This Christian, or fore-name as it was called, is the real name. It antedates the surname by many centuries, surnames being unknown in England before the Norman invasion. The Christian name is the Christ-name. It cannot, by any known legal method, be changed. Surnames may be changed in various legal ways: not so the Christian name.[[15]] This was more apparent when the baptized were given only one Christian name, for it was not until the eighteenth century that a second or third name was added, and then only on grounds of convenience.
Again, according to the law of England, the only legal way in which a Christian name can be given, is by Baptism. Thus, if a child has been registered in one name, and is afterwards baptized in another, the Baptismal, and not the registered, name is its legal name, even if the registered name was given first.
It is strange that, in view of all this, peers should drop their Christian names, i.e. their real names, their Baptismal names. The custom, apparently, dates only from the Stuart period, and is not easy to account for. It would seem to suggest a distinct loss. The same loss, if it be a loss, is incurred by the Town Clerk of London, who omits his Christian name in signing official documents.[[16]] The King, more happily, retains his Baptismal or Christian name, and has no surname.[[17]] Bishops sign themselves by both their Christian and official name, as "Randall Cantuar; Cosmo Ebor.; A. F. London; H. E. Winton; F. Oxon.".
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 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 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.
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 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.