Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/333

Rh teach and proclaim, without respect of persons, the pure gospel of Jesus Christ, without being exiled, proscribed or killed; much less enjoy life at ease and liberty, as they do, without persecution, yea, receive annual stipends of the world and be highly honored and loved by them.

Peruse all the Holy Scriptures and see if you can find that Christ Jesus, with his holy apostles, true witnesses, and followers fared as they do and received as they do; whether persecution, cross, tribulation, anxiety, prison, and death were not, generally, their lot and part. Besides experience, yet daily, teaches this abundantly.

If, then, the preachers acted rightly, if they were walking according to the example of Christ and his apostles; if their teachings and dealings were right, as they pretend them to be, then all the Holy Scriptures must be wrong, the word of the cross be fulfilled and Christ and his prophecies must be false, this is incontrovertible. Therefore, all their boasting and artful citations concerning their calling, office, doctrine, and church-service, together with their defense are, in fact, wrong, futile, hypocritical, unjust and without truth. "For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's," Phil. 2: 21; their own ease and not the salvation of their neighbors; they are enemies of the cross; they serve their own bellies, Rom. 16. If they would rightly reprove all the ungodliness, idolatry, abuse, pride, pomp, splendor, hypocrisy, and unfaithfulness of this world, without respect of persons with the same earnestness, assiduity, heart, and mind, &c., as did Christ with his holy apostles and true witnesses, and in other respects would not act so freely; if they would hate all unrighteousness of the world as Christ Jesus and his apostles hated it, then they would not long remain at ease in their comfortable houses; they would not have such incomes and they would be little regarded by this reckless, wild world. Of this I am convinced.

But they do differently; they make the garment to fit the man (as the saying is), and they so teach and act that the world may suffer them and love them and that they may be the friends of the world, so that they may be at ease, not be persecuted, and enjoy good times; this is something which is generality well understood, and a sure proof that their sending or calling together with their doctrine and church-service is in every particular without the ordinance. Spirit and word of God, as said before.

Herewith, Gellius' article on the calling has been replied to. I would earnestly beseech him and all the preachers to reflect in the fear of God for before the flaming eyes of the Lord, which search heaven and earth, nothing wrong will be hidden, however artfully it may be covered before man's eyes, and however much it may be decked and adorned with smooth words.

Answer. The sending or calling of Moses, of Christ, of Paul, of the apostles, and prophets was also denied by the perverse. Moses had to hear that he had killed the Lord's people and that he had led them into the wilderness that they might perish through want and misery. Christ Jesus was called a wine-bibber, blasphemer, and one possessed of the devil. Matt. 11: 19. Paul was called a rebel and an apostate Jew, &c. Behold, thus in their times the sending of the faithful servants of the Lord, nay, the the Lord and Messiah himself was despised, although testified by many miracles. How much more, then, shall we be despised, who are such weak and insignificant instruments, and live in seven fold worse and more wicked times than those in which they lived.

Inasmuch, then, as we are accused by our opponents, the learned, that we are not called of a church of God, but of false prophets, or of a false church, therefore I would briefly admonish the reader, to weigh well with the Scriptures who, how and what the church of God is; that it is not a collection of proud, avaricious, extortionate, vain persons, drunkards, and impenitent, as the church of the world is, of whom the learned are called but a collection or congregation of