A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

My dearly beloved reader take heed to the Word of the Lord and learn to know the true God. I warned you faith- fully to take it, if you please. He will not save you nor forgive you your sins nor show you His mercy and grace except according to His Word; namely if you repent and if you believe, if you are born of Him, if you do what He has commanded and walk as He walks.16 For Menno Simons, conversion could not be separated from a complete inward transformation expressed in disciple- ship. The life and character of the believer reflected the evi- dence of true regeneration, The regenerate, therefore, lead a penitent and new life, for they are renewed in Christ and have received a new heart and spirit. Once they were earthly minded, now heavenly; once they were carnal, now spiritual; once they were unrighteous, now righteous; once they were evil, now good, and they live no longer after the old corrupted nature. . . . Their minds are like the mind of Christ, they gladly walk as he walked; they crucify and tame their flesh with all its evil lusts.17 Peter M. Friesen observed that the central concern for the Mennonite Brethren, both before and after withdrawal from the old church, was "conversion to God through repentance and faith in the reconciling grace in Jesus Christ and a life of 32 MB UNDERSTANDING OF SALVATION AND BAPTISM sanctification according to the rules of the gospel through the gift of grace of the Spirit of Christ/718 This emphasis remained predominant. A mere crisis experience or verbal profession did not provide the proof of a genuine conversion, A new life was the proof required. They took passages like John 3:3 literally, "Except a man be born again (anew) he cannot un- derstand the kingdom of God," and 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new." Only a visibly new life in character and relationship was proof of a supernatural transaction of God in the salvation of a lost sinner, Harold Bender's observation that "the Reformation emphasis on faith was good but inadequate , for without newness of life . . . faith is hypocritical," expressed well the understanding of the Mennonite Brethren.19 A deep sin consciousness and stark sense of a "lostness" characterized the many recorded conversion stories of the ear- ly Mennonite Brethren.20 This remained the normative experi- ence for Mennonite Brethren into the 1950s. They generally spoke of days, weeks and often months of searching for peace in a spirit of repent