eness of God Himself?--that
as by nature they had been the children of wrath, so in baptism they
might become the children of grace; that as from their forefathers
they had inherited a corrupt nature, original sin, and the likeness
of the foul and ravenous beasts which perish, they might have power
from the Spirit of God to become the sons of God, conformed into the
likeness of Jesus Christ, in peace, and love, and righteousness, and
all holiness.

And yet, in names there is a lower depth still among fallen and
heathen men; when they lose utterly the last dim notion that God
intends men to be persons, even as God the Father is a person, and
God the Son a person, and God the Holy Spirit is a person, and so
lose the custom of giving their children personal names at all;
either giving them, after they grow up, mere nicknames, taken from
some peculiarity of their bodies, or something which they have done,
or some place where they happen to live; or else, like many tribes
of heathen negroes, just name them after the day of the week on
which they were born, as some way of knowing them apart; or, last
and most shocking of all, give them no names at all, and have no
names themselves, knowing each other apart as the dumb animals do,
only by sight. I can conceive no deeper fall into utter brutishness
than that; and yet some few of the most savage tribes, both in
Africa and in the Indian islands, are said--God help them!--to live
in that way, and to have no names;--blotted, indeed, out of the book
of life!

But is this the right state for men? No; it is the wrong state. It
is a disease into which men are fallen; a disease out of which
Christ came to raise men; and out of which He does raise us in Holy
Baptism. Baptism puts the child into its right state--into the
right state for a human being, a human soul, a human person. And
baptism declares what that right state is--a member of Christ, a
child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. A member
of Christ, and therefore a person, because Christ is a person. A
child of God, and therefore a person, because a child's duty is to
love and trust and obey his father--and only a person can do that,
not an animal or a thing. An inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,
and therefore bound to cherish all heavenly thoughts and feelings,
all righteousness, love, and obedience, which only spirits and
persons, not animals or things, can feel.

Now can you not see why baptism is