XII.—Of Election and Regeneration.

We humbly own and believe that God, the Father, before the foundation of the world, was pleased of His sovereign grace to choose a people unto Himself in Christ, whom He gave to the Son, and to whom the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual life by a secret and wonderful operation of His power, using as His ordinary means, where years of understanding have been reached, the truths of His Word in ways agreeable to the nature of man; so that, being born from above, they are the children of God created in Christ Jesus unto good works.