# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1862_S112
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

112 On the Sacramental Conception of Confirmation.

-firmation, and a more definite explanation of what constitutes the essence of confirmation in general and its sacramental character in particular. The existing "uncertainty and indefiniteness" is to be removed, the scriptural ground of that sacramental act set forth, and its important place within the stages of the Christian life marked out. The author of that essay is certain that he has found, in the word of Hebrews 6:2, taken together with the well-known passages of Acts where the gift of the Spirit is bestowed through the laying on of hands (Acts 8:14-17; 19:5-6), the true scriptural foundation of confirmation, and he is glad that Delitzsch's commentary on Hebrews gives assenting testimony to this. From the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews reckons "the laying on of hands," alongside "the doctrine of baptisms," among the elementary teachings of Christ, it is concluded — without the passages in Acts being subjected to any further examination — that "the laying on of hands and prayer are quite definite, apostolically assigned means for the act of confirmation"; on this ground it is further demanded of the faith of officeholders that they "can lay on hands by virtue of the prophetic and apostolic word on which the church is built"; and finally it is required that the pastors stand behind this act of confirmation, thus grounded in Scripture, and "lead the children to be confirmed to this point, that they let the Holy Spirit — as he is present in the church wherever praying hearts are stirred — be communicated to them through their (the pastors') laying on of hands, as the capstone or seal of a work of intercession carried on through the weeks of prayer — the time of confirmation instruction — which is gathered up and comes to its culmination in the prayer at the blessing (whether before or after)." — — — Since, now, confirmation is to be regarded not indeed as a sacrament, but yet as "something sacrament-like" or as a "sacramental act," inasmuch as a "supplementary relation" (one "proper, not improper") is ascribed to an act so characterized, in relation both to Baptism and to the Supper, we must above all see wherein this sacrament-like and supplementary character of confirmation consists. — "The general gifts of the Holy Spirit," so runs the answer given, "the baptized child has received by virtue of Baptism, and it is now the task of the church, as an organized body, to bring these gifts to unfolding, to disclose the riches of baptismal grace, and to ward off from him, so far as possible, all destructive influences." "In this, all the Lord's organs in the home, in the school, and in the church must cooperate, each in its own part." Thus, with confirmation and with confirmation instruction, this "unfolding" of the "general gifts of the Spirit" received by means of Baptism has, at first, nothing to do: only at the point in time "where the Christian teaching-matter disclosed and brought near to the baptized Christian child in home and school is taken up in prayer through specifically churchly means, that is, through pastoral instruction, and thus practically condensed,