Page:Complete Works of Menno Simons.djvu/714

414 414 AN EPISTLE TO MARTIN MICRON. out God, yon also are without God and his grace, and that you, together with all false hypocrites, will receive your reward, unless you sincerely repent; something of which there is but a very faint hope, because you so willfully suppress the truth in regard to our discussion, tell so many falsehoods, so wittingly adulterate the Scriptures, and act so deceitfully against your neighbor in his absence; something which no regenerated christian will or can do. For the word stands firm. Reflect, and see if I do not truly point out your errors. Ninthly, it is manifest that you have com- mitted against yourself and your soul which was purchased at such a precious price, the grossest kind of shame and in- jury; for these reasons, first, because by your writing you have made yourself an open accuser, reprover, nay, teacher and instructor of God the Father, of Christ the Son, of Gabriel the angel, and of all the apostles and saints of the New Testament. The Father confesses Christ Jesus to he his beloved Son, without any division; Christ confesses the Father to be his Father; and the angel and the apostles, together with all the other witnesses unanimously testify the same, in regard to the visible, palpable, dying, and resurrected Christ; and you boldly say and write, that he is not. I will leave you to consider, in the fear of God, whether you are not such an one as I have here written. Secondly, you prove yourself to be an open corrupter of the Holy Scriptures. For you write, "That Christ is of David's seed, Rom. 1 : 3; that he is of a woman ;" whilst all the unadulterated texts have it : Born of the seed (that is, of the generation) of David. Born of a woman, as may be seen by the Lutheran and Zurian translations. Thirdly, you write, " That Christ has par- taken of the flesh and blood of the children," Heb. 2: 14; and the text says nothing more than "flesh and blood" without the addi tion of, "of the children;" if we accept of the Scriptural meaning of the pronoun, eo- rundem, that is, of the same. Fourthly, you write at different places, "That Christ has taken on him Abraham's seed" {xniyneterito, that is, in the past tense), while. the text says, He takes on 7dm (in praesenti, that is, in the present tense). Whosoever does not believe it may read the text, Heb. 2: 16. Since it is manifest that you have pre- meditatedly adulterated the holy, divine Scriptures and made yourself a translation and Scripture (as Tatian made himself a gospel, as you write) of your own, that you may the better maintain your anti-chris- tian doctrine before the unsuspicious and ignorant, therefore I will leave it to the judgment of all the impartial, reasonable readers of all the world what kind of a teacher and writer you are. O, dear Micron, consider to what you have already come. It appears as if you had nearly lost both the Scriptures and common sense by the deadly disease of your ambitious and envious partiality. If you should thus defame his imperial majesty, and his son Philip, as you have defamed the heavenly Father and his blessed Son Christ, in 5'our writing, and should plainly say, No, king Philip is not the son of the em- peror; but he is the son of another person, and is only called the son of the emperor; if you should, besides, adulterate their public mandates, sentences, and command- ments, as you have done the adduced Script- ures, and the plain ordinances, word, and commandments of Christ concerning bap- tism, and the oath; and moreover, should deride, upbraid, scorn, and belie their sworn courtiers, and faithful servants, because they honored and respected the emperor as the true father of Philijo, and Philip as the true son of the emperor, and because they faithfully respected and obeyed their man- dates, sentences and jjolicies, O, Lord, what ado there would be made about you, and what blood-songs there would be sung. But of what reward you are now deserving, and must expect in due time from God the Lord, because you so lamentably blas- pheme the Emperor of all emperors, the God of heaven and of earth, and his blessed Son Christ Jesus, because you adulterate and break their heavenly mandates, ordi- nances, and explicit and plain command- ments, and because you so lamentably slander, upbraid, belie, hate, and persecute their faithful servants by your indiscreet