"The effect of baptism was supposed to be the remission of sins: And it was believed that the bishop, by the imposition of hands and by prayer conferred those gifts of the Holy Spirit which were necessary for living a holy life."
[Footnote A: Mosheim's Church History (Murdock), Vol. I, p. 189.]
In a note on the foregoing question, Murdock, the most accurate translator of Dr. Mosheim's great work on church history, says:
This may be placed beyond all controversy by many passages from the fathers of this century. And as it will conduce much to an understanding of the theology of the ancients, which differed in many respects from ours, I will adduce a single passage from Cyprian. It is in his epistle. No. 73, p. 131: "It is manifest where and by whom the remission of sin conferred in baptism is administered. They who are presented to the rulers of the church, obtain by our prayers and imposition of hands the Holy Ghost."[A]
[Footnote A: Mosheim's Church History, Vol. I, p. 189.]
In another passage Cyprian writes:
"Our practice is that those who have been baptized into the Church should be presented, that by prayer and imposition of hands they may receive the Holy Ghost."
While Augustine, in the fourth century, says:
"We still do what the apostles did when they laid their hands on the Samaritans and caled down the Holy Ghost upon them."[A]
[Footnote A: Laying on hands was employed in the Church for other purposes than imparting the Holy Ghost. It was the manner of administering to the sick, (Mark xvi:18; Acts xxviii:8); and also of conferring authority or priesthood on men. (See Acts vi:5, 6; viii: 17; xiii:3); but as we here are only dealing with the ordinance as it relates to a means of imparting the Holy Ghost, I do not stop to discuss the other purposes for which it was employed.]