ever, the erring body of the English Baptists were admitted without rebaptism into the Mennonite Communion, after signing a document in which they expressed penitence for their irregular proceedings.
None of the English Separatists had a finer mind or a more beautiful soul than John Smith. None of them succeeded in expressing with so much reasonableness and consistency their aspirations after a spiritual system of religious belief and practice. None of them founded their opinions on so large and liberal a basis. I will quote such articles of his Confession as will enable you to understand their general tenor. "God," he says, "created man with freedom of will, which was a natural power or faculty in the soul. Adam, after his fall, did not lose any natural faculty but still retained freedom of will. Original sin is therefore an idle term. Infants are conceived and born in innocency without sin, and so dying are undoubtedly saved, and this is to be understood of all infants under heaven. All actual sinners bear the image of Adam in his innocency, fall and restitution to grace. As no man begetteth his child to the gallows, nor no potter maketh a pot to break it, so God doth not predestinate any man to destruction. The sacrifice of Christ's body doth not reconcile God unto us, which did never hate us nor was our enemy, but reconcileth us unto God. The efficacy of Christ's death is derived only to them who do mortify their sins, being grafted with Him in the similitude of His death; and every regenerate person hath in himself the three witnesses of the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. Repentance and faith are wrought in the
