Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/351

Rh be plainly seen in the cases of Nadab, Abihu, Jeroboam, Uzza, and others.

The pious reader should also know that the children of the churches are not sanctified by means of ceremonies, words, and water, but solely through the grace, favor, merits, blood, and death of the Lord, and by no other work nor means, at all. But as to his writing that God bestows upon the baptized children his Spirit, we would say that we would have him consider more deeply and learn to know what the work of the Spirit is, before he teaches such doctrine.

Is it not deeply to be regretted that such people dare take upon themselves the care of souls, while they have not yet learned what is the nature, fruit and power of the Holy Spirit? For wherever the Holy Spirit is, there also must be its fruits; this is incontrovertible. And what fruits we find in children when they begin to become of understanding minds, we may, alas, educe from their words, works, and life.

I would further say, that if the Spirit is bestowed upon children, through baptism, as he says, and since the Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit is given to the believing, then it must follow therefrom, since the children do not believe, that the Holy Spirit is not given them through faith, but that it is given through the merits of the ceremony of baptism, which the preachers practice. And what is worse, such a spirit, which in every respect is without knowledge, intelligence, inspiration, power, fruit, and work, as may be seen. O, great blindness and error!

Answer. Here I would ask Gellius, and all who practice infant baptism, Firstly, If all the believers brought their children to Christ when he was preaching? If they answer in the affirmative, they they ought to be ashamed; for they can not prove their assertion by the Scriptures. But if they answer in the negative, then they acknowledge that they in the first place, are wrong to teach and practice that children should be brought to him, that is (according to their understanding), to baptize them.

In the second place I ask, whether in any part of Scripture bringing to Christ is called baptism? If they answer in the affirmative, then they can not produce proof. If they answer in the negative then they admit that they, in the second place, adulterate the word of God, by explaining and construing bringing to Christ to mean baptizing.

In the third place I ask, whether Christ baptized the children, brought to him, with water? If they answer in the affirmative, then I would answer with John, that Christ, himself, did not baptize, John 3: 5. But if they answer in the negative, then they acknowledge, in the third place, that it is a false doctrine to try to defend infant baptism on the strength of this bringing to him.

In the fourth place I would ask, because he says that Christ baptized the children with the Holy Spirit. If, then, baptizing with the Spirit is the same thing as baptizing with water? If they answer in the affirmative, then Spirit must be letter, or letter, Spirit. But if they answer in the negative, then they, themselves, pronounce sentence against infant baptism; that Christ's action with the children does not teach nor imply it.

In the fifth place I would ask. How we are to understand this bringing to him—in a carnal, or spiritual way? If they answer in a carnal way, then I would say, that it cannot now be the case, since Christ, in body, is taken from us and removed hence, where we cannot approach in the body, 1 Tim. 6: 16. But if they answer, in a spiritual way, then I would again ask why Gellius so shamefully abuses the pious, whom he calls anabaptists, by writing that they do not at all bring their children to Christ (something which could not have been written in purity of heart), while many of them are so solicitously caring for the salvation of their children by teaching, admonishing, and punishing them, and by having a constant solicitude for them, as God's word and the love of their children command and teach all christian parents to do.

O, that God would grant that Gellius and his followers would more deeply consider this spiritual bringing to Christ, as I trust