chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth; and if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" If with all your shortcomings and downfallings, you are honestly endeavouring as dutiful children to serve a kind and merciful Father, you are still objects of his care; and there is one at his right hand who is to us our All in All, our elder brother, Jesus Christ the righteous, to be your advocate and to plead your cause. Fear not then, ye who are true of heart, but have filial confidence in your heavenly Father. Be sure He loves you, even while He chastens you. Approach Him with reverential boldness; cast out servile fear; you are not a slave but a child; tell your heavenly Father of your faults; tell Him of your difficulties; tell Him your desires; open your whole heart and soul to Him; for as you love the prattling of your little ones, so does your Father which is in heaven, He who permits you, awful as He is in Himself, to approach with the word, Abba, Father, on your lips, delight to hear the prayers and supplications of those who are in Christ one with Himself. To distrust Him is sin. Tell Him all you desire in prayer: serve Him by doing with all your might what your hand findeth to do; do homage to Him as your King as well as your Father, your paternal sovereign in the high services of his sanctuary: and with confidence draw nigh to Him when He spreads his feast before you on his holy table,-where He who was given to die for your sins, is offered to you as your spiritual food and

sustenance.

SERMON V.

ON CONFIRMATION.

HEB. vi. 2.

The doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands.

THAT the Church has power to appoint ordinances, will, I suppose, be generally admitted: and it is with reference not only to judicial but also to devotional acts, that our Lord's promise, as recorded in the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, was delivered, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven."

An ordinance is appointed to be a means of grace: if our Lord ratifies in heaven what His Church does upon earth, then to expect the grace which an ordinance is appointed to convey is religion: if, on the other hand, by proper authority in the Church, an ordinance is abolished, still to observe it is an act of superstition.

For a member of the Church of England to expect grace from such an ordinance as Extreme Unction would be superstition: it was once, that is, before the Reformation, an ordinance of our Church; but from that ordinance they who have authority in the English Church have loosed us; and their act on earth is ratified in heaven: we should act in a Judaizing spirit if we were to seek benefit from it.

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But Confirmation is still an ordinance of the English Church it is, as it always has been, the ordinance appointed to convey to the souls of the baptized strengthening grace. Strengthening grace is the inward and spiritual gift, the imposition of hands the outward and visible sign.

It is an ordinance which was appointed in the Church at a very early period; you have heard in our text how it was regarded by the Apostle to the Hebrews, as connected with the principles of the doctrine of Christ,-how it is placed in juxta-position to Baptism. Bishop Taylor, indeed, argues from this circumstance, that it must have a divine institution, or otherwise St. Paul would scarcely have mentioned it as among the doctrines of Christianity.

As we know that at first it was administered immediately after Baptism, at all events in the case of adults, there can be no doubt that it is to this ordinance that reference is made in our text. It was, undoubtedly, an ordinance observed by the Apostles; for in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read, that when the Apostles that were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, and were baptized, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come, prayed, and laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost. This is an exact description of what takes place at Confirmation. Philip, a deacon, bap tized the Samaritans: after this, two chief pastors went down to lay hands upon, or, as we say, to confirm them and God the Holy Ghost, by visibly descending upon the persons confirmed, by that very act declared that our Lord's promise was fulfilled; and what was done by the Church on earth, in instituting this ordinance, was ratified in heaven.

In the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, we find that St. Paul, having met twelve disciples at Ephesus, who had

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been baptized with John's Baptism, first caused them to be baptized with Christ's Baptism-that Baptism in which the Holy Ghost regenerates the baptized, and then laid his hands on them, i. e. confirmed them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

These facts throw light upon the words of our text. It is certainly true that the ceremony of Laying on of Hands was and is observed on other occasions; in the ordination of the clergy, for instance; in consecrating the elements in the Lord's Supper; and, anciently, whenever a benediction was given, as in the Visitation of the Sick or the Absolution of Penitents. But the Apostle here speaks of what concerns not merely persons in certain conditions, but every member of the Church,-what concerns them all, as does Baptism. In the laying on of hands in ordination, the clergy only are concerned; in laying on of hands when the sick are blessed, the sick only are concerned; in absolving penitents, those only who are under the censures of the Church. It remains, therefore, that, without excluding these, the Apostle refers to the other office, in which the same ceremony was observed, namely, Confirmation So strong, indeed, is this passage to our purpose, that Calvin himself is compelled to own "that this one place doth abundantly witness that the original rite was from the Apostles."

The Laying on of Hands was, indeed, in the Apostles' time, attended by miraculous gifts. But so also were their preaching and their prayers: miracles were wrought by the Holy Ghost, in the first instance, to give a divine sanction to the ordinances of the Church; and to prove that He could and would, according to our Lord's promise, be really and indeed present with the Ministers of God in all their ministrations; that He would supply the inward and spiritual grace, when penitent and faithful hearts had recourse to the outward and visible sign: and when

enough was done to establish this point, miracles gradually ceased. From what the Apostle says, in the twelfth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, it does not appear that all were endowed with miraculous powers. And if the cessation of miracles is no proof that preaching and praying are unnecessary, it can be no proof that the Church is wrong in continuing the ordinance of Confirmation, or the Laying on of Hands.

From their days to ours, through all generations of the Church, this ordinance has continued. The early Church inherited it from the Apostles. In allusion to a passage I have already quoted, St. Cyprian remarks, "The same thing that was done by Peter and John, is still done among us. They who are baptized are brought to the rulers of the Church, that, by prayer and the laying on of hands, they may obtain the Holy Ghost, and be perfected with the seal of Baptism." Tertullian, who flourished about eighty years after the Apostle St. John, observes, that it was the "practice of the Church, after Baptism, to lay on hands, by blessing and prayer inviting the Holy Spirit, who graciously descends from the Father, on bodies cleansed and blessed by Baptism."

By the early Christians, indeed, as Baptism was called the enlightening, so Confirmation was styled the sealing of Christians: hence, when the Apostle, in the 13th verse of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, speaking of Christ, saith, "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise," i. e. the promised Spirit, he was always considered to be speaking in reference to Confirmation. To which he most probably refers also, 2 Cor. i. 21, "Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."

Perhaps the word sealing' refers to the practice