It is so with the Baptized. He has been "adopted" into a new kingdom. He is a subject of "the Kingdom of Heaven". But he cannot belong to two kingdoms at the same time. His "death unto sin" involves a "new birth (regeneration) unto righteousness". He ceases to be a member of the old kingdom, to serve under the sway of the old king, to be a "child of wrath". He renounces all allegiance to Satan; he becomes God's own child by "adoption". He may be a good, bad, or indifferent child; he may be a lost child, but he does not cease to be God's child. Rather, it is just because he is still God's child that there is hope for him. It is because he is {78} the child of God by adoption that the "spirit of adoption" within him can still cry, "Abba, Father," that he can still claim the privilege of his adopted country, and "pardon through the Precious Blood". True, he has obligations and responsibilities, as well as privileges, and these we shall see under the next word, Election. _Election_. The Catechism calls the Baptized "the elect people of God," and the Baptismal Service asks that the child may by Baptism be "taken into the number of God's elect children". What does it mean? The word itself comes from two Latin words, _e_, or _ex_, out; and _lego_, to choose. The "elect," then, are those chosen out from others. It sounds like favouritism; it reads like "privileged classes"--and so it is. But the privilege of election is the privilege of service. It is like the privilege of a Member of Parliament, the favoured candidate--the privilege of being elected to serve others. Every election is for the sake of somebody else. The Member of Parliament is elected for the sake of his constituents; the Town Councillor is elected for the sake of his fellow-townsmen; the Governor is elected for the sake of the {79} governed. It is so with spiritual elections. The Jews were "elect"; but it was for the sake of the Gentiles--"that the Gentiles, through them, might be brought in". The Blessed Virgin was "elect"; but it was that "all generations might call her blessed". The Church is "elect," but it is for the sake of the world,--that it, too, might be "brought in". No election ends with itself. The Baptized are "elect," but not for their own sakes; not to be a privileged class, save to enjoy the privilege of bringing others in. They are "chosen out" of the world for the sake of those left in the world. This is their obligation; it is the law of their adopted country, the kingdom into which they have, "by spiritual regeneration," been "born again". All this, and much more, Baptism does. How does it do it? (III) HOW DOES IT DO IT?