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INTRODUCTION.

THE Rite of Confirmation may be considered as a connecting link between the two sacraments. There is a manifest propriety in calling upon those who have been baptized in their infancy, to ratify and confirm all that was then done in their name before they are admitted to full church-membership in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And, accordingly, in the service appointed for the occasion, confirmation is defined to be "the laying on of hands upon those that are baptized and come to years of discretion;" while the rubric at the close evidently im

plies that the ceremony is intended as an introduction to the Table of the Lord. In this point of view the Rite of Confirmation becomes invested with a most solemn character. It is not a service, in which we are called to play an unconscious part; but one which demands the free exercise of our full powers as reasonable, spiritual, and accountable beings; or our joining in it will be worse than mockery. It is a ratification, on our part, of that ordinance respecting which the apostle says, "Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized into his death! Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death, that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness

even so

1

of life." It is a preparation for that ordinance of which he has said, "Whosoever

1 Rom. vi. 3, 4, &c.

shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." And "he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." All, therefore, that is required in those that come to Baptism and the Lord's Supper, is required in those that come to be confirmed-" Repentance, whereby they forsake sin, and faith, whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of God." Such a simple trust in " God's mercy through Christ," that they trust in nothing else, and such "a thankful remembrance of his death," as may "constrain" them "to live no longer to themselves but to him who died for them, and rose again." Preparation for Confirmation implies all this, or it means nothing. Yet it is much to be lamented that numbers come to the ordinance without consideration,

1 1 Cor. xi. 27, 29.

in the blind expectation of some benefit, they know not what; or at least with a cold and correct understanding of the matter, without those fervent workings of the heart which "he who searcheth the heart" requires. The object of the following pages is to obviate these evils. In the first place, to caution and to warn; in the next, to animate and encourage; to bring my young readers to pause and consider before they offer themselves as Candidates for Confirmation, as a thing of course; to consider what it is that they are about to do; and then, if they still determine, to do it with all their heart.

These

It does not form part of my object to enter into the history of Confirmation or into details of faith and practice. must be sought elsewhere; the best works for the purpose with which I am acquainted are the Tracts of the Rev. D. Wilson (now Bishop of Calcutta) on Confirmation and the Lord's Supper, Hatchard; and the Rev. C.

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