THE CHURCH QUARTERLY REVIEW. No LXVII. APRIL 1892. ART. I.-PRIMITIVE TEACHING ON CONFIR MATION AND ITS RELATION TO HOLY The Relation of Confirmation to Baptism as taught in Holy Scripture and the Fathers. By ARTHUR JAMES MASON, D.D., formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. (London, 1891.) THE doctrine of Confirmation, as taught in the Church of England at the present day, can hardly be thought to be generally satisfactory. All are agreed as to the importance of the subject. In every well-ordered parish the yearly Confirmation classes offer the best opportunity which the parish priest enjoys of coming to close quarters with large numbers of his people, especially the younger members of his flock, of giving them careful individual teaching, and of pressing upon them, under the most favourable circumstances, the claims of personal religion. But all are by no means agreed as to the nature of the rite to which the preparation-frequently elaborate and prolonged-is to conduct. To begin with, we are as yet very far from being freed from the crude and somewhat ignorant notion, which the Puritans attempted to foist upon the Church of England, that the essential part of Confirmation consists in the renewal of Baptismal vows. In spite of all that has been said and written on the subject during recent years, a large proportion of the clergy still continue to teach their people to regard the ordinance in this way. Many, too, who do recognize that there is something in it more than thisthat there is a solemn invocation of the Holy Spirit, or at VOL. XXXIV.—NO. LXVII. B least some element of blessing-are yet unable to shake off the idea that the renewal of vows is an essential feature, and perhaps the most important part, of the rite. And if this crude and very erroneous conception of Confirmation is not yet eradicated from the minds of the clergy it is still more tenaciously clung to by the laity. Owing to the mistaken teaching of past generations, and partly also to the unfortunate "substitution of the word 'confirm' for 'confess' in the preface to our service in the Prayer Book, the notion that Confirmation is simply a public profession of faith and good purpose on the part of those who were baptized as infants and have now come to years of discretion seems to be engrained in the mind of the ordinary English churchman. In vain is the history of the ordinance exhibited and explained; in vain is it pointed out that the renewal of vows forms no part of the service of Confirmation in any other branch of the Catholic Church, and that it was only introduced into the preparatory part of the English Office as late as 1662. The English layman continues to cherish his original idea. Every priest who has tried to teach the more primitive and scriptural doctrine of the 'Laying on of Hands' has probably met with cases where, after all his explanations, the question 'What then do you understand Confirmation to be?' has elicited nothing but the stereotyped reply, 'It is the taking on myself of the promises made for me in my Baptism.' He is happy indeed if he does not meet with a still more hopeless answer to the effect that it is the taking upon oneself the responsibility for one's own sins.' No one, of course, would wish to underrate the importance of a solemn public profession of Christian faith and resolve as a preparation for the ordinance of the Laying on of Hands. But the notion that such a profession is an essential part of the rite is dispelled by the slightest study of the history of the ordinance, and it is not necessary to spend time in refuting it in the pages of this Review. But amongst those in the English Church who recognize in Confirmation a solemn and most important means of grace there is a considerable divergence of opinion. They are not agreed as to what the specific and distinctive grace of Confirmation really is. The testimony of Scripture and of ancient writers is that by the Laying on of Hands with prayer the 'Gift of the Holy Ghost' is vouchsafed to those who have been baptized. But what exactly does this mean? Since the revival of Catholic teaching amongst us during the last fifty years it has been popularly taught that the Holy Spirit is given in Baptism itself. All who have received the initial sacrament of the Christian Church, whether confirmed or not, are invited to believe that they have been made the subjects of His Indwelling Presence. And to all such persons those texts are applied in which the presence of the Spirit is appealed to as a ground of action or of watchfulness against sin. The reader will find this teaching abundantly illustrated in well-known recent books of English theology. We will select two by way of example. Bishop Moberly, in his Bampton Lectures, referring to the Day of Pentecost, says : 'To the three thousand men and women that day planted into the body of Christ the Holy Spirit was given. One and all they received the ordinary graces of Holy Baptism, the birth of water, and the Holy Ghost . . . three thousand men and women were already baptized, and so had been made to drink into that one Spirit whose presence constitutes and binds into one that great and sacred body.' And again : 'No doubt the Holy Spirit of grace imparted through the outward administration of water and the holy words is . . . surely present with every baptized child.' 2 Still more clearly Mr. Hutchings writes : 'The Rite whereby the Spirit's Presence and the New Nature of Christ are imparted to the soul is that of Holy Baptism. It is the initiatory sacrament of the New Law of Grace. By means of it, when duly administered and received, the soul becomes the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This honour is not deferred, as some have thought, to Confirmation, but is the gift of Baptism. Our Lord declared to Nicodemus that "except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The Spirit, therefore, is bestowed at the entrance into the Church, and not reserved to "the Laying on of Hands.' "3 Nor are we allowed to suppose that the grace of Confirmation is the bestowal more especially of those gifts of the Spirit which are directly referred to in the prayer of the bishop in the Office of Confirmation. Mr. Hutchings writes : 'By Confirmation the Seven Gifts of the Spirit are increased, not, as it is sometimes represented, first given. Where the Spirit is, His gifts are. They are like the rays inseparable from the sun, and are given to us in Holy Baptism. They are a part of our spiritual endowment at the Font. There is an enlargement of their presence and operations in Confirmation.' 4 1 Such as I Corinth. vi. 19; Ephes. iv. 30, &c. 2 Administration of the Holy Spirit, pp. 45, 46, 230. 3 The Person and Work of the Holy Ghost, p. 171. 4 Ibid. p. 239. Nothing could be more clearly or definitely expressed, and the supporters of these opinions claim to have the support of Holy Scripture and of the great writers of the Early Church. Thus Mr. Hutchings points out that 'the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost' are connected together by St. Paul, and refers to the words of St. Peter on the Day of Pentecost: 'Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost' (pp. 171, 172). And it is common in this connexion to refer to the various passages where the Baptism of or in (iv) the Spirit is spoken of. Thus Bishop Moberly, referring to St. John i. 33, draws the conclusion that our Lord 'was to be the Baptizer in all the world with the Holy Ghost, was to keep in His own hands, however He might see fit to delegate to men the ordinary ministration of the outward part of Holy Baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost thereby conveyed' (p. 135). The Fathers, moreover, frequently speak of the Holy Spirit being given in Baptism. Thus St. Cyprian (to give a single instance) writes: Now it is by means of Baptism that the Holy Spirit is received; and so after being baptized and after receiving the Holy Spirit, men go on to drink of the Lord's chalice.' I And yet in spite of all this such a doctrine is unsatisfying. In the first place, if this is a true account of Baptism by itself, it makes it exceedingly difficult to give a satisfactory account of Confirmation. Simple people may well say, If we received the Holy Spirit at our Baptism why need we come to a second ordinance? Surely we have all that we require for spiritual life and growth already. And this difficulty becomes more apparent when we connect the subject with the great truth of the Personality of the Holy Spirit. He is not a mere influence or power, of which we can receive part at one time and part at another. It is true, indeed, that His gracious operations are various and manifold, and that He can and does act upon us in a different manner at different times. But since He is a Person, His Indwelling Presence must either exist or not exist. His gifts may be more abundantly bestowed at one time than at another, but if He Himself is personally present in the soul at all, He must be present in all His fulness. Those, indeed, who take this view are reduced to give an extremely meagre account of the benefits of Confirmation. Thus, Bishop Moberly writes : 'Then once more, by means of her sacredly empowered organs, |