Page:Chertkov - Christian Martyrdom.djvu/40

Rh understanding, are one and the same. The means of attaining the new birth are living faith in God and prayer. The signs of the newly born, or baptized, are the works of the new man.

The consummation of baptism or new birth, they say, a man attains when he is united to God; and such a man may see God with his spiritual eyes. External baptism they regard as useless, saying that water only washes off the uncleanness of the external body.

8. They confess their sins in prayer to the heavenly God, good and merciful, who forgives all our sins. If they sin against their brethren, they confess before all, and ask their brethren to forgive them.

To deny one's sins when others remark them, is regarded by the Spirit- Wrestlers as a great wrong. They also condemn the practice of calling oneself a sinner, and making this a kind of boast, a sham meekness, to excuse one from trying to correct one's errors. When a man has fallen he should immediately recover himself, ask God's forgiveness with humbled heart, and with all his might strive not to fall again into a similar sin.

9. As to the Communion, they partake at all times of the sacred, life-giving, eternal sacraments, in the forgiveness of their sins spiritually, through