Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/342

42 alone the males, but both males and females, who through the preaching of the holy word, have died unto the old life and have arisen with Christ in newness of life; who are pricked in their hearts; who circumcise their hearts and minds; who put on Christ, and who have the testimony of a clear conscience, before God, Rom. 6; Acts 3: 37; Col. 2: 11; Gal. 3: 27; 1 Pet. 3: 21. Observe the third difference. Not to possess a literal kingdom and land, and to become a great people upon earth, as was promised to Abraham and his seed; but to bear all manner of anxiety, affliction, tribulation, and misery upon earth, for the sake of the testimony of the word of God; to turn the heart away from all visible and perishable things; to die unto pomp, splendor, the world, and flesh, and thus to walk in our weakness as Christ has walked in his perfection, &c.

Behold, reader, how openly he adulterates the Scriptures, and how grossly he perverts the truth when he writes that the command is unchanged, and that the gathering of the churches under the Old and New Testaments are the same, and that no different commands are given, both as regards preaching and the use of the sacraments; for it is all changed and renewed as may be clearly educed from the foregoing references. I will leave to your reflections if such a thing may not be called perverting truth into falsehood.

Again, from his saying that the church is no less gracious to our children than to the children of Israel, born in the flesh, I understand him to say, If God will not have our children baptized, that he is less gracious to them than he was to the children of the circumcision; by which he openly testifies that he couples the kingdom, grace and promise of God with that sign.

If God is only gracious to such children as have received, or may receive that outward sign, then it must necessarily follow that God has been ungracious to, and displeased with all the children before the law of circumcision; besides to all children who died before the eighth day, and during the forty years they passed in the wilderness, together with all the maids and women, because they were not circumcised; then he must also be displeased with all the children under the New Testament, for they are not commanded to be baptized.

O no, to children belongs the kingdom of God. Not by virtue of any sign, but alone by grace through Christ Jesus, Matt. 19: 14. And as to his calling infant-baptism a sealing of the covenant of grace, I would reply, If he can show me a place in all the New Testament where the baptism of the believing is called a sealing of the covenant of grace, then I will admit that he is right. But I know to a certainty, that he cannot do so. If the baptism of the believing, which is ordained of God himself, is not called such, how can infant baptism, then be called such, which is not ordained of God, but is merely self-chosen fiction invented of man?

If he should allude to the circumcision, I would say that they are two distinct and different signs, and that the first has no relation whatever to the second; for these following reasons: Firstly, because all the signs, before and under the law, given to the patriarchs, as the coats of skins to Adam; the rain-bow to Noah; the circumcision to Abraham; the yearly offering of the high priests, &c. Gen. 3: 21; 9: 16; 17: 10, 11; Lev. 16, all, unitedly pointed to Christ who has now appeared, and in whom all the preceding signs are fulfilled; and we now have no sealing or assurance through outward signs and symbols, but through the true Sign of all signs, Christ Jesus, as he himself says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life; for God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son," John 3: 14–16. Secondly, because we, now, are not a people according to the letter, as was Israel, but are a people according to the spirit; who, before they receive the sign, are turned to God through the preaching of repentance; who die unto the old sinful life; who receive the light of grace in their hearts; who accept the true Sign of peace, Christ Jesus, through faith; arise with him into a new life and are thus sealed in their hearts, through the promise of the Holy Ghost and the eternal covenant and the