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FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.

1850.

Price Threepence.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following service is intended to be used with Candidates for Confirmation for some weeks before they are confirmed, either at the time they are assembled for instruction and exhortation, or at some other regular time; so that prayer for God's grace may be a prominent part of their preparation.

If it should be wished that the parents and sponsors should be present, and join in prayer for their children and godchildren, the words in the sixth Collect "Leave us not," should be changed into "Leave not, we beseech Thee, these thy servants," and a similar change made in the seventh Collect, as is indicated in the margin.

The Confession and seventh and eighth Collects are by Bishop J. Taylor, and the two Prayers in the Private Devotions are by Robert Nelson.

A FORM OF PRAYER

PREPARATORY TO

CONFIRMATION.

The Minister shall first read these sentences from Holy Scripture, and the Exhortation following.

I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth. S. John xiv. 16, 17.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. S. Matt. xxviii. 19.

Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. S. John iii. 5.

By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 1 Cor. xii. 13.

When Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them. Acts xix. 6.

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God? 1 Cor. vi. 19.

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Rom. viii. 9.

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Rom. viii. 14.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Gal. v. 25.

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 1 Cor. xii. 4.

No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. xii. 3.

Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts. 1 Cor. xiv. 1.

Seeing then, brethren, that Holy Scripture witnesseth to us, that they who are baptized into Christ, are baptized by God the Holy Ghost, and that they who would abide in Christ must live and walk in the Spirit, I beseech you to call to mind the many ways in which you have grieved the Holy Spirit, and broken the covenant of grace into which in your Baptism you were received by God. That so, humbling yourselves before Almighty God our heavenly Father, and confessing your sins, you may, through his great mercy, be raised up again; and may receive in the laying on of hands by his servant the Bishop, the increase of his Holy Spirit; and may be preserved in the unity of his holy Church, and enabled to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit; and may at length be presented without spot before God, through the merits of his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then shall the Catechumens say the following Confession after the Minister.

O Lord God, our heavenly Father, we have

sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. We have broken thy covenant, which Thou madest with us in our Baptism, and grieved and provoked thy Holy Spirit, through whom we were born again. We have well-nigh separated ourselves by our sins from the mystical body of thy dear Son, and are no more worthy to be called thy children, or to be received into thy heavenly kingdom.

For we have yielded to the temptations of Satan, and have walked in pride and vanity, in selfishness and deceit, in anger and malice, and have done the works of the evil one.

We have coveted and pursued the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.

We have indulged the sinful lusts of the flesh. We have loved that which Thou hatest, and have even hated to be reformed by Thee.

We have neither believed in Thee, O our God; nor loved Thee, nor obeyed Thee as we ought, and as we were solemnly bound to do.

O Lord, have mercy upon us. Spare us, good Lord, and turn us, and have mercy upon us for his sake, whose Body was broken and his Blood shed as the propitiation for our sins.

Take not away thy mercies from us; but renew, O Lord, we beseech Thee, whatever has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by our own carnal will and frailness; and continue us, though we are unworthy, in the unity of thy

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