g 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.

Now, we may see this, above all, in The adorable Name of Jesus.
That name, above all others, ought to show us what a name means; for
it is the name of the Son of Man, the one perfect and sinless man,
the pattern of all men; and therefore it must be a perfect name, and
a pattern for all names; and it was given to the Lord not by man,
but by God; not after He was born, but before He was conceived in
the womb of the blessed Virgin. And therefore, it must show and
mean not merely some outward accident about Him, something which He
seemed to be, or looked like, in men's eyes: no, the Name of Jesus
must mean what the Lord was in the sight of His Father in Heaven;
what He was in the eternal purpose of God the Father; what He was,
really and absolutely, in Himself; it must mean and declare the very
substance of His being. And so, indeed, it does; for The adorable
Name of Jesus means nothing else but God the Saviour--God who saves.
This is His name, and was, and ever will be. This Name He fulfilled
on earth, and proved it to be His character, His exact description,
His very Name, in short, which made Him different from all other
beings in heaven or earth, create or uncreate; and therefore, He
bears His name to all eternity, for a mark of what He has been, and
is, and will be for ever--God the Saviour; and this is the perfect
name, the pattern of all other names of men.

Now though the Christian names which we give our children here in
England, have no especial meaning to them, and have nothing to do
with what we expect or wish the children to be when they grow up,
yet the names of people in most other countries in the world have.
The Jewish names which we find in the Bible have almost all of them
a meaning. So Simeon, I believe, means 'Obedient'; Jehoshaphat
means, 'The Lord will judge'; Daniel, 'God is my judge'; Isaiah
means, 'The Salvation of the Lord'; Isaac means, 'She laughs,' as a
memorial of Sarah's laughing, wh