Regeneration, Menno Simons

14. Regeneration
Do you think, beloved, that the new birth is nothing else but that which the poor world hitherto has thought it to consist in, namely immersion in the water or the saying of the words, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost?" No, dear brethren, no. The new birth consists verily not in water nor in words, but it is the heavenly, quickening power of God in our hearts which comes from God and through the preaching of the divine word, if we accept the same by faith, touches, pierces, renews and changes our hearts, so that we are converted from unbelief to faith, from unrighteousness to righteousness, from evil to good, from carnality to spirituality, from the earthly to the heavenly, from the evil nature of Adam to the good nature of Jesus Christ (419a; II:215a). -- Menno Simons, His Life, Labors, and Teachings, John Horsch, Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1916, p. 246