Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/426

126 well, before they accept, believe, and teach it as a true foundation; to consider to what class of people Christ was sent from the beginning, and among what class he commenced building and establishing his church. This, Christ sufficiently explains, saying, "I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," Matt. 15: 24. Paul, also says, "Now I say that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers." Since he then, was, from the beginning, sent unto the Jews, and preached unto them and taught them, and not to the heathen, therefore these words of Christ should not be understood as meaning that we should deal with an apostate as the believing heathen now deal with an unbelieving heathen, but to deal with them as the literal Jews dealt with them at the time of Christ. For Christ, I say, did not preach unto the heathen, but unto the Jews; and therefore he did not point them, by these words, but to the Jewish ban, namely, how they shunned the heathen and open sinners in his times.

In the second place, I pray that every God-fearing heart consider what the word Gentile implies; and see if not all fornicators, adulterers, avaricious, unbelievers, perjurers, idolators, murderers, and drunkards are included in the word Gentile. Yea, Paul says that they are without Christ, have no God, are dead in sins, and that they are children of wrath, Eph. 2: 11. Since, then, all sinners and Gentiles are expressed in the word "Gentile," for the Gentiles who have not Christ, are also sinners, and without grace, and since Christ here speaks as well of open sinners, as of Gentiles, and, moreover, as every word of Christ has its full weight and measure—therefore, the word of Christ can not be explained as meaning that we should deal with an apostate brother as we would with other Gentiles, who never received nor acknowled the word of the Lord.

In the third place, I hope that no true brother, who is called after the name of the Lord, will knowingly and willfully adulterate the word of the Lord, but that he will give it its due praise and honor, and acknowledge that these publicans and sinners, of whom the evangelists speak, were not of the Gentiles, but of the Jews, as is apparent from Matt. 9: 10; Mark 2: 17. Since it is incontrovertible that the beforementioned publicans and sinners were of the Jews, and were adjudged to death, according to the law; and since Christ points us as well to the publicans, as to the Gentiles, therefore it must follow that it should not be explained as having reference to the times when Israel yet exercised their liberties with the heathen, which liberties were allowed to them, by Moses, in his law; for at that time the transgressors, on proof, were adjudged unto death, according to the law. It would also follow that the lives of the apostates, on proof, should be taken at our hands. O, no, for we know that such a bloody ban is an abomination before God, neither is it known to Christians, much less practiced.

If any one should assert that it applies to the present time, that is, of treating an apostate as we now treat a Gentile, and not to the time of Christ, as the Jews then treated a Gentile, he must also re-establish the Jewish people with their law and religion, and their open transgressors, which is impossible. This every one must confess.

Since the word Gentile can not be understood as appplicableapplicable [sic] to the time when the Gentiles were not yet so strictly shunned by the Israelites, for then we should have to adjudge the apostates unto death, according to the word "manifest transgressors;" nor as applicable to the present time, for now we have not the Jewish transgressors—therefore no one can successfully contradict, according to God's truth, otherwise than that it applies to the time of Christ, at which time they did not put transgressors to death, but separated and avoided both the publicans and heathen alike, by means of the same ban.

Having sufficiently proven to the pious and God fearing, by the above mentioned reasons, that Christ spoke those words as applying to his own times, and to no other, we will now show in plain language, first, the proper cause why they so scrupulously avoided the heathen, and, secondly, why they shunned the open transgressors, and