TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
ing is not very appropriate; nor do I propose to account for our Church's not giving it; but is it not quite certain that the present prevailing temper in the Church would have given it, judging from the prayers and sermons of the day, and that the Liturgy does not? Were that day like this, would it not have been deemed formal and cold, and deficient in spiritual-mindedness, to have proposed a declaration such as has been actually adopted, that "to the end that Confirmation may be ministered to the more edifying of such as shall receive it…none hereafter shall be confirmed, but such as can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments," &c.; nothing being said of a change of heart, or spiritual affections? And yet, upon this mere external profession, the children receive the imposition of the Bishop's hands, "to certify them by this sign, of God's favour and gracious goodness towards them."
L. From the line you are adopting, I see you will find services more Anti-Protestant (in the modern sense of Protestant,) than that for Confirmation.
C. Take, again, the Catechism. What can be more technical and formal (as the persons I speak of would say,) than the division of our duties into our duty towards God and our duty towards our neighbour? Indeed, would not the very word duty be objected to by them, as obscuring the evangelical character of Christianity? Why is there no mention of newness of heart, of appropriating the mercies of redemption, and such like phrases, which are now common among so-called Protestants? Why no mention of justifying faith?
L. Faith is mentioned in an earlier part of the Catechism.
C. Yes, and it affords a remarkable contrast to the modern use of the word. Now-a-days, the prominent notion conveyed by it regards its properties, whether spiritual or not, warm, self- renouncing. But in the Catechism, the prominent notion is that of its object, the believing "all the Articles of the Christian faith," according to the Apostle's declaration, that it is 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'"
L. I understand; and the Creed is also introduced into the service for Baptism.
C. And still more remarkably in the order for Visiting the
