Confirmation in the 18th century

Today's question is from Beth Palmer, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, West Point, Virginia. She writes:

Bishop Lee will be with us this year and so we are doing confirmations and communion. It is our tradition to use an older prayer book and this year we plan to use the 1662 BCP. I wonder where in the course of the communion liturgy one might encounter confirmation? It seems to me appropriate for confirmation to occur right after the sermon and before the offertory sentences, but I cannot find affirmation of this placement in rubrics or any of the books sitting on my shelf. ID you thoughts on this?

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Beth,

It is unlikely that confirmation would have been celebrated at any point in the communion liturgy in England in the 17th or 18th century. The idea that the communion liturgy was divisible into two part (the Synaxis or Word of God and the Great Thanksgiving) and that it was appropriate to add various elements (baptism, marriage, Eucharist, etc) to the Eucharist is a result of the 20th century scholarship of authors like Gregory Dix.

It would have been more common in the 18th century to combine elements with Morning or Evening Prayer. This was, for example, where baptism was celebrated. I suspect that Confirmation (with the possible recitation of the Catechism) was celebrated as a separate office or connected with Morning or Evening Prayer.

That is not to say, however, that there is anything wrong with your intention to place the confirmation service where you have indicated. Any attempt to recreate an historic involves some compromises.

Bob