrisms. "Nos autem pro igne visibili, qui die Pentecostes super apostolos apparuit, oleum sanctum, materiam nempe ignis ex apostolorum traditione, ad confirmandum adhibemus:" "This using of oil was instead of the baptism with fire, which Christ baptized his apostles with in Pentecost; and oil, being the most proper matter of fire, is therefore used in confirmation." That this was the ancient ceremony is without doubt, and that the church had power to do so hath no question, and I add, it was not unreasonable; for if ever the Scripture expresses the mysteriousness of a grace conferred by an exterior ministry (as this is, by imposition of hands), and represents it besides in the expression and analogy of any sensible thing, that expression drawn into a ceremony will not improperly signify the grace, since the Holy Ghost did choose that for his own expression and representment. In baptism we are said to be "buried with Christ." The church does according to the analogy of that expression, when she immerges the catechumen in the font; for then she represents the same thing which the Holy Ghost would have to be represented in that sacrament: the church did but the same thing when she used chrism in this ministration. This I speak in justification of that ancient practice: but because there was no command for it, λόγος γεγραμμένος οὐκ ἔστι, said St. Basil"; "concerning chrism there is no written word," that is, of the ceremony there is not; he said it not of the whole rite of confirmation; therefore though to this we are all bound, yet as to the anointing, the church is at liberty, and hath with sufficient authority omitted it in our ministrations. In the liturgy of King Edward the Sixth, the bishops used the sign of the cross upon the foreheads of them that were to be confirmed. I do not find it since forbidden, or revoked by any expression or intimation, saving only that it is omit a Synodus Bituricensis, apud Bochel. lib. 1. decret. Eccl. Gal. lit. 5. |