Why do many parents have their children baptized? Because
they wish to express their vows of dedication in that sacramental form and
way which God has appointed? Because they desire to bring them into the
fold and bosom of the church, and place them in saving relations to the
means of grace? Alas, no! but too often because they make their baptism the
mere occasion of giving them, in a formal, public way, their Christian
names. They christen their children to give them a name; and often with
them this holy sacrament is as empty as the name. Their baptism, in their
view, is but the sealing and confirming the name they had before chosen for
the child; and when this is done they have no more thought of the baptism.
With them the baptism of their children is the ordinance of name-giving.
Before it takes place they are busied about getting a name from the most
approved, and fashionable novels of the day. This takes the place of
dedication. Their prior thoughts are all absorbed in getting a strange,
new-fangled name,--such an one as will carry you away by association to
some love-sick tale, or remind you of the burning of Rome, or some other
deed which has disgraced humanity. And then as soon as this is done, they
fix upon some auspicious occasion when either in the church or in the
presence of a select company at home, (for children cry now-a-days too much
to bring them to church) they have their pastor to baptize them.
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