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New-Born

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a sect which arose in the United States in the early part of the last century. It was originated by Matthias Baumann, a German emigrant, who embarked for America in 1719, and settled in what is now Bucks County, Pa. During the few years which he passed in his adopted country — he died in 1727 — Baumann succeeded in drawing around him a small sect who called themselves New-Born, pretending to have received the new birth through mediate inspiration, apparitions, dreams, and the like. Any one who had thus been regenerated was alleged to be like Christ and God, and to be incapable of any longer committing sin. They denied that the Bible is necessary as a means of salvation, and scoffed at the holy sacraments. The privilege of impeccability they believed to be the portion of all who truly belonged to Christ. The New Birth they held to be that new stone which none knoweth but he that receiveth it. The sect appears to have survived the death of its founder little more than twenty years.