We may consider three words, both helps and puzzles, used in connexion with Holy Baptism: _Regeneration, Adoption, Election_. Each has its own separate teaching, though there are points at which their meanings run into each other. _Regeneration_. "We yield Thee hearty thanks that it hath pleased Thee to regenerate this infant." So runs the Prayer-Book thanksgiving after baptism. What does it mean? The word regeneration comes from two Latin words, _re_, again, _generare_, to generate, and means exactly what it says. In Prayer-Book language, it means being "_born again_". And, notice, it refers to infants as well {76} as to adults. The new birth is as independent of the child's choice as the natural birth. And this is just what we should expect from a God of love. The child is not consulted about his first birth, neither is he consulted about his second birth. He does not wait (as the Baptists teach) until he is old enough to make a free choice of second birth, but as soon as he is born into the world ("within seven or fourteen days," the Prayer Book orders) he is reborn into the Church. Grace does not let nature get ten to twenty years' start, but gives the soul a fair chance from the very first: and so, and only so, is a God of love "justified in His saying, and clear when He is judged". _Adoption_. But there is a second word. The Baptismal Thanksgiving calls the Baptized "God's own child by Adoption". A simple illustration will best explain the word. When a man is "naturalized," he speaks of his new country as the land of his _adoption_. If a Frenchman becomes a naturalized Englishman, he ceases legally to be a Frenchman; ceases to be under French law; ceases to serve in the French army. He {77} becomes legally an Englishman; he is under English law; serves in the English army; has all the privileges and obligations of a "new-born" Englishman. He may turn out to be a bad Englishman, a traitor to his adopted country; he may even hanker after his old life as a Frenchman--but he has left one kingdom for another, and, good, bad, or indifferent, he is a subject of his new King; he is a son of his adopted country. He cannot belong to two kingdoms, serve under two kings, live under two sets of laws, at the same time.