Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/538

238 not acknowledge God, I speak of the evil princes, who do not want to be right in all their mandates, projects, and undertakings, however much they may be at variance with God and his blessed word; as if the Almighty Father, the Creator of all things, who holds heaven and earth in his hands, who rules all things by the word of his power, had given them the privilege not only to command, rule, and administer according to their will in temporal government, but also in the celestial kingdom of Jesus Christ. O no, beloved, no. This is not the intention of God; but it is an abomination in his blessed sight when mortal man substitutes himself in his stead. And when he raised up and sent his beloved servants, the prophets who, fraternally reproved and admonished all the princes, prophets, priests, and common people from the mouth of God; the princes destroyed them as seditious persons, and the learned and common people as deceivers and heretics; as was the case with Zechariah, the son of Berechiah; with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Uriah, Kiriathaim and others, as may be read in history.

However ravenously the princes and the learned tyranized and opposed the law and its followers, yet the law and word of God remained immutable until Christ Jesus; so that every one who desired to be saved had to regulate and conform himself according to the law and his conscience, if he would see the dawn of day. For God is an eternal God and hisHis [sic] will can never be changed and diverted by man. In this case neither prince nor learned man can avail. God alone, has dominion over man; he will keep them in all eternity.

Therefore all things which they instituted and practiced as holy worship without the command of God, or against it (not withstanding it was in honor of the living God who had so gloriously led their fathers and them from the land of Egypt), was nothing less than open idolatry, spiritual whoredom, perfidy, degeneracy, blasphemy, and an awful abomination, as we have above briefly shown the reader from the prophetic Scriptures. God is a God who does not need our aid and offerings, because he has made all things. Mine, he says, are the cattle, upon a thousand hills. What then can I offer? He will take no other sacrifices than those alone which are commanded in his holy word, as Samuel spake unto Saul, "Behold to obey is better than sacrifice." The Lord God of Israel spake through Jeremiah, saying, "Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I commanded you, so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God," Jer. 11: 4; 2 Cor. 8: 17.

All those, beloved reader, who sought a different way of salvation than the one which God had commanded, either did not esteem God as wise enough to teach the right way; or else that he would deceive them by his word. They despised the commanding voice of their God; they honored and exalted their own opinions and deceiving wisdom far above the wisdom of God; and they transgressed the precious covenant which God, by mere grace and mercy, had entered into with them and their fathers; for the most shameful obduracy, and the worst disesteem of God, is not to abide by his divine word, as the Scriptures say, They transgress the covenant, as did Adam, and thereby they despise and abhor me.

O, had Israel acknowledged the most glorious promise of grace which was given them and their fathers in regard to the promise of the seed, land, kingdom and glory? And had they considered the beneficences of God, so abundantly shown to them and their fathers, in miraculously leading them from the land of Egypt, and letting them pass through the Red Sea, Ex. 14: 22; that "He went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire," Ex. 13: 21; that he gave them bread from heaven, Ex. 16: 4; that he gave them to drink from the rock, Ex. 17: 6; that their clothes nor their shoes did not wax old, Deut. 29: 5; that he scattered the giants from before them; that he led them into the promised land overflowing with milk and honey; that he gave to them the strongly fortified cities and well built houses full of gold and silver, which they had not built; that he gave them the vineyards they had not planted, Deut. 6: 11; that he gave them these not for their righteousness' sake, but by grace, and because