and Isaac did walk; God, which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, and the Angel which hath delivered me from evil, bless these children." a The prophets, which healed diseases by prayer, used therein the selfsame ceremony. And therefore, when Eliseus willed Naaman to wash himself seven times in Jordan for cure of his foul disease, it much offended him: "I thought," saith he, "with myself, surely the man will come forth and stand, and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and put his hand on the place, to the end he may so heal the leprosy."b In consecrations and ordinations of men unto rooms of divine calling, the like was usually done from the time of Moses to Christ. Their suits, that came unto Christ for help, were also tendered, oftentimes, and are expressed in such forms or phrases of speech as show that he was himself an observer of the same custom. He which, with imposition of hands and prayer, did so great works of mercy for restoration of bodily health, was worthily judged as able to effect the infusion of heavenly grace into them whose age was not yet depraved with that malice which might be supposed a bar to the goodness of God towards them. "They brought him, therefore, young children, to put his hands upon theme," and pray. After the ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that which he had begun continued in the daily practice of his Apostles, whose prayer and imposition of hands were a mean whereby thousands became partakers of the wonderful gifts of God. The Church that such as had received from Christ a promise believed in him, these signs and tokens should follow them: "to cast out devils, to speak with tongues, to drive away serpents, to be free from the harm which any deadly poison could work, and to cure diseases by imposition of hands:" which power, common at the first in a manner unto all believers, all believers had not power to derive or communicate unto all other men, but whosoever was the instrument of God to instruct, convert, and baptize them, the gift of miraculous operations by the power of the Holy Ghost, they had not but only at the Apostles' own hands.b For which cause Simon Magus, perceiving that power to be in none but them, and presuming that they which had it might sell it, sought to purchase it of them with money.c And as miraculous graces of the Spirit continued after the Apostles' times ("for," saith Irenæus, "they which are truly his disciples do in his name, and through grace received from him, such works for the benefit of other men as every of them is by him enabled to work; some cast out devils, insomuch as they which are delivered from wicked spirits have been thereby won unto Christ, and do constantly persevere in the Church and society of faithful men; some excel in the knowledge of things to come, in the grace of visions from God, and the gift of prophetical prediction; some by laying on their hands restore them to health which are grievously afflicted with sickness; yea, there are that of dead have been made alive, and have afterwards many a Mark, xvi. 17. b Acts, xix. 6. d Iren. lib. ii. cap. 32. years conversed with us. What should I say? The gifts are innumerable wherewith God hath enriched his Church throughout the world, and by virtue whereof, in the name of Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Church every day doth many wonders for the good of nations, neither fraudulently nor in any respect of lucre and gain to herself, but as freely bestowing as God on her hath bestowed his divine graces"); so it no where appeareth that ever any did, by prayer and imposition of hands, since the Apostles' times, make others partakers of the like miraculous gifts and graces, as long as it pleased God to continue the same in his Church, but only bishops, the Apostles' successors, for a time even in that power. St. Augustine acknowledgeth that such gifts were not permitted to last always, lest men should wax cold with the commonness of that, the strangeness whereof at the first inflamed them"; which words of St. Augustine, declaring how the vulgar use of those miracles was then expired, are no prejudice to the like extraordinary graces more rarely observed in some either then or of later days. 4. Now, whereas the successors of the Apostles had but only for a time such power as by prayer and imposition of hands to bestow the Holy Ghost; the reason wherefore confirmation, nevertheless, by prayer and laying on of hands, hath hitherto always continued, is for other very special benefits which the Church thereby enjoyeth. The fathers every where impute unto it that gift or grace of the Holy Ghost, not which maketh us first Christian men, but, when we are made such, assisteth us in all virtue-armeth us against temptation and a August. de Vera Relig. cap. 25. sin. For, after baptism administered, "there followeth," saith Tertullian, " "imposition of hands, with invocation and invitation of the Holy Ghost, which willingly cometh down from the Father to rest upon the purified and blessed bodies, as it were acknowledging the waters of baptism a fit seat."a St. Cyprian, in more particular manner alluding to that effect of the Spirit which here especially was respected, "How great," saith he, "is that power and force wherewith the mind is here (he meaneth in baptism) enabled, being not only withdrawn from that pernicious hold which the world before had of it, not only so purified and made clean that no stain or blemish of the enemy's invasion doth remain, but over and besides (namely, through prayer and imposition of hands) becometh yet greater, yet mightier in strength, so far as to reign with a kind of imperial dominion over the whole band of that roaming and spoiling adversary."b As much is signified by Eusebius Emisenus, saying, "The Holy Ghost, which descendeth with saving influence upon waters of baptism, doth there give that fulness which sufficeth for innocency, and afterwards exhibiteth in confirmation an augmentation of further grace." The Fathers, therefore, being thus persuaded, held confirmation as an ordinance apostolic always profitable in God's Church, although not always accompanied with equal largeness of those external effects which gave it countenance at the first. d C the The cause of severing confirmation from baptism b Cypr. Epist. 2. ad Donat. c. 2. a Tertull. de Baptis. Euseb. Emis. Ser. de Pentec. e Heb. vi. 2. (for most commonly they went together) was sometimes in the minister, which, being of inferior degree, might baptize, but not confirm, as in their case it came to pass whom Peter and John did confirm, whereas Philip had before baptized them; and in theirs of whom St. Jerome hath said, "I deny not but the custom of the churches is that the bishop should go abroad, and, imposing his hands, pray for the gift of the Holy Ghost on them whom presbyters and deacons far off in lesser cities have already baptized." Which ancient custom of the Church St. Cyprian groundeth upon the example of Peter and John in the eighth of the Acts before alleged. "The faithful in Samaria," saith he, “had already obtained baptism: only that which was wanting Peter and John supplied, by prayer and imposition of hands, to the end the Holy Ghost might be poured upon them. Which also is done amongst ourselves, when they which be already baptized are brought to the prelates of the Church to obtain by our prayer and imposition of hands the Holy Ghost." By this it appeareth that when the ministers of baptism were persons of inferior degree, the bishops did after confirm whom such had before baptized. Sometimes they which by force of their ecclesiastical calling might do as well the one as the other, were, notwithstanding, men whom heresy had disjoined from the fellowship of true believers. Whereupon, when any man by them baptized and confirmed came afterwards to see and renounce their there error, some churches hot contention about the manner of grew in very a Acts, viii. 12-17. b Hieron. advers. Lucif. cap. 4. C Cypr. Epist. 73. ad Jubaianuın. |