Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/329

Rh my word they will also keep your word; with which he doubtlessly means to say, as the world has not kept my doctrine, therefore they will not keep your doctrine.

Answer. God has never, from the beginning, preached repentance through the impenitent. The mouth and wisdom of God say, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles," Matt. 7: 16.

Since, it is clear that Gellius and his like preachers remain so earthly and carnally-minded, and are driven by such an unmerciful, tyrannical, and slandering spirit, which is, properly, the inborn spirit, nature, and fruit of the old serpent; how, then, can they lightly preach the penitent, pious life and the fruitful, merciful, amiable spirit, nature, and disposition of Christ, which they not only not acknowledge, but upbraid as hypocrisy and which they sincerely hate in all the pious?

In the second place, I say, that the preaching of peace and the making of cushions of the learned, as they do, will bring forth but few truly repentant persons. For although the world is so wicked and wild that we should reasonably be terrified at their very great wickedness, yet they are so comforted and consoled by their preachers, with their infant baptism, supper, alms, and with the merits, grace, death, and blood of the Lord, that they presume themselves to be the Lord's chosen holy church and people.

In the third place I would say, because he speaks doubtfully, saying. If it were true that many of his audience turn the preaching of the word to lasciviousness, and little fruit was brought forth by it, something which he however does not admit, &c., the reader should well mark how assiduously they defend the world and the church of anti-Christ, saying, If it were true, &c. Yet the whole German nation has degenerated to such a wild and reckless freedom, by the preaching of their free gospel that if we reasonably admonish and reprove them for their open unchastity, carousing, pomp and splendor, cursing and swearing, lascivious and foul words, we must immediately hear that we are conspirators, vagabonds, fanatics, heaven-stormers, anabaptists, and other indecent, disgraceful slanders.

But in regard to the complaint of Isaiah and the saying of Christ, If they have kept my saying, &c., John 15: 20, with which he wishes to cover and adorn his unscriptural practices and doctrine of impenitence, I would ask him: If Christ and the apostles have received those who lived after the lusts of their flesh, such as drunkards, railers, extortioners, avaricious, fornicators, adulterers, &c., as their disciples, so long as they had not sincerely repented?

If he answers in the affirmative, then he speaks contrary to all Scripture. For Paul says, That we shall not eat with such, if he does call himself a brother, 1 Cor. 5: 11, and that they shall not inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6: 11. If he answers in the negative, then I would again ask, Why they receive them as disciples while they are not disciples of Christ, but are, according to his own words, of the world?

If he answers that they do not receive them, then I would ask him why they baptize their children before they let them partake of the supper? And whether it would not be better if he would separate them, according to the Scriptures from the communion of those whom he esteems pious? If he answers that he does not know of such, which he can by no means, truthfully say, then I would, lastly ask, if he does not know a tree by its fruits; if he cannot see a light that shines in darkness, as all true Christian lights are called in the Scriptures, nor a city which is built upon a high mountain? Matt. 5: 14.

Since Gellius and all the preachers, receive and suffer such impenitent persons, whom he himself calls of the world, as heard, in the communion of their churches, against the practice of Christ and of the apostles, therefore they must thereby acknowledge that Christ's church is of the world or the world of Christ's church; that they, contrary to the apostolic doctrine, ordinance, and example, dispense the sacraments also to the world, which according to the Scriptures properly belong to the penitent alone, who have placed themselves in the church of the Lord, in obedience to the word; that they, thereby, include the penitent (if such there be) in the communion of the impenitent; and that they are open flatterers and