Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/22

 of the Netherlands. This event is said to have occurred Jan. 12, 1536, and that it was sometime during the following year that he was ordained to the ministry by the same person. By this time he was obliged to keep much in seclusion and fled from place to place to escape death from the hands of enemies. A price was put on his head and a written description of his clothing and personal appearance was posted publicly on the church doors.

It seems unbelievable that so great a reformer as Martin Luther should refer to Menno Simons as a hedge-preacher, and one of those sneaking fellows, who associate themselves with laborers in the harvest fields, or the charcoal burners in the woods. This language indicates that Martin Luther never got as far away from the Catholic Church as Menno Simons did. Luther's position was that the Christian should fight for his country when he was called into the defending ranks. Other reformers, like Luther, thought it right to go to war when one's country is invaded, but Menno Simons proclaimed to his hearers that under all circumstances it was wrong for believers to engage in carnal warfare. He also preached the doctrine of absolute separation between Church and state and upheld the principle that the believer must give to God the things that are God's, and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Menno Simons was the reformer of the reformers and thus held them to teaching the "all things" of the Gospel. They failing to teach a whole Gospel, he proved that as reformers in the real sense they were not sincere. In giving up the Catholic faith he declared that he had renounced all worldly honor,