Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/365

Rh to the doctrine of the law, and especially of the holy gospel. Answer. Wherever the law is preached rightly and taken to heart, through faith and manifested in Spirit and power, there we find a subdued mind, a penitent, humble heart, and a conscience which trembles before the word and true fear of God, and which allays and disperses sin, as Sirach says.

This is the real intention and object of the law: To reveal unto us the will of God, to discover unto us sin, to threaten us with the wrath and punishment of the Lord, to proclaim death, and to point us to Christ, that we may, before the eyes of God, be humbled in heart, die unto sin, and seek and find the only and eternal medicine and remedy for our souls, Jesus Christ.

In the same manner it is in regard to the gospel. Wherever it is preached in true zeal, according to the pleasure of God, and unblamably in the power of the Spirit, so that it penetrates the hearts of the hearers, there we find a converted, changed and new mind, which joyfully and gratefully gives praises to his God for his inexpressibly great love towards us, miserable sinners, in Christ Jesus, and thus enters into newness of life willingly and freely, by the power of a true faith and a new birth.

If Gellius would knock at the innermost heart of his followers, and of himself, with the hammer of the law, and zealously enkindle in them the fire of the holy gospel, so that they would, in true repentance, change their unclean, obdurate hearts, and abandon their heathenish pomp and splendor in their houses, and clothes, their vain show of gold and silver, their extravagance, avariciousness, drinking, and carousing, and would enter with Christ into newness of life, then I would admit that that which he has written here concerning the Lord's Supper, did well compare with their walk. But as it is, he consoles the poor with an empty purse, only, and acts in a manner entirely contrary to that in which he should. For the signs of the New Testament are in themselves quite powerless, vain, and useless, if the signification, namely, the new, penitent life, is not there, as has been said above in treating of baptism.

Answer. Caiaphas said unto the Pharisees and Scribes, "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not," John 11: 50.

His intentions sounded right, yet his cruel, blood-thirsty heart did not perceive that it was he, who, through bitter zeal, sought the life of the king of all glory.

We do not controvert but that Gellius and his fellow preachers sometimes talk of a pious life, according to the Scriptures, and admonish their hearers of the cross; but how they love true righteousness, which true doctrine brings forth, and how they treat the confessors thereof, may, alas, be educed from their indiscreet and disgraceful writing and crying.

Since he writes that he thus admonishes them, as heard, and that it is plainly manifest that he not only hates the true righteousness, power, fruit, and obedience which true preaching brings forth, but also crucifies it, I fear, by his indiscreet and disgraceful writing, therefore, the godly, pious reader may consider if he is not like unto the Scribes and Pharisees, in this respect, who, although they understood the law, yet so hated righteousness, that they, by their connivance and advice, crucified him who was promised in the law, the Fulfiller, Christ Jesus.

Dear reader, understand what I write. Outward preaching, hearing, baptism, and Supper do not at all avail before God; but before him avail teaching and believing, faith, and works, outwardly baptism and Supper, according to the letter, and inwardly according to the Spirit and truth. Behold, this is what God's word and ordinance teach us.

So long as such impenitent, carnal people are the dispensers, and such vain, pompous, covetous, extortionate, carousing, and drinking people the partakers, so long, I say, it