Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/554

254 22: 15; Jn. 9: 31; Eph. 4: 18; Rom. 1: 18, 22. Besides, you deem it but mockery to acknowledge God, therefore God has delivered you to a perverse mind, to do the things you should not do; "Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers; backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventers of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful," Rom. 1: 29–31.

Behold, beloved reader, thus mysteriously God punishes by his righteous judgment. For God, the Mighty Lord visits this world in many different ways, on account of the sinfulness thereof. As with bondage, war, bloodshed, drought, famine, pestilence, and many other diseases; at which plagues and chastisements the world is horror-stricken. But above all, the most terrible wrath of God is his depriving us of his divine word. For the first mentioned plagues, such as pestilence, famine, sword, &c., only punish us according to the flesh, and are chastisements for our correction, as the prophet says, which he inflicts that his children may learn wisdom; but when he deprives us of his word, then all is lost. For if we have not the word, we verily, have nothing but unbelief, blindness, error, disobedience, conceit, acrimony, an unclean, foolish and adulterous spirit, and eternal death. But how few, yea, how very few are horror-stricken at these plagues, however abundantly they have come upon them.

If we should desire to put out a man's eyes, cut off his ears, take his life, or take from him the inheritance of his natural father, would not such an one use all his reason, wit, and wisdom to prevent such pain, shame, danger, and damage? And to-day the whole world have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, life and yet are dead; and, above all, bereft of the eternal inheritance of the merciful Father, but do not mind it. O, if they acknowledged their own misfortune how diligently they would seek him who gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and true wisdom to the unlearned, which is Christ Jesus, Ps. 94: 9.

But the finely attired woman has so enchanted you, and the whoring spirit of the spiritual whoredom has so kept you under its wings, that I fear, indeed, that, your abominable unbelief, obscurity, blindness, falsehood, and madness will never more be taken from your hearts, but that the wrath of God will remain upon you to the end; so that in this earthly life you will err, without any piety, from one unclean thing to another until the time that we shall be placed before the just judge, where every one shall receive his reward according to his works. Then, when too late, your blind eyes will be opened amidst sighs and unavailing remorse, acknowledging that you have not walked in the ways of righteousness to life eternal, but in the dark ways to death eternal. O misery, where will you then hide yourselves from the wrath of God? Then you will cry in terror: Ye mountains fall upon us and ye hills cover us, Rev. 6: 16. For then there can not be found a place of prayer, of mercy, nor of repentance for the sinner. But the awful sentence of the just God against all the wicked, unbelieving, willful and disobedient sinners will then be pronounced, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," Matt. 25: 41. O, how well it would be for such if they had never been born.

Therefore I will not cease, while I live, to teach and admonish both verbally and by writing, so far as God, the merciful Father, by his ineffable kindness, is giving me knowledge, spirit, grace, and wisdom, to all those that seek the truth; that they may awaken while it is yet time and seek the Lord while he may yet be found, and call upon him while he is near, that their righteousness may go forth as a light and their salvation burn like a torch; which consists in nothing but casting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light, which is to renounce all false doctrine, sacraments, false religion, and the unbecoming, dishonest, carnal life, and again to enter into the divine doctrine, the evangelical sacraments, the services and works of love, and the sincere, Christian life, as it was taught, instituted, and practiced by Christ Jesus, our only Deliverer and Shepherd