A

COURSE

OF

Catechetical Lectures.

LECTURE I.

My dear Children,

M

Y Heart's Defire and Prayer to God is, that you, and all that hear me, may be faved; and in order to this great End, I purpose by God's Affiftance to explain to you, as clearly and as briefly as I can, this fhort Inftruction which the Church requires you should all learn, that you may know both the Meaning and the Certainty of thofe Things wherein you have been inftructed, and may the more ftedfaftly believe thofe Truths, and practise those Duties, which our Lord Jefus Chrift requires of you, and of all who profefs his Name.

And because feveral Practices and Cuftoms are here alluded to, which are not built upon divine, but upon mere human Authority, I shall think it proper very briefly to point out to you both the Reasons and the Authority upon which thofe Practices are built; that you may be able to give an Answer to those who shall demand it of you, and may yourselves be fatisfied, that you are not led into them by mere Custom only, and without Reason; but in Obedience to thofe who have a juft Power to enjoin them, and whofe Injunctions in these Particulars are founded in Piety and Wifdom.

And to this I am naturally led by the first Queftion of the Catechifm; concerning which I fhall only obferve the Reasonableness and the Ufefulness of the Cuftom of giving a new Name to Children when they are admitted into the Chriftian Church.

As to the Reasonableness of this Practice, it is founded in this, that in the Holy Scriptures the Profeffion of Chriftianity is very fignificantly called a new Life, and the entering into that Profeffion a new Birth.-Ye have put off THE OLD MAN, fays St. Paul to the Chriftians at Coloffe; meaning, at their profeffing Chriftianity; and have put on THE NEW MAN, which is renewed in Knowledge after the Image of him that created him, Col. iii. 9, 10. and more exprefly to the Corinthians, 2 Cor. v. 17. If any Man be in Chrift,

be

be is a new Creature.-And our Bleffed Lord himself declares, that except a Man be born again, he cannot fee or enter into the Kingdom of God, John iii. 3.-And as then at our first Entrance into our natural Life we inherit the Names of our natural Parents, or take fuch as they impofe upon us; it is furely a very reaSonable and proper Conformity to this Usage, that upon our Entrance into our new or fpiritual Life we fhould likewife have given us a new Name, in token of this great Change.And accordingly, it has been the Custom of the Chriftian Church, from the earliest Ages, to give new Names both to Children and grown Perfons, at their being received into the Church by Baptifm; and the Custom was probably derived from the Jews, who did the fame thing at their Circumcifion. And the Governors of the Church are therefore fufficiently authorized to require our Compliance in this Particular, both from the Reasonablenefs of the Thing, and its Conformity to ancient Cuftom. And

The Ufefulness of this is from hence evident, that our new Name is defigned to be a perpetual Mark and Remembrancer to us of our new Profeffion.-As oft as we hear our Chriftian Names mentioned, it should put us in Mind of our Chriftian Profeffion; it should lead us to remember, that when we were honoured with the Name of Chrift, we profeffed our fincere Belief in him and his Revelation, X 3 and

and ought to adhere ftedfaftly and immoveably to those Doctrines and Principles which we then embraced; that whoever nameth the Name of Chrift, likewife upon thefe Principles ought to depart from Iniquity; that when we took this Name upon us, we folemnly dedicated ourselves to his Service; and that it had been better for us never to have known the Name of Christ, than, after we have known it, and been called by it, to turn from his holy Faith and Commandments, and not to believe and live as becomes his Gospel.

The fecond Question and Anfwer in the Catechifm point out to us the Perfons who gave us our Chriftian Names, the Time when they did fo, and the happy Confequences which followed to us upon our being admitted Members of the Chriftian Church. -Thefe Perfons were our Godfathers and Godmothers; the Time or Occafion was their dedicating us to God, when they brought us to be baptized; and the Advantages we received from their thus offering us to him, and our being received into his Church by Baptifm, are, that we were thereby made Members of Chrift, Children of God, and Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Concerning Godfathers and Godmothers, and their Offices at and after Baptifm, it is to be obferved, that they are not of divine, but human Appointment, neither are they effen

tial or abfolutely neceffary to Baptism; but they are appointed by thofe who are fet over us in the Lord, and whom we are obliged to obey in all things not contrary to the Laws of God, by those who have full Power and Authority derived to them from Chrift and his Apoftles to fettle all things relating to the Form and Manner of discharging publick Duties in fuch wife, as they judge will conduce moft to Order, to Decency, and to Edification. And that they have prudently confulted the Service of Religion in this Particular, will appear from obferving the Wisdom and the Piety of this Appointment.

The Appointment of Godfathers and Godmothers I call wife, because it is a Means well calculated to anfwer the End defigned; and I call it pious, because that End is the bringing up of young Chriftians in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord; and the guarding against their apoftatizing or falling from the Faith, who were not baptized till they came of Age. And therefore they are called both Witnesses and Sureties. -They are properly called our Fathers and Mothers in God, because they brought us to him, who according to his abundant Mercy hath begotten us again to a lively Hope, by the Refurrection of Jefus Chrift from the Dead, 1 Pet. i. 3. They are Witnesses, in the Baptifm of adult Perfons, of that folemn Vow and Profeffion which thofe Perfons then made of dedicating themfelves to X 4 God;