Anglican Confirmation, 1662–1820 by Phillip Tovey (review)

Scholars of Anglican liturgical history have characterized the eighteenth century as a time of laxity in the practice of confirmation, both on the part of bishops who confirmed and on the part of parish clergy who were required to prepare people for confirmation. Phillip Tovey challenges this prevailing narrative with a fresh exploration of theology and practice during this period. His parameters are what he terms “the long eighteenth century” (p. 2), beginning with the 1662 restoration of the Book of Common Prayer and concluding in 1820, a decade and a half before the beginning of the Tractarian movement that introduced a major shift in Anglican understanding and practice of confirmation.

Tovey begins by examining theologies of confirmation, found not only in theological treatises but also in commentaries on the Book of Common Prayer and in catechetical works, including commentaries on the Prayer Book catechism. Confirmation sermons merit a separate chapter. Tovey concludes that the primary theme for both baptism and confirmation during this period was that of a covenant into which candidates entered at baptism and reaffirmed in confirmation. Within that broad understanding, theologians debated both the nature of baptismal regeneration and the role of the Spirit in baptism and confirmation.

A chapter on the liturgy of confirmation begins with a discussion of the development of the 1662 rite, which introduced a question asking candidates to ratify the promises made on their behalf at baptism. In the remainder of the chapter, Tovey reviews proposals made during the period of his study, none of which were implemented at the time.

Official liturgical texts offer some indication of how a rite is intended to be enacted, but they cannot tell a researcher what was actually happening in parishes and dioceses. It is here that Tovey makes his distinctive contribution. Drawing from canon law, pastoral manuals for clergy, documents from episcopal visitations, biographies, diaries, newspapers, and magazines, Tovey situates confirmation in its historical and social contexts and shows that most parish clergy were diligent in catechizing their congregations and preparing them for confirmation, most bishops fulfilled their responsibilities to confirm, and many laity eagerly presented themselves for confirmation, some even seeking to be confirmed more than once.

Tovey finds multiple records of hundreds or even thousands of people confirmed at a single service. But he does not consider these numbers in the context of the overall population, although he asks whether these large numbers were sufficient to keep up with the growth in population during the eighteenth century (p. 137). His claim that confirmation was diligently practiced and widely sought during this period would be strengthened by comparing the number of confirmands with estimates of the population.

Tovey rounds out his study with a chapter on confirmation in North America during this period. Bishops were absent until the last decade of the eighteenth century, and Tovey concludes, as other scholars have already shown, that the first Episcopalian bishops in the United States did not give high priority to confirmation.

With his extensive use of a wide array of primary sources, Tovey makes an important contribution to a largely neglected period of Anglican liturgical history, providing a more positive assessment of the practice of confirmation than historians have heretofore proposed.