and settled on the sole ground of expediency, and be left subject to such after changes or modifications, as the sage and judicious may consider advisable. But when you approach the sacred volume, no longer may you determine for yourselves, by presuming to annul what God hath established. No longer may you hesitate to put forth your best exertions, in endeavouring to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things. His ordinances are holy. His commands are imperative. They must be revered, and they must be obeyed. Wherever violated, wherever discarded in favour of the "witty inventions" of men, ignorance is the best excuse, the only admissible plea, and even this, in those cases merely, in which essentials are still preserved, and the heart is sensibly alive to the righteousness, which is of God, by faith.

And happy am I, in the belief, that this truly benign and merciful Being will not be severely strict to mark offences: Happy in believing, that, "if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." So that if he knows nothing of episcopacy; nothing of its divine authority; to condemn him, who, under different circumstances, would most gladly embrace it, comports not with the pleasing views I am delighted to cherish in relation to the goodness, and benevolence, and mercy of our Father in heaven.

It is for the obstinate and refractory, the presumptuous violators of his will and word, that he will hereafter muster all his terrors and visit them with his sore displeasure. For them, it will prove no slight affair, to have attempted all in their power to rob his Church of its glory, his ministers of their authority, and his gospel of its intended harmonious influence over the hearts of men. But, at the great day of account, a rigid inquiry will be instituted; if I may be permitted the expression, a solemn inquest held over the mangled body of Christ; When some such interrogations as these will be very apt to put down the high look and the proud heart of the scorner. Why did ye cast off the Zion of my choice, and the spouse of mine anointed? Why did ye cease to "walk about Zion and go round about her," to "tell the towers thereof," to "mark well her bulwarks" and "consider her palaces, that ye" might "tell it to the generation following?" Why did ye forsake her, the true bride of "the fountain of living waters," and in preference hew out to yourselves "cisterns, broken cisterns, that"

Could hold no water?" I gave ye my sabbaths and my sanctua ries, but ye have polluted them by your strifes and contentions; my Church, but ye have wasted it with heresy and schism; my ministering servants and ambassadors, but ye have lifted up the heel against them, and usurped their office; my gospel and its ordinances, but ye have moulded the one after the imagination of your own hearts, and renounced the other in compliance with human counsels and worldly prejudices. Yes, Brethren, interrogations and declarations, such as these, will doubtless probe the disimbodied spirit of many a wanton schismatick in the day of recompense, and no easy matter will it be found to disarm the arrows of the Almighty of their sting, and extenuate numerous flagrant departures from the written word.

In the number of these, I have ever regarded the rejection of the holy rite of confirmation, or the laying on of hands upon private Christians, as among the most extraordinary and unjustifiable. It is indeed a subject little thought of, and consequently little understood in this western world. Few, perhaps, have ever heard of such an institution, or if they have heard, it has been from the mouth of the reviler, branding it as one of the many remnants of papal superstition, originally devised during the dark ages, and surreptitiously brought to light in the hope and expectation of be wildering the intellects, and fettering the consciences of men. With what justice, with what sincere reverence for divine and heavenly things, I propose to examine, and great will be my disappointment, if a failure should ensue, in this attempt to establish the scriptural foundation of the rite, its repeated celebration by the Apostles, and its universal reception in the primitive Church.

To begin with its scriptural foundation; I know of but one passage where it is specifically spoken of in the abstract, or disconnected with its commemoration. But then so clearly and distinctly, that he who runs may read and understand. It is by St. Paul in the sixth chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews: St. Paul, who had previously rebuked certain disciples for their ignorance of "the first principles of the oracles of God;" who had accused them of becoming "such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat;" although it "belongeth to them that are of full age;" and who, from these premises, drew the inference, "Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection;

not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of LAYING ON OF HANDS, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." As if he had said: Let us no longer linger in the vestibule, when we should penetrate the interiour edifice of the gospel. Let us no longer be obliged to investigate and master its primary truths and fundamental axioms. These should be already familiar to our minds, and instead of requiring additional research, we had much better evince their practical influence on our lives, by relinquishing all doubtful disputations about their efficacy, and all subtle inquiries pertaining to their general obligation. As the rudiments of our Saviour's doctrine, we cannot fail to embrace them; we might as well renounce him for our teacher, as attempt to forego them; we must confide in them, as divinely ordained, and unsusceptible of change; so that not laying again their foundation, not daring to question their integrity, we must leave them as so many undoubted principles indelibly written upon our hearts, and happily enabling us to perfect our pursuit of religion, from a full persuasion of their elementary truth.

With this fair and natural construction of the Apostle's argument, I proceed to remark, that he enumerates the "laying on of hands," among the leading articles of the Christian faith. But lest it should be thought to refer to ministerial ordination, your attention is invited to a very plain and radical distinction. Ordination is a ceremony necessarily limited to such as devote themselves to the work of the ministry; it has not the universal application involved by the language of Paul: Who addresses himself to the great body of his countrymen, and not to the clerical orders; who invites them, without any discrimination whatever, as believers, and not as evangelists, to leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ. There is consequently, no reasonable pretence for singling out one article from the residue, and confining its operation to any one description of men. In this case, it would be, not so much one of the constituent principles of the gospel, as the prescribed mode of desig nating the authorized teachers of those principles.

Besides, in the passage before us, it is associated with subjects, having the most comprehensive signification. Repentance and faith are required of all. Baptism is an ordinance, from which no Christian can rightfully plead exemption. The resurrection of the

dead and eternal judgment are events in which all mankind will hereafter participate. Confirmation or the laying on of hands must therefore, by the rule of analogy, be a doctrine of equal obligation and extent. For no other reason was it classed with principles, constituting the basis of our religion; for no other reason was it enumerated immediately after baptism, but to show its proper place in the order of events. As faith follows repentance, and an eternal judgment, the resurrection of the dead; so does, and should, the laying on of hands succeed to the reception of baptism.

But not to detain you longer with inductions however legitimate, let us advert, Brethren, to Apostolick usage, to facts, which have ever been considered stubborn things, and that will be found to hear me out most triumphantly in this course of reasoning. In the eighth chapter of the Acts, it appears that when Philip, one of the seven deacons, "went down to the city of Samaria," "preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." And still, something more was deemed essential to the completion of their Christian character. Nor is the reason witheld. It was because the Holy Ghost "was fallen upon none of them; only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." Hence, "when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost." And then, continues the inspired writer, "then LAID THEY THEIR HANDS on them, and they received the Holy Ghost."

Could any narrative be more satisfactory? Both men and women were the subjects of baptism, and of the subsequent rite. It could not, therefore, be the same with ministerial ordination. Is it possible for any history, written for our instruction, to be more minute and circumstantial, or to exhibit a more practical commentary on the sixth of Hebrews? St. Paul, in that chapter, speaks of six distinct principles of the doctrine of Christ, and here were two of them publickly administered in the precise order, in which they are there arranged; the baptism of private Christians, by Philip the deacon, being almost immediately followed by the laying on of the hands of Peter and John, the Apostles,

Nor are we to wonder at the alacrity of their attendance. It was the first attempt to spread the doctrines of the risen Saviour beyond the borders of Judea, and this circumstance rendered it highly im portant, that every thing connected with the transaction should assume the form of an established precedent, and as such be handed down to future ages, as worthy of all imitation. But as Philip was only a subordinate officer in the Church, he could not celebrate the rite of confirmation, and the Apostles instantly deputed two of their number to remedy the deficiency; in what they considered a pressing exigency, to celebrate this holy ordinance. So that notwithstanding the neglect and practical contempt, which it sustains in this eventful age, at the hands of the seceding Churches; believe me, Brethren, it should be with us a source of unfeigned pleasure to reflect, that the first mission ever undertaken by the Apostles, in their character of evangelists, was for the express purpose of imposing hands upon the baptized converts of Samaria.

Neither let us be persuaded to think ourselves released from its reception on the ground, that the course pursued was extraordinary in its character, and restricted in its design. For if this be true How could the laying on of hands be termed one of " the first principles of the oracles of God?" How are we to account for its being again resorted to in the instance of the twelve disciples of John, whom St. Paul met at Ephesus, and directly inquired, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had LAID HIS HANDS upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied."

See ye not therefore, Brethren, how completely the whole tenour of this transaction corresponds with the preceding? In that, baptism was followed by confirmation and the descent of the Holy Ghost. So in this. In that, it was an inferiour minister, who bap tized and Apostolick hands, that confirmed. So in this. Paul hav