APRIL 19
In the ancient Church, when baptism was administered, there were usually two or more Sponsors (so Tertullian calls them), for every person to be baptised. As these were witnesses before God and the Church, of the solemn engagement those persons entered into, so they undertook (as the very word implies) to watch over those souls in a peculiar manner, to instruct, admonish, exhort, and build them up in the faith once delivered to the saints. These were considered as a kind of spiritual parents to the baptised.
See the child be taught … the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and all the other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul’s health, and that he may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life. …
Waive every other consideration, and choose for their sponsors those persons alone who truly fear and serve God.
Concerning Godfathers and Godmothers
You and I are like bigots to the Bible. We think the Bible language is like Goliath’s sword: that “There is none like it.”
Letter, 25th March, 1772
