Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/314

14 O, that he would take heed, and not break God's holy and precious word; that he would not slander the pious and godly, who testify to it with their heart, mouth, life, and death; that he would learn to know his own envious, impure, and bitter heart; his deceiving, inconsistent, and infamous doctrine, and his selfish, ambitious flesh; and would humble himself under the mighty hand of God, as the Scriptures teach us to do, for then he might yet be saved. But as it is, I fear that his brawling, slandering, and condemning of all the pious; together with his seeking after improper gain, favor, and honor of men and the desire of an easy, careless life, will so entirely close his heart and bewilder his senses, that he will not acknowledge or desire the glorious brightness of Christ, nor the wisdom which is of God. God grant that my apprehension be not realized, and that he may yet receive grace; this is my sincere wish toward him and all of our opponents. Amen.

Answer. If we, in true, Christian zeal and unfeigned love, rebuke or reprove their false doctrine, deceiving, unscriptural sacraments, and their reckless, carnal life, with the Spirit, word, and life of Christ, and point them to the glorious example of the prophets, of the apostles, of Christ, and of all the true servants of God, he calls us slanderers. From this it may be observed that our work of love is ever interpreted to the contrary. For if we write or speak mournfully, it is called sighing and groaning, if we reprove sharply, it is called brawling and slandering. If we pipe, they dance not; if we mourn, they lament not, as Christ says. Matt. 11: 17. It is wrongly spoken, whatever we say to the perverse. Although they commit abomination, yet they are not ashamed, neither do they blush, Jeremiah 8: 12.

If the reproof of open sin, in true, Christian love, according to the word of God, is slander, as Gellius calls it, then all the saints of God, the apostles and prophets, as also Jesus Christ himself were slanderers; this is incontrovertible; for they called the false prophets and preachers, false teachers, deceivers, dumb dogs, blind guides, hypocrites, thieves, murderers, wolves, cunning devisers, enemies of the cross, servants of their bellies, children of damnation, dry clouds, dead trees, locusts, &c., before the whole world. But no. To openly reprove deceit, transgressions, blasphemy of God, or his word and sin in general is not slandering, as Gellius, through perverseness of heart, pronounces it against the innocent; but it is the fruit of the faithful love of those who would oppose evil and do good unto all. I will leave it to the judgment of all pious and reasonable persons, if he is not a profaner of the church, a brawler and a slanderer, and guilty of innocent blood, who calls the church of God a conspiracy; the regenerated children of God, apostatical anabaptists; the salutary doctrine of Christ, sectarianism and fanaticism; who slanders and condemns the baptism which Christ commanded, and the apostles taught and practiced, as being a heresy; and falsely maintains and practices on the poor, ignorant people, the baptism of anti-Christ, with many high-sounding words and phrases? Who promises grace and peace to the proud, obdurate, avaricious, carnal, and impenitent boaster, whom all Scriptures judge unto death; because he can, in appearance, talk of the Scriptures, although without Spirit, power, or change of heart; who, without just cause, maliciously slander, falsely suspicions, and unjustly condemns, the poor orphans and afflicted Christians who sincerely seek and fear the Lord; and thus delivers them to the magistracy to be put in dungeons, and to the executioner to be killed.

But as to his boasting, that some of our brethren have again associated with them, and thus others may be yet redeemed by his writing, &c. I answer, in the first place: Christ says, "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be