Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/409

 is well known to many persons, noble, honorable, and kind lords, that many are more diligent and zealous to execute the law of Theodosius (although this law was formerly forced from the good emperor by the blood thirsty bishops), the mandate of Charles the fifth, and the decree of the Roman empire, passed against those whom they call anabaptists (issued in our times), than they are, to have the word of God obeyed; never minding that these laws and decrees were made, not on account of baptism itself, but on account of the ungodly errors and abominations which were committed by the doctrine and doings of the baptized; for, if the beforementioned law, mandate, and decree were issued on account of baptism, and not on account of the crimes committed at different times by those that were baptized, then were also Christ Jesus, the apostles, Cyprian the Martyr, all the African bishops, the Nicene concilion, and besides the great apostle, Paul, thereby adjudged as public criminals. This is incontrovertible.

Since we are opposed to the Donatists, Circumcelliones, Munsterites, and to the errors, abuses, and abominations of all uproarious sects, committed in our times (on account of which, formerly the law of Theodosius was passed, and in our times the imperial mandate and the condemnation of the empire, were issued); also were opposed to them from the beginning of our doctrine and faith; and, since we, before God and his angels, seek nothing upon earth but that we may, humbly and obediently follow the express and clear word, Spirit, example, command, prohibition, usage, and ordinance of the Lord, according to which we should judge every thing pertaining to the kingdom and church of Christ, if we would please God, as is testified and shown on every hand, by our tribulation, oppression, misery, anxiety, and blood—therefore it is, before God and man, unchristian, nay, manifestly wrong and detestable, to impose the same penalty and punishment on us that is imposed on the Circumcelliones, on account of the baptism, alone, which we have maintained in conformity with the word of God, with the apostolic doctrine and usage, and against all human philosophy and inventions. To treat us, I say, the same as they did the Circumcelliones, who, according to history, committed such detestable, cruel tyrannies, and also the same as they treated the Munsterites, who, contrary to the word of God, to all the evangelical Scriptures, and, also, contrary to sound policy, established a new kingdom, rebellion, polygamy, and such like things; all of which we unflinchingly oppose and reprove, as may be seen by our open actions and doings.

We would, therefore, in the first place, for the sake of Christ humbly beseech your Excellencies, and honorable Wisdom, to consider, in pity and paternal solicitude, how lamentably your miserable subjects, who are created, with you, of one God, and were purchased with the same treasure, and who will at last appear with you before the same judgment, are, without their faults, belied, derided, and slandered of the whole world, and especially of the preachers; and how, in many places, they are pitilessly and unmercifully destroyed as the worst criminals upon earth, and are given as food to the fowls of the air; how they are (as our predecessor, Christ), with the criminals, put to the stake and on the wheel; and how