LECTURE III. THE VERY REVEREND WILFORD L. ROBBINS, D.D. Dean of All Saints Cathedral, Albany, N. Y. CONFIRMATION. I. THE doctrine of Confirmation is doubtless accounted, by popular estimate, one of the less difficult of the subjects which have to do with the Sacramental system of the Church. The definition of that doctrine in the authoritative formulas of the Church is meagre. An office for the administration of the rite is provided in the Prayer Book, but this office is not rich in doctrinal suggestiveness. The Twentyfifth Article refers incidentally to the subject, but in terms which confuse quite as much as they enlighten, and which leave us with what amounts to a mere negation. The Catechism says nothing of Confirmation. This silence naturally produces on many minds the impression that a subject thus passed over cannot, to say the least, be of prime importance. Meanwhile the ritual connected with the office is of a symbolic type very easily apprehended. It consists in a solemn benediction of the children of the Church by their chief pastor, accompanied by a prayer that God will strengthen them with gifts of grace for their hard warfare. Here I fancy the majority of Churchmen rest content. They do not seek to penetrate further into the mystery of the doctrine, perhaps esteem that there is no mystery to penetrate. The popular interpretation based upon this slender doctrinal foundation swings indeed, according to the bent of individual minds, between two rather widely divergent extremes. On the one hand the preface to the office is taken as key-note, and Confirmation becomes little more than a public profession of faith. The act of the child then presented to the Bishop is emphasized, and God has very little to do with the matter save as Hẹ must be accounted as accepting this willing proffer of a soldier's service. The Bishop's benediction is construed sentimentally, it is a most becoming symbol of God's gracious favor. On the other hand, the mind imbued with the sacramental character of the Church's life lays greater stress on the Divine aspect of the rite. God does the confirming, not man. Confirmation is a distinct spiritual crisis in life, thenceforward the soul is endued with a fulness of spiritual power which enables it to reach a higher plane of Christain attainment than was possible before. But even so, the exact nature of the gift bestowed, the relation of Confirmation to baptismal grace, its relative importance in the Christian life, these are questions which are left to answer themselves as best they may. The moment that one enters upon any serious inquiry, however, he finds that the subject so far from being simple is exceedingly complex, encompassed with peculiar difficulties whether it be approached on the historical, the ritual, or the doctrinal side. By reason of the paucity of reference in Anglican formularies, we are driven for information to Scripture and the testimony of the primitive Church, together with the general consensus of the Church Catholic of later ages. But while the Scripture basis is plain so far as it goes, immediately that the rite emerges as an accepted part of the sacramental system of the early Church in the writings of the Fathers, we find certain ritual additions esteemed essential of which there is no trace in Scripture. We find, moreover, that the language of the Fathers is, on the surface at least, capable of various constructions. Often they seem to attribute to Baptism what in other passages they state in no less decided terms to be the distinctive grace of Confirmation. Moreover, we find that a great change has passed over the use of the Western Church, namely, the deferring of Confirmation to a time. |