Note 58 — Chapter III

Memorial, p. 151. Mr. Smith was an English minister, who separated from the Church of England, and went to Holland, where he embraced the sentiments of the Baptists. He is said to have baptized himself, for want of a suitable administrator, and hence was called a Se-Baptist. Dr. Toulmin remarks, on this assertion, “This is said on the authority of his opponents only, who, from the acrimony with which they wrote against him, it may be reasonably concluded, might be ready to take up a report against him upon slender evidence.” Neal’s History of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 72, note. Mr. Neal says, that “he was a learned man, of good abilities, but of an unsettled head.” His adoption of Baptist principles explains this reproach.