01.08. Additional Notes: Note A. Giving a Name in Baptism

(Note A.) Giving a Name in baptism. In administering the rite of circumcision, it was customary to give a name to the child. This is evident from the circumstances attending the circumcision of John the Baptist, as related in the Gospel according to Luke 1:59-64; and also those attending the circumcision of our blessed Savior, as found recorded in the next chapter of the same Gospel. The same practice probably existed, from the earliest period of the New Testament church, in the administration of baptism. It makes, however, no necessary, or even important, part of the rite. A baptism administered without a name, would, of course, be just as valid as if one were announced. And there is nothing in the essential nature of the case, which would forbid a name given to a child in baptism being reconsidered and altered afterwards. Yet, inasmuch as a child, when baptized, is announced to the church as a new member, subject to its maternal watch and care, it ought, in common, for obvious reasons, to be introduced and known under some name, so that each child may be distinguished, and may receive its appropriate treatment. To introduce a nameless member into any society, would be both unreasonable and inconvenient. Moreover, it is of great consequence, both to civil and religious society, that the birth and baptism of every child be recorded in regular church books. The formation of this record requires, it is evident, the use of a name; and after the name is adopted and recorded in this public register, it is plain that frequent alterations of the name, and tampering, in a corresponding manner, with the public register, would lead to endless confusion and mischief. Thus we are conducted, by a very obvious train of reasoning, to the conclusion that the name announced in baptism, ought, in general, to be carefully retained, without subtraction or addition. Sometimes, indeed, the civil law requires such registers to be made and preserved, in regard to every birth and baptism. "Where this is the case, there is, evidently, an additional reason for adhering strictly to the name announced in baptism, recorded in the appropriate register, and thus brought under official notice, and recorded as the property of the state. See a number of curious questions proposed and resolved, concerning the names imposed in baptism, in the Politics Ecclesiasticse of the learned Gisbertus Voetius. Tom. I. p. 714-724.