Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 94. What is baptism?
Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.
Christopher and Edwin, by passing through the waters of baptism, you have had Christ and his benefits signified to you. Water is that element wherewith our physical bodies are purified from their filth and pollution. This natural virtue of water renders it a most fit instrument to signify and convey to us the cleansing nature of the blood of Christ, which “will purify our consciences” and without which “there is no forgiveness.”[1] Not only is your baptism a sign to you of “the benefits of the covenant of grace,” but a seal as well. Like a seal imprinted upon an ancient letter by the signet of a king, so too your baptisms serve to confirm to you your birth right and interest in that everlasting covenant wherein God promises to put his laws into the minds of his people, to be a God to them, to remember their sins no more, and to instruct them in the saving knowledge of himself. It is a blessed thing to be born in covenant with God and have access to the sign and seal of God’s covenant and church. You are under our Christian nurture and admonition,[2] are under the care and government of the church,[3] and enjoy the covenant mercies and blessings of God.[4] As the Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea unto salvation, so too you are passed unto salvation.
Now, not all who are baptized in point of fact enjoy “the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”[5] Baptism is no magical charm nor an infallible marker of certain glorification. To be a baptized member of the church is to have a better prospect of certain salvation. You are called to make good your baptismal covenant in later life. You are called to make good your baptismal covenant by duly improving your baptism by making a Christian profession when of age.[6] To this Christian profession must be joined a life of putting on the new man, putting off the old man,[7] doing good.[8] In short you must “live by the faith of the Son of God,”[9] who loves you two and gave himself for you. Thereby you will answer your engagement with the Lord Jesus Christ, who “also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.”[10]
The same Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into whose name you have been baptized has engaged himself to be your God[11] and has vouchsafed to you “exceeding great and precious promises.”[12] With the Father as your King, the Son as your Lord, and the Holy Spirit as your Sovereign, you will have no fear. Look back upon this means of grace and communion with Jesus Christ constantly. Live a life answerable to this ordinance faithfully. Rest not merely in the sign but the thing signified diligently. With tenderest love and affection from your parents who desire you both to enjoy both the “promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come,”[13] we leave you with these parting words from Cotton Mather;
Child, you have been baptized; you were washed in the name of the great God; now you must not sin against Him; to sin is to do a dirty, a filthy thing. Child you must every day cry to God that He would be your Father, and your Saviour, and your Leader; in your baptism He promised that He would be so, fi you sought unto Him. Child, you must renounce the service of Satan, you must not follow the vanities of this world, you must lead a life of serious religion; in your baptism you were bound unto the service of your only Saviour. What is your name; you must sooner forget this name, that was given you in your baptism, than forget that you are a servant of a glorious Christ whose name was put upon you in your baptism.[14]
[1] Heb. 9:14, 22.
[2] Eph. 6:4.
[3] Heb. 13:17.
[4] Rom. 3:1-2.
[5] Tit. 3:5.
[6] Rom. 10:9-10.
[7] Eph. 4:22-24, Col. 3:10
[8] Gal. 6:9.
[9] Gal. 2:20.
[10] Eph. 5:2.
[11] Heb. 8:10.
[12] 2 Pet. 1:4
[13] 1 Tim. 4:8.
[14] Cotton Mather, Bonifacius, 43.
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