Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/398

98 would not leave us unpunished, without the ransom.

Reader, observe, How could they speak more blasphemously of the most holy manhood of Christ, nay, of the Son of the Almighty and eternal God, than they thereby do? For if Christ was flesh of our sinful and death-guilty flesh, and if he was thus tempted of his own flesh, then the sin, of which he was tempted, must have dwelt in his flesh, and then he died for the sake of duty, and not for the sake of grace; this is too clear to be refuted. Nor could it be otherwise, if we assert that Christ's flesh was of Adam's sinful flesh.

Again, If his holy, precious flesh was such a ransom as Gellius claims, how could the righteousness of God be fulfilled and acquitted thereby, according to the holy will of God? If this may not be rightly called, preaching an impure and sinful Christ, and robbing our most holy Savior and Messiah (something of which they accuse us), I will leave all right-minded and reasonable people to reflect upon in a scriptural light.

Thirdly, Two persons in Christ, namely, the one the second person in the Godhead, and the other the man of Mary's flesh, in which human person the divine person dwelt. Which error is not alone controverted by us, but also by Luther, saying, "Beware, beware (I say) of the Alleosi; it is the devil's mask; for it will ultimately establish such a Christ as I would not be called after; namely, that Christ henceforth is no more, and that his suffering avails no more than the suffering of a common saint. For, if I should believe that alone human feeling suffered for me, then that Christ would be a poor Savior; he would stand in need of a Savior himself. In short, it is unspeakable what the devil seeks and intends by this Alleosi. We say, God is man and man is God; we cry against them that they divide the person of Christ, as if it were two persons."

For, if the Alleosi shall stand, as Zuingli teaches it, Christ must be two persons, one divine, the other human. This he says, "Reader, observe, to what kind of Christ they teach and point us."

Fourthly, Two sons in Christ; of which the first is the Son of God without a mother; the second, the son of Mary, without a father; in which son of Mary, the Son of God should have been embodied, and thus have been united, as they claim. Just behold what a monstrosity they produce!

Fifthly, The person, Christ Jesus, then was neither the first nor only begotten Son, but the third son of God in order, who was not born, but created of God; and would be, as Pomer says, the accepted son of God, Quod & Bonosianorum five Monosolitarum hæresis est. I say He would be the third in order. For the first is the Word; the second, the first Adam, Luke 3: 38, and the third, the man of Mary's flesh, who should have been accepted as a son of God, as heard.

Sixthly, Then we are not redeemed and delivered through God's first and only begotten Son, but through Mary's son, created of Adam's impure and sinful flesh, as also the defense and his followers dare assert, in the face of all the Scriptures, saying, that the nature imbodied in the loins of Adam, which committed the transgression also, according to the righteousness of God will requite and remit the same.

Seventhly, If we are thus delivered through Adam's flesh, as they claim, then we should not only give thanks to the Father for his Word, but also to Adam's flesh, through which our deliverance is caused; this, all right-minded persons must admit.

Eighthly, If the man Christ was a creature of Adam's flesh, and we were delivered through him, as the learned claim; and since God speaks through the prophet, That he will not give his glory to another, Isaiah 48: 11; and since it is manifest that we should honor our Redeemer, Christ, no less than we honor the Father, therefore it must follow that God either did not speak truly through his prophets, or else they were all idolaters because they gave divine homage to a creature of Adam's flesh; something which is so strictly forbidden in the Scriptures, and which often was severely punished of God. Behold, reader, such an inconsistent, impure, and divided Christ he is to which the learned point and teach you by their sophistry and garbled Scriptures. A Christ composed of two persons and two