ΧΡΙΣΙΣ ΤΕΛΕΙâ—ΤΙΚΗ A DISCOURSE OF Confirmation For the use of the Clergy and Instruction of the People of Ireland By Jeremy Lord Bishop of Down Publish'd by Order of Convocation AND Dedicated to His Grace James Duke Marquess and Earl of Ormonde c. Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland DUBLIN Printed by John Crooke Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and are to be sold by Samuel Dancer next door to the Beare and Ragged-staffe in Castle-street 1663. To His Grace James Duke Marquess and Earl of Ormonde Earl of Ossory and Brecknock Viscount Thurles Lord Baron of Arclo and Lanthony Lord of the Regalities and Liberties of the County of Tipperary Chancellor of the University of Dublin Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of the County of Sommerset one of the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy-Councils of His Majesties Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Lord Steward of His Majesties Houshold Gentleman of His Majesties Bed-Chamber and Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter May it please Your Grace IT is not any Confidence that I have Dexterously performed this charge that gives me the boldness to present it to Your Grace I have done it as well as 〈◊〉 For I took not this task upon my self but was entreated to it by them who have power to Command me But yet it is very necessary that it should be addressed to Your Grace who are as Sozomen said of Theodosius Certaminum Magister orationum Judex constitutus You are appointed the great Master of our arguings and are most fit to be the Judge of our Discourses especially when they do relate and pretend to publick Influence and Advantages to the Church We all are Witnesses of Your Zeal to promote true Religion and every day find You to be a Great Patron to this very poor Church which groans under the Calamities and permanent effects of a War acted by Intervals for above 400. years such which the Intermedial Sun-shines of Peace could but very weakly repair our Churches are still demolished much of the Revenues irrecoverably swallowed by Sacriledge and digested by an unavoidable impunity Religion infinitely divided and parted into formidable Sects the People extreamly ignorant and wilful by inheritance superstitiously irreligious and uncapable of reproof and amidst these and very many more inconveniences it was greatly necessary that God should send us such a KING and he send us such a Viceroy who wedds the Interests of Religion and joynes them to his heart For we do not look upon your Grace only as a favourer of the Churches Temporal interest though even for that the Souls of the relieved Clergy do daily bless you neither are You our Patron only as the Cretans were to Homer or the Alenadae to Simonides Philip to Theopompus or Severus to Oppianus but as Constantine and Theodosius were to Christians that is desirous that true Religion should be promoted that the interest of Souls should be advanced that Truth should flourish and wise Principles 〈…〉 In order to which excellent purposes it is hoped that the reduction of the Holy Rite of Confirmation into use and Holy practice may contribute some very great moments For besides that the great usefulness of this Ministry will greatly endear the Episcopal order to which that I may use S. Hierom's words if there be not attributed a more than common Power and Authority there will be as many Schisms as Priests it will also be a means of endearing the Persons of the Prelates to their Flocks when the People shall be convinced that there is or may be if they please a perpetual entercourse of Blessings and Love between them when God by their Holy hands refuses not to give to the People the earnest of an eternal inheritance when by them he blesses and that the grace of our Lord Jesus and the Love of God and the Communication of his Spirit is conveyed to all Persons capable of the grace by the Conduct and on the hands and prayers of their Bishops And indeed not only very many single Persons but even the whole Church of Ireland hath need of Confirmation We have most of us contended for false Religions and un-Christian propositions and now that by Gods mercy and the prosperity and piety of his Sacred Majesty the Church is broken from her cloud and many are reduc'd to the true Religion and righteous worship of God we cannot but call to mind how the Holy Fathers of the Primitive Church often have declar'd themselves in Councils and by a perpetual Discipline that such Persons who are return'd from Sects and Heresies into the Bosom of the Church should not be rebaptiz'd but that the Bishops should impose hands on them in Confirmation It is true that this was design'd to supply the defect of those Schismatical Conventicles who did not use this Holy rite For this Rite of Confirmation hath had the fate to be oppos'd only by the Schismatical and Puritan Parties of old the Novatians or Cathari and the Donatists and of late by the Jesuits and new Cathari the Puritans and Presbyterians the same evil spirit of contradictions keeping its course in the same channel and descending regularly amongst Men of the same principles But therefore in the restitution of a Man or company of Men or a Church the Holy Primitives in the Council of C. P. Laodicea and Orange thought that to confirm such persons was the most agreeable Discipline not only because such persons did not in their little and dark assemblies use this rite but because they alwayes greatly wanted it For it is a sure Rule in our Religion and is of an eternal truth that they who keep not the Unity of the Church have not the Spirit of God and therefore it is most fit should receive the ministery of the spirit when they return to the bosom of the Church that so indeed they may keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace And therefore Asterius Bishop of Amasia compares Confirmation to the ring with which the Father of the Prodigal adorn'd his returning Son Datur nempe prodigo post stolam annulus nempe Symbolum intelligibilis signaculi spiritus And as the Spirit of God the Holy Dove extended his mighty wings over the Creation and hatch'd the new-born World from its seminal powers to Light and Operation and Life and Motion so in the Regeneration of the souls of Men he gives a new being and heat and life Procedure and Perfection Wisdom and Strength and because that this was ministred by the Bishops hands in Confirmation was so firmly believ'd by all the Primitive Church therefore it became a Law and an Vniversal practice in all those ages in which Men desir'd to be sav'd by all means The Latin Church and the Greek alwayes did use it and the Blessings of it which they believ'd consequent to it they expressed
in a holy prayer which in the Greek Euchologion they have very anciently and constantly used Thou O Lord the most compassionate and Great King of all graciously impart to this Person the seal of the gift of thy Holy Almighty and adorable spirit For as an Ancient Greek said truly and wisely The Father is reconcil'd and the Son is the Reconciler but to them who are by Baptism and Repentance made friends of God the Holy Spirit is collated as a gift They well knew what they received in this ministration and therefore wisely laid hold of it and would not let it go This was anciently ministred by Apostles and ever after by the Bishops and Religiously receiv'd by Kings and greatest Princes and I have read that St. Sylvester confirm'd Constantine the Emperour and when they made their children servants of the Holy Jesus and Souldiers under his banner and bonds-men of his Institution then they sent them to the Bishop to be confirm'd who did it sometimes by such Ceremonies that the solemnity of the ministry might with greatest Religion addict them to the service of their Great Lord. We read in Adrovaldus that Charles Martel entring into a League with Bishop Luitprandus sent his Son Pipin to him ut more Christianorum fidelium capillum ejus primus attonderet ac Pater illi Spiritualis existeret that he might after the manner of Christians first cut his hair in token of service to Christ and in confirming him he should be his spiritual Father And something like this we find concerning William Earl of Warren and Surrey who when he had Dedicated the Church of St. Pancratius and the Priorie of Lewes receiv'd Confirmation and gave seizure per capillos capitis mei sayes he in the Charter fratris mei Radulphi de Warrena quas abscidit cum cultello de capitibus nostris Henricus Episcopus Wintoniensis by the hairs of my head and of my Brothers which Henry Bishop of Winchester cut off before the Altar meaning according to the Ancient custome in confirmation when they by that solemnity addicted themselves to the free servitude of the Lord Jesus The ceremony is obsolete and chang'd but the mystery can never and indeed that is one of the advantages in which we can rejoyce concerning the ministration of this Rite in the Church of England and Ireland that whereas it was sometimes clouded sometimes hindred and sometimes hurt by the appendage of needless and useless ceremonies it is now reduc'd to the Primitive and first simplicity amongst us and the excrescencies us'd in the Church of Rome are wholly par'd away and by holy Prayers and the Apostolical Ceremonie of imposition of the Bishops hands it is worthily and zealously administred The Latins us'd to send Chrism to the Greeks when they had usurped some jurisdiction over them and the Popes Chaplains went with a quantity of it to C. P. where the Russians usually met them for it for that was then the ceremony of this ministration But when the Latins demanded fourscore pounds of Gold besides other gifts they went away and chang'd their custom rather than pay an unlawful and ungodly Tribute Non quaerimus vestra sed vos we require nothing but leave to impart Gods blessings with pure Intentions and a spiritual ministery And as the Bishops of our Churches receive nothing from the People for the Ministration of this Rite so they desire nothing but Love and just Obedience in spiritual and Ecclesiastical duties and we offer our Flocks spiritual things without mixture of Temporal advantages from them we minister the rituals of the Gospel without the inventions of Men Riligion without superstition and only desire to be believ'd in such things which we prove from Scripture expounded by the Catholick practice of the Church of God Concerning the Subject of this Discourse the Rite of Confirmation It were easie to recount many great and glorious expressions which we find in the Sermons of the Holy Fathers of the Primitive Ages so certain it is that in this thing we ought to be zealous as being desirous to perswade our People to give us leave to do them great good But the following Pages will do it I hope competently only we shall remark that when they had gotten a custom anciently that in cases of necessity they did permit Deacons and Lay-men sometimes to baptize yet they never did confide in it much but with much caution and curiosity commanded that such Persons should when that necessity was over be carried to the Bishop to be confirm'd so to supply all precedent defects relating to the past imperfect ministry and future necessity and danger as appears in the Council of Eliberis And the Ancients had so great estimate and veneration to this Holy rite that as in Heraldry they distinguish the same thing by several names when they relate to Persons of greater Eminency and they blazon the Armes of the Gentry by Metals of the Nobtlity by pretious stones but of Kings and Princes by Planets so when they would signifie the Vnction which was us'd in confirmation they gave it a special word and of more distinction remark and therefore the oyl us'd in baptism they call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that of confirmation was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they who spake properly kept this difference of words untill by incaution and ignorant carelessness the names fell into confusion and the thing into disuse and dis-respect But it is no small addition to the Honour of this ministration that some wise and good men have piously believed that when baptiz'd Christians are confirm'd and solemnly bless'd by the Bishop that then it is that a special Angel Guardian is appointed to keep their souls from the assaults of the spirits of darkness Concerning which though I shall not interpose mine own opinion yet this I say that the Prety of that supposition is not disagreeable to the intention of this Rite for since by this the Holy Spirit of God the Father of Spirits is given it is not unreasonably thought by them that the other good Spirits of God the Angels who are ministring spirits sent forth to minister to the good of them that shall be Heirs of Salvation should pay their kind offices in subordination to their Prince and fountain that the first in every kind might be the measure of all the rest But there are greater and stranger things than this that God does for the souls of his Servants and for the honour of the ministeries which himself hath appointed We shall only add that this was ancient and long before Popery entred into the World and that this rite hath been more abus'd by Popery than by any thing and to this Day the Bigots of the Roman Church are the greatest Enemies to it and from them the Presbyterians but besides that the Church of England and Ireland does religiously retain it and hath appointed a solemn officer for the Ministery the Lutheran and
and the accident without the subject This is impossible and therefore it remains that still there abides in the Church this power that by Imposition of the Hands of sit persons the Holy Ghost is ministred But this will be further cleared in the next Section SECT III. The Holy Rite of Imposition of Hands for the giving the Holy Spirit or Confirmation was actually continued and practised by all the succeeding Ages of the purest and Primitive Church NExt to the plain words of Scripture the traditive interpretation and practise of the Church of God is the best Argument in the World for Rituals and Mystical ministrations for the tradition is universal and all the way acknowledged to be derived from Scripture And although in Rituals the tradition it self if it be universal and primitive as this is were alone sufficient and is so esteemed in the Baptism of Infants in the Priests consecrating the Holy Eucharist in publick Liturgies in Absolution of Penitents the Lords Day Communicating of Women and the like yet this Rite of Confirmation being all that and evidently derived from the practise Apostolical and so often recorded in the New Testament both in the Ritual and Mysterious part both in the Ceremony and Spiritual effect is a point of as great certainty as it is of usefulness and holy designation Theophilus Antiochenus lived not long after the death of S. John and he derives the name of Christian which was first given to the Disciples in his City from this Chrisme or spiritual Unction this Confirmation of baptized persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are therefore called Christians because we are anointed with the Vnction of God These words will be best understood by the subsequent testimonies by which it will appear that confirmation for reasons hereafter mention'd was for many Ages called Chrisme or Unction But he adds the usefulness of it For who is there that enters into the World or that enters into contention or Athletick combats but is anointed with oyl By which words he intimates both the Unction anciently us'd in Baptisme and in confirmation both for in the first we have our new birth in the second we are prepar'd for spiritual combate Tertullian having spoken of the Rites of Baptism proceeds Dehinc saith he manus imponitur per Benedictionem advocans invitans Spiritum Sanctum Tunc ille sanctissimus Spiritus super emundata benedicta corpora libens à patre descendit After baptism the hand is impos'd by blessing calling and inviting the Holy Spirit Then that most holy spirit willingly descends from the Father upon the Bodies that are cleans'd and blessed that is first baptis'd then confirm'd and again Caro signatur ut anima muniatur Caro manus impositione adumbratur ut anima spiritu illuminetur The flesh is consign'd or seal'd that also is one of the known primitive words for Confirmation that the soul may be guarded or defended and the body is overshadowed by the imposition of hands that the soul may be enlightned by the Holy Ghost Nay further yet If any Man objects that Baptisme is sufficient he answers It is true it is sufficient to them that are to dye presently but it is not enough for them that are still to live and to fight against their spiritual Enemies For in baptism we do not receive the Holy Ghost for although the Apostles had been baptiz'd yet the Holy Ghost was come upon none of them untill Jesus was glorified sed in aquâ emundati sub Angelo Spiritui Sancto praeparamur but being cleans'd by Baptismal water we are dispos'd for the Holy Spirit under the hand of the Angel of the Church under the Bishops hand And a little after he expostulates the article Non licebit Deo in suo Organo per manus sanctas sublimitatem modulari spiritalem Is it not lawful for God by an instrument of his own under Holy hands to accord the heights and sublimity of the spirit For indeed this is the Divine Order and therefore Tertullian reckoning the happiness and excellency of the Church of Rome at that time sayes she believes in God she signes with water she cloths with the spirit viz. in Confirmation she feeds with the Eucharist she exhorts to Martyrdom and against this order or institution she receives no Man S. Cyprian in his Epistle to Jubajanus having urg'd that of the Apostles going to Samaria to impose hands on those whom S. Philip had baptized adds Quod nunc quoque apud nos geritur ut qui in Ecclesiâ baptizantur per praepositos Ecclesiae offerantur per nostram orationem ac manus impositionem spiritum sanctum consequantur signaculo dominico consummentur Which custom is also descended to us that they who are baptiz'd might be brought by the Rulers of the Church and by our prayer and the imposition of hands said the Martyr Bishop may obtain the Holy Ghost and be consummated with the Lords signature And again Vngi necesse est eum qui baptizatus est c. Et super eos qui in Ecclesiâ baptizati erant Ecclesiasticum legitimum baptismum consecuti fuerant oratione pro iis habitâ manu impositâ invocaretur infunderetur Spiritus Sanctus It is necessary that every one who is baptiz'd should receive the Unction that he may be Christ's anointed one and may have in him the grace of Christ. They who have receiv'd lawful and Ecclesiastical Baptism it is not necessary they should be baptiz'd again but that which is wanting must be supplyed viz. that prayer being made for them and hands impos'd the Holy Ghost be invocated and pour'd upon them S. Clement of Alexandria a Man of Venerable Antiquity and admirable Learning tells that a certain young Man was by S. John delivered to the care of a Bishop who having baptiz'd him posteà verò sigillo Domini tanquam perfectâ tutâque ejus custodiâ eum obsignavit Afterwards he sealed him with the Lords signature the Church word for Confirmation as with a safe and perfect guard Origen in his seventh Homily upon Ezekiel expounding certain mystical words of the Prophet saith Oleum est quo vir sanctus Vngitur oleum Christi oleum Sanctae Doctrinae Cum ergo aliquis accepit hoc oleum quo Vngitur Sanctus id est Scripturam sanctam instituentem quomodo oporteat baptizari in nomine Patris filii Spiritus sancti pauca commutans unxerit quempiam quodammodo dixerit jam non es Catechumenus consecutus es lavacrum secundae generationis talis homo accipit oleum Dei c. The Unction of Christ of holy Doctrine is the Oyl by which the Holy Man is anointed having been instructed in the Scriptures and taught how to be baptized then changing a few things he sayes to him now you are no longer a Catechumen now you are regenerated in baptism such a Man receives the Vnction
Bohemian Churches do observe it carefully and it is recommended and establish'd in the harmony of the Protestant Confessions And now may it please Your Grace to give me leave to implore Your Aid and Countenance for the propagating this so religious and useful a Ministery which as it is a peculiar of the Bishops office is also a great enlarger of Gods gifts to the People it is a great instrument of Vnion of hearts and will prove an effective deletory to Schism and an endearment to the other parts of Religion it is the consummation of Baptism and a preparation to the Lords Supper it is the vertue from on high and the solemnity of our spiritual adoption But there will be no need to use many arguments to enflame Your zeal in this affair when Your Grace shall find that to promote it will be a great service to God that this alone will conclude Your Grace who are so ready by Laws and Executions by word and by example to promote the Religion of Christ as it is taught in these Churches I am not confident enough to desire Your Grace for the reading this Discourse to lay aside any one hour of Your greater Employments which consume so much of Your Dayes and Nights But I say that the Subject is greatly Worthy of Consideration Nihil enim inter manus habui cui majorem sollicitudinem praestare deberem and for the book it self I can only say what Secundus did to the wise Lupercus Quoties ad fastidium legentium deliciasque respicio intelligo nobis commendationem ex ipsâ mediocritate libri petendam I can Commend it because it is little and so not very troublesome and if it could have been writen according to the worthiness of the thing Treated in it it would deserve so great a Patronage but because it is not it will therefore greatly need it but it can hope for it on no other account but because it is laid at the feet of a Princely Person who is Great and Good and one who not only is bound by Duty but by choice hath Obliged Himself to do advantages to any Worthy instrument of Religion But I have detain'd Your Grace so long in my address that Your Pardon will be all the Favour which ought to be hop'd for by Your Grace's most Humble and Obliged Servant Jer. Dunensis A DISCOURSE OF CONFIRMATION The Introduction NExt to the Incarnation of the Son of God and the whole Oeconomy of our Redemption wrought by him in an admirable order and Conjugation of glorious mercies the greatest thing that ever God did to the World is the giving to us the Holy Ghost and possibly this is the consummation and perfection of the other For in the work of Redemption Christ indeed made a new World we are wholly a new Creation and we must be so and therefore when S. John began the Narrative of the Gospel he began in a manner and stile very like to Moses in his History of the first Creation In the beginning was the word c. All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made But as in the Creation the matter was first there were indeed Heavens and Earth and Waters but all this was rude and without form till the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters So it is in the new Creation We are a new Mass redeem'd with the blood of Christ rescued from an evil portion and made Candidates of Heaven and Immortality but we are but an Embryo in the regeneration until the Spirit of God enlivens us and moves again upon the waters and then every subsequent motion and operation is from the Spirit of God We cannot say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost By him we live in him we walke by his aids we pray by his emotions we desire we breath and sigh and groan by him he helps us in all our infirmities and he gives us all our strengths he reveals mysteries to us and teaches us all our duties he stirs us up to holy desires and he actuates those desires he makes us to will and to do of his good pleasure For the Spirit of God is that in our spiritual life that a Mans soul is in his Natural without it we are but a dead and liveless trunke But then as a Mans soul in proportion to the several operations of life obtains several appellatives it is Vegetative and Nutritive Sensitive and Intellective according as it operates So is the Spirit of God He is the spirit of Regeneration in Baptism of renovation in Repentance the spirit of love and the spirit of holy fear the searcher of the hearts and the spirit of discerning the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of prayer In one mystery he illuminates and in another he feeds us he begins in one and finishes and perfects in another It is the same spirit working divers operations For he is all this now reckoned and he is every thing else that is the principle of good unto us he is the beginning and the progression the consummation and perfection of us all and yet every work of his is perfect in it's kind and in order to his own designation and from the beginning to the end is perfection all the way Justifying and sanctifying grace is the proper Entitative product in all but it hath divers appellatives and connotations in the several rites and yet even then also because of the identity of the principle the similitude and general consonancy in the effect the same appellative is given and the same effect imputed to more that one and yet none of them can be omitted when the great Master of the family hath blessed it and given it institution Thus S. Dionys calls Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfection of the Divine birth and yet the baptized person must receive other mysteries which are more signally perfective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Confirmation is yet more perfective and is properly the perfection of Baptism By Baptism we are Heirs and are adopted to the inheritance of sons admitted to the Covenant of repentance and engag'd to live a good life yet this is but the solemnity of the Covenant which must pass into after-acts by other influences of the same Divine principle Until we receive the spirit of obsignation or Confirmation we are but babes in Christ in the meanest sense Infants that can do nothing that cannot speak that cannot resist any violence expos'd to every rudeness and perishing by every temptation But therefore as God at first appointed us a ministery of a new birth so also hath he given to his Church the consequent Ministry of a new strength The spirit moov'd a little upon the waters of Baptism and gave us the principles of life but in Confirmation he makes us able to move our selves In the first he is the spirit of life but in this he is the spirit of strength and motion
Novatians and the Donatists Novatiani poenitentiam à suo conventu arcent penitùs iis qui ab ipsis tinguntur sacrum Chrisma non praebent Quocircà qui ex hâc Haeresi corpori Ecclesiae conjunguntur benedicti Patres ungi jusserunt So Thedoret For that reason onely the Novatians were to be confirmed upon their conversion because they had it not before I finde also they did confirm the converted Arrians but the reason is given in the first Council of Arles quia propriâ lege utuntur They had a way of their own that is as the Gloss saith upon the Canon de Arrianis consecrat dist 4. their baptism was not in the name of the holy Trinity and so their baptism being null or at least suspected to make all as sure as they could they confirmed them The same also is the case of the Bonasiaci in the second council of Arles though they were as some of the Arrians also were baptized in the name of the most holy Trinity but it was a suspected matter and therefore they confirmed them But to such persons who had been rightly baptized and confirmed they never did repeat it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gift of the Spirit is an indelible seal saith St. Cyril 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Basil calls it it is inviolable They who did re-baptize did also reconfirm But as it was an error in St. Cyprian and the Africans to do the first so was the second also in case they had done it for I find no mention expresly that they did the latter but upon the fore-mentioned accounts and either upon supposition of the invalidity of their first pretended baptism or their not using at all of confirmation in their Heretical conventicles But the repetition of confirmation is expresly forbidden by the council of Tarracon cap. 6. and by P. Gregory the second and sanctum Chrisma collatum altaris honor propter consecrationem quae per Episcopos tantùm exercenda conferenda sunt evelli non queunt said the Fathers in a council at Toledo Confirmation and holy Orders which are to be given by Bishops alone can never be anulled and therefore they can never be repeated and this relies 〈◊〉 those severe words of St. Paul having spoken of 〈◊〉 â—oundation of the Doctrine of Baptisms and laying on of hands he sayes if they fall away they can never be renewed that is the ministery of baptism and confirmation can never be repeated To Christians that sin after these ministrations there is onely left a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expergiscimini that they arise from slumber and stir up the Graces of the Holy Ghost Every man ought to be careful that he do not grieve the holy Spirit but if he does yet let him not quench him for that is a desperate case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new Life onely keep the Keeper take care that the spirit of God do not depart from you for the great ministery of the spirit is but once for as baptism is so is confirmation I end this discourse with a plain exhortation out of S. Ambrose upon those words of S. Paul He that confirmeth us with you in Christ is God Repete quia accepisti signaculum spirituale spiritum sapientiae intellectus spiritum consilii atque virtutis spiritum cognitionis atque pietatis Spiritum Sancti timoris serva quod accepisti Signavit te Deus Pater confirmavit te Christus Dominus Remember that thou who hast been confirmed hast receiv'd the spiritual signature the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of council and strength the spirit of knowledge and godliness the spirit of holy fear keep what thou hast receiv'd The Father hath seal'd thee and Christ thy Lord hath confirmed thee by his Divine Spirit and he will never depart from thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless by evil works we estrange him from us The same advice is given by Prudentius Cultor Dei memento Te fontis lavacri Rorem subiisse Sanctum Et Chrismate innotatum Remember how great things ye have received and what God hath done for you ye are of his flock and his Militia ye are now to fight his battles and therefore to put on his armour and to implore his auxiliaries and to make use of his strengths and alwayes to be on his side against all his and all our Enemies But he that desires grace must not despise to make use of all the instruments of grace For though God communicates his invisible spirit to you yet that he is pleas'd to do it by visible instruments is more than he needs but not more than we do need And therefore since God descends to our infirmities let us carefully and lovingly address our selves to his ordinances that as we receive remission of sins by the washing of water and the body and blood of Christ by the ministery of consecrated Symbols so we may receive the Holy Ghost sub Ducibus Christianae militiae by the prayer and imposition of the Bishops hands whom our Lord Jesus hath separated to this ministery For if you corroborate your self by baptism they are the words of S. Gregory Nazianzen and then take heed for the future by the most excellent and firmest aids consigning your mind and body with the Vnction from above viz. in the Holy Rite of Confirmation with the Holy Ghost as the Children of Israel did with the aspersion on the door-posts in the night of the death of the first-born of Egypt what evil shall happen to you Meaning that no evil can invade you and what aid shall you get If you sit down you shall be without fear and if you rest your sleep shall be sweet unto you But if when ye have received the Holy spirit you live not according to his Divine principles you will lose him again that is you will lose all the blessing though the impression does still remain till ye turn quite Apostates in pessimis hominibus manebit licèt ad judicium saith S. Austin the Holy Ghost will remain either as a testimony of your Vnthankfulness unto condemnation or else as a seal of grace and an earnest of your inheritance of Eternal glory FINIS Books Printed at the Kings Printing-house and are to be sold by Samuel Dancer Bookseller in Castle-street Dublin DR Jeremy Taylors Lord Bishop of Down and Connor three Sermons Preached at Christ-Church Dublin viz. The Righteousness Evangelical described The Christians Conquest over the body of Sin and Faith working by Love Octav. His Funeral Sermon at the Funeral of the Lord Primate 40. This present Treatise of Confirmation 40. There will shortly be published his Treatise against Popery of the necessity of which no man can be ignorant Dr. Lightburne's Sermon at Christ-Church on 23. of October 40. A perfect Collection of Acts of the late Parliament to be sold