The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-02-18 00:00:00

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entroiastical Intilligmce.

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- THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION IN THE
DIOCEsE OF SALISBURY.
• I However inoonvenient and unsatisfactory it may be
I to have • bishop who openly advocates doctrines which
: sire directly at variance with the received teaching of
• th• Church of England, yet there ere few occasions on
r which • clergyman, who differs from him, is brought
I into direct and necemary intercourse with hien. If be
• chooses to invest the consecration, or opening of
restored churches, with • solemnity quite gratuitous,
r and with • ritual which th• church herself does not
• provide, the clergy are not obliged to take part in ouch
exhibitions unless they choose, and even if they take
Piece in the ease of • church which is in the hands of •
; Protestant minister, be has it in him power greatly to
• modify such superstitious observances. If the clergy
arc legally compelled to attend Visitations and submit
' to the grievous initiation of • Charge, two nr throe
hours long, it has been declared in the Hotta' of
• Lords that such documents have no authority, whit*
• is some consolation. But there is one ordinance
; of nor church, at which, although they are not I
Lo all tiler; men would
gladly attend. In which all take a deep interest,
; and if any section of the clergy has shown more respect
for that ordinance than another, has beatowed more
care on ths preparation of candidates than another, has
been mom scrupulous as to the qualifications of those
candidates than ai other, it is that motion which is
Protestant, and especially jealous of any approach to
Popish ceremonies and doctrines, any rtion towards
the medimval hairmies which were thrown off at the
Reformation.
As the bishop of • diocese has to administer the rite
to all partied, it is only • matter of common sense and
common principle, that he should adhere as closely as
pc...DAe to the gorcios appointed by the church, so as to
give no reasonable cause of offense to any party is the
church. It is in evidence of aingalor infelicity of mind,
to say the least of it, when • prelate introduces or
seeks to introduce into a berries of general interest
certain peculiarities, which he must know will be •
stumbling-block is the way of Many oi his clergy
who love tha church, and value that ordinanee quite
as sincerely and as intelligently as himself. He
knows that his Protestant alert, ham never been
neglectful of it up to the pretent time, and if he
witness., a change in this respect, be must attribute it
solely to his own attempt to put • new, or rather an
old but Long ssplodled, interpretation on the service
itself.
In the first pima, while the Praver Book in the
Rubric simply diesels that " Whensoever the
Bishop shall give knowledge for children to be brought
unto him for their confirmation, the curate of every
parish shall either bring or send in writing, with his
hand subscribed thereto, the names of all sash persons, ,
ash, shall think fit to be presented to the bishop to be
confirmed ;" the modern rite of Sarum directs that •
the clergyman who presents them shell kneel in the
centre of them." If this ware all the change it would
not matter much; and clergymen, who may object to !
such unneceasery and unmeaning formality, would !
not make much fuss about the matter; but it is
not all.
In the Popish rite of Sarum, lately republished and
dedicated by permission to the Bishop of Fern.. the
Bishop prays for them who are to be confirmed thus:
"Bend unto thee* the Septiforso Spirit, the Holy
Paradate, from heaven." And again, "0 Hod, who I
didst give the Holy Ghost to thy Apostles, and didst
will that by them and their mammon it should be
delivered to the rest of the faithful; look propitiously
on the servios of our humility, and grant that the same
Holy Ghost coming down upon those whom foreheads we
hese anointed with the sacred chrism, and signed with I
the sign of a erns., may make the h•-arts of the name • '
Perfect temple of thine own glory, by vouchaafing to j
dwell therein." The Church of Rome believes and
teaches that, in the Orlinanee of Confirmation, the
bishop confers the Holy Ghost on the confirmed. The
Church of England neither believes nor teachse any. !
thing of the kind. Confirmation occupied the attention
of our Reformens very particularly, and they took pains
to strip it of all unacriptoral superstition, and all
! mirriotal assumption, and bring it back to what it
really was at lint intended to be. The words used by t
the bishop, in laying on of his hands, cannot by any
Ingenuity of man be distorted so as to imply any such •
supernatural gift ; it is simply the set of the church I
receletue the catechumens into communion, with
I prayer for their continuance in the faith unto !
I salvation. And in the collect after the act of confirms-
tiro% we are not left in doubt SA to the meaning of the
laying on of hands, but the Bkhop la &dig. cl to slay
• "upon whom (after the example of the Apostles) we
• have now laid nor hands, to certify them (by this sign)
of Thy favour and gracious goodness towards them.
Now we maintain that the additions to our church's
service in this diocese all tend, whether purposely or
not, to give a Popish tone to • Prot-stant ordinance.
Before the act of Coofirmation, is to be sung the
hymn, "Come Holy Ghost," he.. unobjectionable else-
where, very suspicions and therefor* objectionable hers.
But after the sot of Confirmation there is appointed to
be sung a hymn which for aboardity and for supersti-
tion is not to be equalled ; which contains whole
purges that can only be interpreted inns unsorip-
tural manner, if any meaning can be attached to them
at all. We print it at length :
I. The shadow of the Almighty's cloud
(him on the tents of kraal lay,
While drooping paused twelve banner§ proud,
Tit he Seise and lead the way.
2. Then to the desert brume unrolled,
Chrerly the waving pennons
Lion or eagle —each bright fold
A load-liter to a interior's eye.
a Si, should Thy champion., ore the strife,
By holy hand. Wershadowed kneel,
So. review for their charmed life,
Bear to the end Thy Spirit's seal.
t. Steady and purl as stars that beam
In middle heiven all mist above,
Seen deepest in the Donn stream :
Such Is their high courageous love:
S. And soft as pure, and warm as bright,
They bro.' upon life's psa eful hour,
As If the dove that guides their Sight
Shook from her plumes a downy shower.
6. Spirit of might and mreetnem too I
Now leading on the ware of God,
Now to green Hen of shale end Mow
Turning the waste Thy people trod
7. Draw, IT), Ghost, Thy sevenfold veil
Between on and the Its of youth;
Breathe, Holy Ghost, Thy Indenting gals,
Our tene'd brow lu age to soothe.
S. And, oft as sin and morrow tire,
1M hallovred hour do Thou renew,
When, beckoned up the awful choir,
By pastoral hands, toward Thee we drew;
9. When trembling at the mend rail
We hid our eyrie and held our breath,
Felt Thee how sir ma% nor hearts how frail,
And longed to own Thee to the death.
10. Far ever on our souls Ise traced
The. blessing deer, thiS dove-like hand.
A sheltering rock in Memory's waste,
O'ershaduwing all the weary land. Amen.
What shall we say to the 3rd versa? Here we have
the Bishop's "holy hands" compared to the aloud that
overshadowed the children of Israel, that is, the eet7
preemie of Jehovah I Well may those who can adopt
such ontrageous language as that look upon their lives
as "charmed .” and the imposition of their hands is
called the "Sirit's seal." language and Imagery quite
suitable to the "Rite of SWUM," het inconsistent with
the Church of England's simple and Scriptural minim
As for verve 4 and 5, they are harsolgies, bemuse they
are simple nonsense, and it it perhaps for this reason
that they are admired, because nobody can understand
them.
In the Bth verse, whatever the intention of the writer
may have boss, no one can doubts but that in the minds
of ninety-nine out of • hundred madidates the person
"Thee" is identified with the Bishop. But perbare the
most extraordinary instant* of poetry gone mad is the
last verse—the climax of thia ode to spisoopel Power.
Here we have the Bishop's hand described by the
epithet "dove-like," and what is the meaning of it? to
what does it allude? It means nothing lass than this,
that as the Holy Spirit descended once on the head of
the Redeemer in the form of • •love, so He now demands
on the heads of those oorfierned in the form of a human.
or perhaps superhuman, hand—the hand of the Bishop.
Can extravagance go further? can reverenes for eateleti.
astical authority approach nearer to profanity, if not
something worse. And it is thus, by the introduction
of this painful rubbish, that our simple service is made
to speak a language that is not it. own.
It may be said that shirr men are not obliged to use
this hymn; but belt remembered that the Confirmation
is usually held in the church of than who miff use it,
and the rest have no alternative but either to submit to !
their innovations, or stay away. And it Is no pleasing
tut to refuse to introduce what the Bishop wishes.
We have known a clergyman, no very Lnre churchman,
object to it, and the Bishon's Chaplain immediately
declare that his Lordship's address will he founded on
it. and no overbear any scruples; and when, as has been
the case, his lordship, in his aldreas announces to the
confirmed that he Ass bestowed on them "the
seven.fold rifts of the Spirit," the metamorphosis is
complete.
Already tokens are not wanting that submission to
them things will not be shown much longer. Already
SOMA of the clergy have informed his lorrlabip that they
will not bring any children to be confirmed : parents
are witbhol.!lng their children, and many of the clergy,
unwilling to refuse to admit children to the rite, will
decline being present. We regret that such • line of
conduct should be forced upon them, hot they have no
lineman re, and enlace his lordship restores the service
to its original form, he will find the rite of Confirmation
altogether dispensed with in many paitsbea