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after baptism we are strengthened, and so the benefits of regeneration are sufficient for sufficient for those who presently leave this world; but to them who are to live in it, the auxiliary aids of the confirmation are also necessary. Regeneration by itself alone saves those, who are presently received in peace into a better world; but confirmation arms and prepares those, who are reserved to fight the battles and combats of this world. He that after baptism goes immaculate, with the innocence which he has acquired, to death, is confirmed by death; because he cannot sin after death. If here we shall ask, what advantage the Apostles had by the coming of the Holy Spirit after the passion and resurrection of Christ? the Lord himself evidently shews us, saying, 'I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now: howbeit, when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth.' You see, when the Holy Ghost is given, the heart of a believer is dilated and enlarged with prudence and constancy. Before the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Apostles were terrified even to the denial of Christ; but after his visitation they were armed with a contempt of death, even to suffer martyrdom for his sake. Thus it is that we have redemption by Christ, but the Holy Ghost gives us the gift of spiritual wisdom, by which we are illuminated, edified, in structed, and consummated to perfection." This is the account which the Ancients generally give of the original of imposition of hands: which ceremony is now wholly laid aside and disused in the Roman Church, though they pretend to make another sacrament of confirmation. But this only by the way.

SECT. 7.—What Opinion the Ancients had of the Necessity of Confirmation.

From the account given by this author, we clearly learn, what the Ancients supposed confirmation superadded to the benefit of regeneration. The new-birth gave innocence and pardon of sins; but the invocation of the Spirit added wisdom and strength to preserve and establish men in innocence to perfection. He also shews us, what opinion the Ancients had of the necessity of confirmation. It was not absolutely the same as that of baptism. For if men died

immediately after baptism, without imposition of hands, they were saved by their innocence which they had acquired in baptism: they needed no other confirmation but death, which was a security against all other dangers. Confirmation was only necessary to those, who were to live and fight with the world and invisible powers. And this is the sense of all other writers, who speak the highest of the necessity of the confirmation. The Council of Eliberis having said,'" that it was necessary for the bishop to consummate those by his benediction, who were baptised by deacons ;" adds, " yet if any one die before this can be done, he is justified by the faith which he professed in baptism." And so the author of the Apostolical Constitutions says, "If there be neither oil nor chrism, the water alone is sufficient both for the unction of the Holy Ghost, and the seal of the covenant." By which we are to mollify that other harsh expression of his in another place, where he says, "that baptism without this imposition of hands, and prayer of the priest, is only a bodily washing, like that of the Jews, purging the filth of the body, but not of the soul." For unless some very candid interpretation be put upon this expression, it will be highly injurious and derogatory to the saving power of baptism, which purges away sin by a spiritual regeneration. And therefore it is but reasonable to let the harsh expressions of this author be interpreted by himself, when he owns that the water of baptism is sufficient to answer all the ends of chrism or confir mation, where that is omitted not by any contempt, but for want of opportunity to receive it. And this is plainly St. Jerom's meaning, when he says, " that though the practice

1 Con. Eliber. can. lxxvii. Si quis diaconus regens plebem, sine episcopo vel presbytero, aliquos baptizaverit, episcopus eos per benedictionem perficere debebit. Quod si antè de seculo recesserint, sub fide, quâ quis crediberit, poterit esse justus. 2 Const. Apost. lib. vii. c. xxii. Εἰ δε μήτε ἔλαιον ἦ, μήτε μύρον, ἀρκεῖ ὕδωρ, καὶ πρὸς χρίσιν και σφραγίδα. 3 Constit. Apost. lib. vii. c. 44. Hieron. cont. Lucifer. c. iv. Quòd si obloqueris, Quarè in Ecclesiâ baptizatus, nisi per manus episcopi non accipiat Spiritum Sanctum, quem nos asserimus in vero baptismate tribui ? disce hanc observationem ex eâ auctoritate descendere, quòd post ascensum Domini Spiritus Sanctus descendit. Multis in locis id tamen esse factum reperimus ad honorem potiùs sacerdotii, quàm ad legis necessitatem. Alioquin si episcopi tantùm imprecatione Spiritus Sanctus defluit, lugendi sunt

of imposition of hands descends from the Acts of the Apostles; yet in many places it was observed rather for the honour of the chief priesthood, than for any absolute necessity of the thing. For otherwise, if the Spirit was only obtained by the prayer of the bishop, those men must be in a deplorable condition, that were baptised in villages and castles and remote places by presbyters and deacons, and died before the bishop could come to visit them.” All therefore that was necessary to salvation, was conferred in baptism, which ministered such a portion of the Spirit, as was sufficient to cleanse men from sin, and qualify them for eternal life. So that when some of the Ancients say, "That baptism does not minister the Spirit, which was only given by imposition of hands in confirmation," as Cornelius pleads in his letter against Novatian; and Tertullian, who says, "that we do not obtain the Holy Ghost in baptism, but are only cleansed in the water, and prepared for the Holy Ghost;" they are to be understood, as meaning only that the Holy Ghost is not given in that full measure at baptism, as afterward by imposition of hands. They do not deny, that baptism grants men remission of sins by the power of the Holy Ghost; but only, that there are some further effects and operations of the Holy Spirit, which are not ordinarily conferred on men but by the subsequent invocation of the Spirit, the increase of which men were to desire, and to receive imposition of hands in order to obtain it. In which sense it is said in the Gospel, "that the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because the Apostles had not yet received that plentiful effusion of it in the gift of tongues, which they afterwards had on the day of Pentecost," though they had before received such a measure of it, as both enabled them to work several sorts of miracles, and also qualified them in every respect for the kingdom of Heaven.

qui in Villulis aut in castellis aut in remotioribus locis per presbyteros et diaconos baptizati ante dormierunt, quàm ab episcopis inviserentur.

1 Ap. Euseb. lib. vi. cap. xliii. Τετε μὴ τυχών, πῶς ἂν το 'Αγίω Πνευ ματος ἔτυχε. Tertul. de Bapt. cap. vi. Non quòd in aquâ Spiritum Sanctum consequamur, sed in aquâ emundati, sub angelo Spiritui Sancto præparamur.

VOL. III.

Y

SECT. 8.-How they punished those that neglected it.

But though the Ancients did not think this imposition of hands so absolutely necessary, as that the want of it should exclude those, who were baptised, from the kingdom of Heaven: yet they thought fit to punish the neglect of it, by setting some marks of disgrace and public censure upon such, as voluntarily and carelessly omitted it, when they had opportunity to receive it. Such men were ordinarily denied the privilege of ecclesiastical promotion and holy orders. As appears from the objection made against Novatian, "that he ought not to be ordained, because being baptised privately with clinic baptism, he had afterward neglected to receive his consummation from the hands of the bishop, which he ought to have done by the laws of the Church," and to this purpose the Council of Neo-Cæsarea' has a canon, forbidding such to be ordained; which is made part of the code of the Universal Church. The Council of Eliberis also excludes such, as have not " Lavacrum integrum," their own baptism completed by imposition of hands, from the privilege of giving baptism to others, which in cases of necessity they allowed to all other laymen. So far they thought fit to discountenance the contempt and neglect of confirmation, though they neither esteemed it a distinct sacrament from baptism, nor of absolute necessity to salvation, but only as a proper means to strengthen men in their Christian warfare.

CHAP. IV.

Of the remaining Ceremonies of Baptism following Confirmation.

SECT. 1.-Persons newly baptised, clothed in White Garments.

MUCH about the same time as the unction of confirmation was administered to persons newly baptised, they were also

Euseb. lib vi. c. 43.

2 Con. Eliber. can. 38.

* Con. Neo Cæsar. can. 12.

clothed in white garments. In the Latin Church it came immediately before confirmation; but in the Greek Church it seems to have followed after. For Cyril of Jerusalem speaks of it as following the unction.' This was to represent their having "put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new man Christ Jesus." Hence they were called Aεvxeiμovõvτes, et Grex Christi Candidus et niveus, the white flock of Christ, as we find in Lactantius and many others. Palladius, in the Life of St. Chrysostom,3 notes it particularly, as a great piece of barbarity in Arcadius, that, when St. Chrysostom's presbyters in his exile had baptised three thousand persons at one festival, the Emperor sent his soldiers to disperse them, as they were λευχειμονέντες, clothed in their white garments. This was otherwise called, the garment of Christ, and the mystical garment. For so Socrates and Sozomen speaking of the ordination of Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople, which was immediately given him after his baptism, say, "He was ordained whilst he had his mystical garment on," meaning this white robe, which had just before been given him at his baptism. St. Jerom also, writing to Fabiola, seems to allude to this, when he says, "We are to be washed with the precepts of God, and when we are prepared for the garment of Christ, putting off our coats of skins, we shall put on the linen garment, that hath nothing of death in it, but is all white, that rising out of the waters of baptism, we may gird about our loins with truth, and cover the former filthiness of our

Cyril. Catech. Myst. iv. n. 2.

χρὴ λευχειμονεῖν διαπαντὸς, &c.

Ενδυσάμενος τὰ πνευματικὰ λευκὰ, 2 Lactant. Carmen de Resur. Dom.

Fulgentes animas vestis quoque candida signat,

Et grege de niveo gaudia pastor habet.

-Moschus Prat. Spir. cap. ccvii. 'Idóvres aúтýv λevкopopšσai, &c. Paulin. Ep. 12. ad Sever. p. 145.

Unde parens sacro ducit de fonte sacerdos

Infantes niveos corpore, corde, habitu.

Pallad. Vit. Chrysost. cap. ix.

* Socrat. lib. v. cap. viii.

Sozom. lib. vii. cap. viii. Tv μvsikýv kodñta ëтi ýμpieoμévos, &c. Hieron. Ep. cxxviii. ad Fabiol. Præceptis Dei lavandi sumus, et cum parati ad indumentum Christi, tunicas pelliceas deposuerimus, tunc induemur veste lineâ, nihil in se mortis habente, sed totâ candidâ, ut de baptismo consurgentes, cingamus lumbos in veritate, &c.

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