Now, why is this?  What has a child’s name to do with his Faith and duty as a Christian?

You may answer, Because his Christian name is given him when he is baptized.

But why is his Christian name given him when he is baptized?  Why then rather than at any other time?

Because it is the old custom of the Church.  No doubt it is:  and a most wise and blessed custom it is; and one which shows us how much more about God and man the churchmen in old times knew, than most of our religious teachers now-a-days.  But how did that old custom arise?  What put into the minds of church people, for the last sixteen hundred years at least, that being baptized and being named had anything to do with each other?  Men had names of their own long before the Lord Jesus came, long before His Baptism was heard of on earth;—­the heathens of old had their names—­the heathens have names still;—­why, then, did church people feel it right to mix a new thing like baptism with a world-old thing like giving a name?

My friends, I feel and say honestly, that there is more in this matter than I understand; and what little I do understand, I could not explain fully in one sermon, or in many either.  But let this be enough for to-day.  God grant that I may be able to make you understand me.

Any one’s having a name—­a name of his own, a Christian name, as we rightly call it—­signifies that he is a person; that is, that he has a character of his own, and a responsibility, and a calling and duty of his own, given him by God; in one word, that he has an immortal soul in him, for which he, and he alone, must answer, and receive the rewards of the deeds which it does in the body, whether they be good or evil.  But names are not given at random, without cause or meaning.  When Adam named all the beasts, we read that whatsoever he called any beast, that was the name of it.  The names which he gave described each beast, were taken from something in its appearance, or its ways and habits, and so each was its right name, the name which expressed its nature.  And so now, when learned men discover animals or plants in foreign countries, they do not give them names at random, but take care to invent names for them which may describe their natures, and make people understand what they are like, as Adam did for the beasts of old.  And much more, in old times, had the names of men each of them a meaning.  If it was reasonable to give names full of meaning to each kind of dumb animal, which are mere things, and not persons at all, how much more to each man separately, for each man is a person of himself; each man has a character different from all others, a calling different from all others, and therefore he ought to have his own name separate from all others:  and therefore in old times it was the custom to give each child a separate name, which had a meaning in it, was, as it were, a description of the child, or of something particular about the child.