as a necessary precondition of receiving the Eucharist. At the same time, if a person died after Baptism, before it was possible to receive Imposition of hands, the Baptism was not regarded as rendered invalid by the omission, for in the Baptism itself the full remission of sins was supposed to be granted. The Confirmation was not necessary for such remission, but was necessary for the bestowal of the requisite sustaining grace for the Christian life. Cornelius in the present paragraph does not intend to imply that regenerating grace was not given in Novatian's Baptism. He means simply that the Holy Spirit was not given in that full measure in which it was given by the Laying on of hands, and which was necessary for growth in grace and Christian living. The Baptism was looked on in ordinary cases as in a sense negative-effecting the washing away of sin, the Laying on of hands as positive, confirming the gift of the Spirit. The former, therefore, was sufficient to save the man who died immediately thereafter; the latter was necessary to sustain the man who still remained in the world.'' Note C.-The subject of the relation of the gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation to the baptismal gift is in itself mysterious; and when such writers as Dr. Bright,2 Dr. Wirgman,3 and Mr. Darwell Stone, are opposed to the view here taken, and upheld by Dr. Mason,5 Bishop Kingdon, 4 1 The Church History of Eusebius, with notes by Arthur Cushman M'Giffert, VI. xliii. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. i. p. 289). 2 Morality in Doctrine. 3 The Doctrine of Confirmation. and Father Puller,1 one would not wish to dogmatise. This is not the place for a controversial treatment of arguments adduced by writers on the other side. But the author may be allowed to say that, after examination of the arguments, he is stablished in the conviction that, amid whatever apparent inconsistencies, early Christian writers, when they face the question of the characteristic gifts of Baptism and of Confirmation, attribute to the latter the gift of the indwelling of the Spirit of God. 1 What is the Distinctive Grace of Confirmation? (This essay is unhappily out of print.) 2 The question is ably discussed in articles in The Church Quarterly Review for October 1880, October 1886, April 1892, January 1898. CHAPTER VI THE RELATION OF CONFIRMATION TO HOLY COMMUNION WHATEVER view be taken of the exact relation of the gift of the Holy Ghost bestowed in Confirmation to His regenerating operation in Baptism, all who recognise Confirmation as completing and perfecting the baptismal initiation into the Body of Christ will perceive the propriety at least of Confirmation preceding admission to Holy Communion. This is so reasonable and natural an arrangement that, were it not frequently set aside in practice by two different sets of people, it might seem unnecessary to enlarge upon the rule. The direction of the Prayer Book carries on the general rule of the Catholic Church: "There shall be none admitted to the Holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed.' To treat this last clause as if it implied that readiness and desire for Confirmation in themselves constituted a ground for admission to Holy Communion is both unhistorical and, where the sacramental character of Confirmation is recognised, unreasonable. The clause is intended to provide for extraordinary cases-such as serious illness, or a long delay before Confirmation may be possiblewhere a person thus duly prepared may before the Laying on of hands be allowed to receive the Sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood.1 To interpret the rule as applying only to those who have been baptized and trained in the Church (as a rule for her own children'), as if others, whose Baptism, if valid, is irregular, and whose teaching has been defective, were to be granted admission to the full privileges and the holiest mysteries of the Church with less preparation than 1 'This is exactly conformable to the practice of the Primitive Church, which always ordered that Confirmation should precede the Eucharist, except where there was extraordinary cause to the contrary: such as was the case of clinical Baptism, or the absence of a bishop, or the like; in which cases the Eucharist is allowed before Confirmation. The like provision is made by our own Provincial Constitutions, as well as the rubric which is now before us, which admit none to communicate, unless in danger of death, but such as are confirmed, or at least have a reasonable impediment for not being confirmed. And the glossary allows no impediment to be reasonable but the want of a bishop near the place.'—Wheatly, Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. ix. ad fin. those who have been trained in her ways, is so unreasonable a position that it would seem as if it could only have been suggested as a way of justifying a lax practice. Such a practice or theory necessarily implies a low esteem of Confirmation, as if it were a mere reception into an organisation of Christian people on a profession of earnest purpose, corresponding with such ceremonies as 'giving the right hand of fellowship' in some Protestant bodies. It implies, moreover, a rash disregard of the dangers of schism, in that persons who have received Baptism at the hands of a minister not deriving his authority and commission from the Church by any recognised channels of transmission are treated as if, without any formal act of reconciliation or sanction, they had a claim to receive the Eucharist, which, among its many aspects, is a pledge of unity and a token of fellowship in the Christian Society.1 1 Bishop John Wordsworth of Salisbury, in his history of The Episcopate of Charles Wordsworth, Bishop of St. Andrews, concludes a discussion of the question of lay or sectarian Baptism thus: The true policy of the Church, and the most consistent with antiquity, seems to me to be to make much of Confirmation as a perfecting of Baptism, and to be very clear and distinct in our teaching on this head. It is this view of Confirmation as an admission into the full privileges of the Catholic Church that makes it important to insist upon it in such cases as a condition preceding Holy Communion, according to the teaching of our Prayer Book' (p. 63). See also note at the end of the chapter. |