BAPTISM. What is your name? Who gave you this name? 66 My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." What do you call the name you answer by? My christian name. When was it given you? In my baptism. What is your other name called? My sirname. When was it given you? It was mine the moment I was born. Because it is the name of my sire, or father. Why do you call the other your christian name? Because it was given me when I was made a Christian. Were you not born a Christian ? No. What were you born? I am by nature the child of wrath.—Eph. ii. 3. What is the character of children of wrath? How come we to be born in sin? Because we are born of sinful parents, and have their nature. All men come from Adam and Eve, who were both sinners, and our nature is what they made it, a fallen, sinful nature.-Job xiv. 4. 1 Cor. xv. 47-50. What is the punishment of sin ? Do all men die? Yes.-1 Cor. xv. 22. Do Heb. ix. 27. any die who are not sinners? No.-Rom. v. 12. Why, then, did our Lord die? for he never sinned. Our Lord did not die as we die. He poured out his own soul unto death.-Isa. liii. 5, 8, 12. He gave his own soul as an offering for sin. He offered himself up for us, to save us from eternal death, and he bore the death of the body as a punishment due to our sins. We do not die for other men's sins, but for our own, Neither can we offer up ourselves; for our lives are not our own.-Ps. xlix. 7. John x. 17, 18. What were you made by your baptism? "A member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." What is a "member" of anything? A part of that thing What is the duty of children to their parents? Love, honour, and obedience. What, then, is your duty to God as his child? To love, to honour, and to obey him. Why do you say that you were made " a member of Christ" first, before a child of God?" Because it is only through Christ that we can become the children of God.-John i. 12. Does baptism change our hearts? No. What, then, is the use of being baptized? Baptism admits us into covenant with God; and this is called, in our Prayer-book, 66 regeneration." But even if we knew no use in baptism, it is sufficient for us that our Lord hath commanded it.-Mark xvi. 16. Matt. xxviii. 19. John iii. 5. Acts ii. 38. Do any baptized persons go to hell? Yes, all who receive not the baptism of the Spirit as well as of water after they come to age; i. e. all whose hearts are not changed.— John xv. 2. 6. Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. What do you mean by an anything? "inheritor" of To inherit a thing is to get it by right after another person's death. 66 How are we inheritors" of the kingdom of heaven?" Through the death of Christ we have a right to a place in the kingdom of heaven after our own deaths, if we are indeed " members of Christ and children of God." Does the Bible allow us to speak of having a right to a place in heaven? Yes, in Rev. xxii. 14. What did your godfathers and godmothers promise for you in your baptism? 66 They did promise and vow three things in my name. First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles of the Christian faith; and, thirdly, that I should keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life." What is the first thing they promised in your name? 66 First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh." |