Laying on of Hands in Confirmation (1928 BCP)

Laying on of Hands in Confirmation (1928 BCP) is the episcopal manual act at the center of the Order of Confirmation in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. The rite presents baptized and instructed persons to the bishop, appoints Acts 8 as its biblical pattern, prays for the strengthening gifts of the Holy Ghost, and applies that prayer to each candidate by the bishop's hand.

In the 1928 BCP, laying on of hands is therefore not an isolated gesture. It belongs to the sequence of Baptism, catechesis, renewal of baptismal vows, episcopal prayer, and admission to fuller sacramental discipline. The gesture signifies personal pastoral application: this baptized person, kneeling before the bishop, is prayed over as Christ's own child and commended to growth in the Holy Spirit.

Prayer Book Form

The title of the office itself identifies Confirmation with the laying on of hands and limits the recipients to baptized persons who have come to discretion. The opening presentation also makes clear that the minister brings candidates to the bishop specifically for this act.

The Order of Confirmation

Or Laying on of Hands upon Those that are Baptized, and come to Years of Discretion.

Upon the day appointed, all that are to be confirmed shall stand in order before the Bishop, sitting in his chair near to the Holy Table, the People all standing until the Lord's Prayer; and the Minister shall say,

Reverend Father in God, I present unto you these persons to receive the Laying on of Hands.

The rubric does three things at once. It places the bishop as the minister of Confirmation, locates the action near the Holy Table in the congregation's sight, and names the action before the vows and prayers begin. The candidates are not merely attending a class graduation; they are presented for episcopal laying on of hands.

Apostolic Pattern

The Prayer Book itself supplies the scriptural warrant by appointing the Samaritan passage from Acts 8. The lesson distinguishes Baptism from the later apostolic prayer and imposition of hands, while holding both within Christian initiation.

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: for as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

John Henry Hobart, writing as Bishop of New York in an 1819 Protestant Episcopal catechism for Confirmation, read this biblical terminology as the older name of the rite. His interpretation shows a classical American Episcopal argument for the continuing Anglican use of the gesture.

The "laying on of hands" was the appellation by which this ordinance was known in Scripture and in the primitive Church. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle ranks it among "the principles of the doctrine of Christ."

For Hobart, Hebrews 6 mattered because "laying on of hands" stands with repentance, faith, Baptism, resurrection, and judgment. He therefore distinguished Confirmation from ordination or healing by asking which laying on of hands belongs generally to baptized Christians.

These acts, therefore, of the imposition of hands, could not be ranked among "the principles of the doctrine of Christ," in the same station with "repentance, with faith, with a resurrection from the dead, with a judgment to come." We must, therefore, refer this appellation to that rite which universally prevailed in the primitive Church, and which is known, in modern times, by the name of Confirmation.

This argument is not the only Anglican reading of Hebrews 6, but it explains why the 1928 office places Acts 8 inside the rite rather than leaving the biblical connection to later instruction. The Prayer Book's action is meant to be read as apostolic prayer over the baptized.

Prayer before the Sign

Before the bishop lays hands on the candidates severally, he prays for the Holy Ghost the Comforter and for the manifold gifts of grace. The prayer begins from Baptismal grace and asks for strengthening and increase.

Almighty and everliving God, who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by Water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins; Strengthen them, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy holy fear, now and for ever. Amen.

This prayer gives the theological content of the manual act. The bishop does not treat his hand as an automatic object of power; he asks God to strengthen the baptized with the Holy Ghost. The gifts named in the prayer echo Isaiah's sevenfold language of the Spirit and direct Confirmation toward wisdom, counsel, strength, knowledge, godliness, and holy fear.

Arthur Ritchie made the same point in a short American Episcopal tract. He warned against reducing Confirmation to a public profession or a social marker and identified the scriptural purpose of the sign as the gift of the Holy Ghost to the baptized.

We see, therefore, that the purpose of Confirmation in the Apostolic days, was the bestowal of the Holy Ghost upon the baptized.

Ritchie then expressed the pastoral meaning of that gift in language close to the 1928 formula: the Holy Ghost strengthens the soul to serve God and resist sin.

Confirmation, therefore, in the Bible sense of the ordinance, is not making a profession of religion, nor joining the Church, nor yet the solemn taking upon one's-self of his Baptismal vows; but it is the making strong of the baptized soul by the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost.

The 1928 BCP includes public promises, so Ritchie's sharp contrast needs to be received with the Prayer Book's full rite in view. Still, his point is useful: the laying on of hands is not exhausted by the candidate's promise. It is the Church's prayer for divine strengthening.

The Manual Act

The act itself is brief. The candidates kneel, and the bishop lays his hand upon the head of each one severally. The formula names protection, perseverance, growth in the Holy Spirit, and the everlasting kingdom.

Then all of them in order kneeling before the Bishop, he shall lay his hand upon the head of every one severally, saying,

Defend, O Lord, this thy Child with thy heavenly grace; that he may continue thine for ever; and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come unto thy everlasting kingdom. Amen.

The phrase "every one severally" is pastorally important. The same prayer is offered for the whole class, but the sign is applied one by one. Confirmation is a corporate rite of the Church and an individual blessing of particular baptized persons.

Michael Ferrebee Sadler's catechetical manual captures this distinction by separating the candidate's confirming from the bishop's confirming. The bishop's act is strengthening; the candidate's act is personal renewal of baptismal vows.

What is the Bishop's confirming?

It is strengthening -- God giving me strength by the Laying on of hands.

What is your confirming?

It is renewing in my own person my baptismal vows.

Sadler's language helps avoid a common ambiguity in English. "Confirmation" can name the candidate's ratification of Baptismal obligations, but in the manual act it names God's strengthening gift sought through the bishop's prayer and hand.

After the Sign

The prayer after the Lord's Prayer explicitly interprets the sign as apostolic in pattern and as a certification of God's favour and gracious goodness. It also asks that God's fatherly hand and Holy Spirit continue with the confirmed.

Almighty and everliving God, who makest us both to will and to do those things which are good, and acceptable unto thy Divine Majesty; We make our humble supplications unto thee for these thy servants, upon whom, after the example of thy holy Apostles, we have now laid our hands, to certify them, by this sign, of thy favour and gracious goodness towards them. Let thy fatherly hand, we beseech thee, ever be over them; let thy Holy Spirit ever be with them; and so lead them in the knowledge and obedience of thy Word, that in the end they may obtain everlasting life; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with thee and the same Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

The prayer interprets the bishop's hand by reference to God's fatherly hand. That is the Prayer Book's controlling logic: the outward sign is meaningful because it is joined to prayer for the divine action it signifies. The confirmed are then moved toward Holy Communion without delay, but the book also preserves the classic allowance for those "ready and desirous" to be confirmed.

The Minister shall not omit earnestly to move the Persons confirmed to come, without delay, to the Lord's Supper.

And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed.

James Arthur Muller explained that the "ready and desirous" clause entered the restored English Prayer Book settlement to avoid excluding the many who had not had access to Confirmation. His historical note clarifies why the Prayer Book can value Confirmation highly without making lack of actual handlaying an absolute bar in every pastoral circumstance.

It was at the restoration that the rubric was given its present form; "And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed"; the last clause being added to meet the Puritan objection that without it "all the thousands" who had never been confirmed might be excluded from the Communion. It was also in this period that Confirmation began to be more frequently administered.

Historical Development

The 1928 American formula descends from the post-Reformation English development of the rite. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere traced the familiar "Defend, O Lord" prayer to the 1552 revision, where the crossing was omitted and the imposition of hands alone was retained.

The section of the service of 1549, printed above was omitted at the revision in 1552, and the present benedictional prayer was inserted in its place, "Defend, O Lord, this child with thy heavenly grace," etc., with the direction for the crossing omitted and only the imposition of hands (or hand) retained.

Procter and Frere also observed that the later English form separated the Confirmation office from the Catechism and gave it the title that still governs the 1928 American rite.

The service was brought into its present form at the last revision in 1661. Being separated from the Catechism, its title was: "The Order of Confirmation, or laying on of hands upon them that are baptized, and come to years of discretion."

This history matters because the 1928 BCP preserves the inherited Anglican emphasis: the sign is not chrismation, a slap, or a separate ceremony added for ornament. It is the apostolic-looking imposition of the bishop's hand, joined to prayer and interpreted by the words of the office.

Theological Reading

Clause by clause, the laying-on formula gives a compact theology of Confirmation. "Defend" asks for divine protection against sin and temptation. "This thy Child" presupposes Baptismal adoption rather than creating it. "Continue thine for ever" asks for perseverance. "Daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more" makes Confirmation a prayer for growth in grace. "Until he come unto thy everlasting kingdom" orders the rite toward final salvation, not merely adult church membership.

The preceding and following prayers prevent two opposite misreadings. Against a merely social view, the rite asks for the Holy Ghost and calls the sign apostolic. Against an automatic or mechanical view, the rite is enveloped in prayer, vows, instruction, and the call to Holy Communion. The bishop's hand is the visible sign of a pastoral and ecclesial prayer that God will strengthen baptized persons to live what their Baptism already declares.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Baptism (1928 BCP)
• Catechism (1928 BCP)
• Confirmation (1928 BCP)
• Confirmation Vows (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Occasional Offices (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The Order of Confirmation in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• John Henry Hobart, A Catechism for Confirmation
• Arthur Ritchie, A Few Words about Confirmation
• James Arthur Muller, The Confirmation Rubric
• Michael Ferrebee Sadler, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction
• Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer