Providential Deliverances of Menno Simon

The following is an extract from Book 16 of the Ondergangh der Tyrannen, en Jaerlycksche Geschiedenisse (Downfall of the Tyrants, and Annual Events) by Peter Jansz Twisck, pages 1074 and 1075, in which it is shown how wonderfully the Lord preserved Menno Simon from the cunning schemes of his opponents, as in his divine zeal for the truth he exhorted all men to true repentance and regeneration.

The daughter of Menno Simon, a praiseworthy woman, related the following incident in our presence. A certain traitor had agreed, for a certain sum of money, to deliver the person of Menno or his head without fail into the hands of his enemies, expecting to seize him in one of their meetings. But it so happened that he was not able to accomplish his object, for whenever he arrived at the place where he sought to spy him out, Menno escaped in a providential manner.

At another time this same traitor, in company with an officer of the police, as they were searching for Menno, unexpectedly met him as he was going along the canal in a small boat. The traitor kept silent until Menno had passed them some distance and had leaped ashore in order to escape with less danger. Then the traitor cried out, “Look, the bird has escaped!” The officer rebuked him, called him a villain, and demanded why he had not said so in time; to which the traitor replied, “I could not speak, for my tongue was bound.” The lords were so displeased at this that the traitor, according to his promise, had to forfeit his own head. It is worth considering how wonderfully God preserves his people in this and in other such instances, and especially how fearfully he punishes the tyrants.

Menno had to suffer so many dangers and perils and so much misery that, in the memory of the oldest persons, it is almost beyond describing; and yet he afterward died a natural death, even though he often preached with great zeal and resolution, conversed and disputed with the priests of Baal and reproved them, and opposed his opponents openly to their faces, so that a number of his fellow laborers did not remain faithful under these severe persecutions.

Among other incidents it happened (which I have received as credible) that Menno came into the priest’s church in Eenigenburgh, a village in the north of Holland, after the pastor had performed his services, and talked with him in Latin about various papist superstitions with great boldness, fluency and depth, at which the priest or pastor was greatly surprised; and after he had finished his papal services, he had a long conversation with Menno. Menno often talked with the priests, and once, with no little boldness, he entered a cloister unrecognized, talked with the Superior, pointed him to repentance, showed him his great folly, and other such things.

Although his name and a description of his clothing, person, and so on, were nailed to the church doors, with the sure promise of a hundred, or several hundred, guilders to anyone who would betray him or deliver him into the hands of his enemies, yet God preserved him from all the designs and cunning devices of his enemies. So it truly is as he wrote in a letter to the wife of Leonard Bouwensz, in which he says, “If you are concerned for the life of your husband, think and believe that our lives are but a hand’s breadth; that both life and death are in the hands of the Lord; that not a hair shall fall from our heads without our heavenly Father’s notice; he preserves us as the apple of his eye. Elias, Elisha, David, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Peter and Paul, all escaped the hands of the tyrants, and no one could injure a hair of them as long as their day and hour had not come. For as long as the merciful Lord has more pleasure in our lives than in our death, they shall not be permitted to injure us; but when the Lord is more pleased to remove us, then we will not escape their hands.”

Note 1.—It is due to the reader, at the conclusion of this work, to say that in the translation of the writings of Menno Simon on the “Incarnation of Christ,” the publishers have taken the liberty of condensing and abridging some parts of them, and also, here and there, of leaving out such parts as they considered of no importance in illustrating and explaining the subject, and which were not edifying to the reader. But in no case have they perverted the meaning or purpose of the author. Throughout the entire work they have labored conscientiously, with the translator and reviewer, to give the true sentiments of the writer, so that they might present to the reader as true and faithful a translation as possible; and they hope that the blessing of God may rest upon their efforts, and that a generous public will throw the mantle of charity over any errors that may in any way have crept into the work.

The Publishers.

Note 2.—I have carefully read the entire works of Menno Simon, herewith presented to the public, and compared them with the original Dutch, and I hereby bear testimony that this is a true and faithful translation of them.

Joseph Summers.