Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/311

Rh by the terrible beasts which arise from the sea.

Beloved readers, observe well what I write. Gellius accuses us of "preaching at night." It was in the year 1543, if my memory serves me right, that a decree was read throughout West Friesland, "That criminals and even manslayers were promised pardon, imperial grace, freedom of country (in those times banishing was in vogue), and besides one hundred carl-guilders, if they would betray me and deliver me into the hands of the executioner."

About the year 1589, a husbandman, who was a very pious man, named Tjaert Reyndertz, was seized in my stead, because, out of pity and compassion, he concealed me in his house while I was hotly pursued; and was a few days thereafter, put on the wheel, after a free confession of faith, as a valiant soldier of Christ, after the example of his Lord; although his enemies, even, acknowledged that he was an unblamable, pious man.

Also, in 1546, at a place where they boasted of the word, four houses were at once confiscated, because the owner had rented one of them for a short time, to my sick wife and little ones; although the neighbors were not aware of their presence.

What decrees have been issued against some of us, and what rewards have been offered for our apprehension, in different dominions and cities; what imperial mandates and Roman condemnations have been resolved against us; and how we are treated on every hand, is well known to Gellius and to the preachers of his class. That they are the very cause and the authors of these things, I unreservedly write and testify without fear. Behold, thus they hate all those who rightly teach God's word.

Notwithstanding this, Gellius and others are not ashamed to say, "That we, out of fear of the cross, secretly enter cities and towns, sit with closed doors," &c., as if we were stones, and blocks of wood, which neither do nor can fear any deathly evils; while he and his, well know that the chosen men of God, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron, besides the prophets and apostles, nay, even Christ himself, so feared to die that they sometimes took to flight.

In the second place, I say, that so long as I, poor weak man, have served the pious with my small talent, I have taught more, by far, in day-time than at night. The Lord is my witness that I write the truth. Yet we must be upbraided by these perverse people as night and hedge-preachers, as if the word of God could not be taught any where but in their houses of abomination (who know not the Scriptures), and as if God was not a God of the night as well as of the day. O, perverseness.

Say, reader, was not the night pure unto faithful Moses, and all Israel to eat the passover? Exodus 12: 3–8. Did Christ think it wrong to exhort Nicodemus at night? John 3: 2. Did he not partake, with his disciples, of the Holy Supper, at night, just before his suffering. Matt. 26: 26; Luke 22: 19; 1 Cor. 11: 23. Did not the church assemble at night, when Peter was delivered from the hands of the tyrant by the aid of an angel, out of fear of Herod and the Jews? Acts 12: 7. Did not holy Paul at night preach the word in an upper chamber at Troas, and break the Lord's bread with the disciples, just before his leaving? Acts 20: 7. Did not the saints of the primitive church sometimes meet at night to break the Lord's bread and drink the holy cup? for which they were suspicioned and had to hear and bear many hard names. Does not Hilarius write, that the apostles met in halls and retired places, and that they traveled through many countries and nations, by water and by land, against the prohibitions and decrees of the rulers.

Behold, my readers, whether that which was allowable and free to Moses, Israel, Christ, the apostles and to the primitive churches, namely, the service and preaching of the word of God at night, is free to us or not, especially in these critical times of tyranny, we will let the intelligent reader judge according to Scripture, in the fear of his God.

O Lord! thus they (the world) seek causes, encumbrances and complaints to offend thy poor children more and more and to burden them with the cross, that they may persecute and kill them, in semblance of justice; for they are an obstacle to their works and a smarting to their eyes.