Reply to Gellius Faber, Part 1

Duo opposita (inquit Philosophus) juxta se posita, magis elucescunt.

(Two things set opposite each other, says the philosopher, become all the more apparent.)

May God, our heavenly Father, through his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, graciously grant spiritual enlightenment and saving understanding to all the pious and unprejudiced readers of this work, of whatever class, who sincerely seek the Lord and his saving truth. Amen.

“For no one can lay any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” First Corinthians 3, verse 11.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by JOHN F. FUNK & BROTHER, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Paul writes to Timothy and says, “Know this also, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, headstrong, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. From such turn away,” Second Timothy 3, verses 1 to 5.

Further he says, “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts they will heap up teachers for themselves, having itching ears; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will be turned aside to fables,” Second Timothy 4, verses 1 to 4.

Again Daniel says, “There will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation,” Daniel 12, verse 1.

Beloved reader, if you pay close attention to the seeking, teaching and conduct of the preachers of the present day, and to the deplorable condition of the common people, you will be convinced that the teachers of whom Paul speaks are here in great numbers, and that the abominable time has arrived. O reader, take heed! The time now is such that if Sodom were flourishing as of old, it would seem pious and righteous compared with the present miserable world. Yet through the just punishment and wrath of God, Sodom was turned into ashes and suffered the vengeance of eternal fire.

“Behold,” says the prophet, “this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness were in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away as I saw good,” Ezekiel 16, verses 49 and 50.

But now the world lives as if people were born merely for ungodliness and sensuality, and as if God were a dreamer and his word a fable. Tell me, beloved, is it not so? My kind reader, is it not so? Where is the one who sincerely fears God and seeks after the truth? Wherever we turn we see nothing but unrighteousness, idolatry, deceit and contempt of God. And all this is decked out with the holy name, word, death and blood of Christ; and besides that, with human weakness and with a false freedom, to avoid giving offence. O Lord! As if Christ were the Redeemer of all the impenitent and the Mediator of all perverse sinners! No, my reader, no; that is not the case. Beware! Paul says, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die,” Romans 8, verse 13.

The world, then, is so corrupted on every hand that it has become a double Sodom, no, a confused Babel or a benighted Egypt, under the pretense and name of Christian churches. And in these latter days of unrighteousness the great and merciful God has again revealed to some the precious word of his divine grace in a pure, Christian understanding, and has placed it as a clear light in the midst of the darkness. By it he will yet, in everlasting love, gather to himself, before the dark day, an obedient and willing church, through the revelation of his holy word and the enlightenment of his eternal Spirit. He has chosen them as his own peculiar people out of the assembly of antichrist, through true repentance and a virtuous walk (although in weakness), under the cross of Christ, together with a saving use of the sacramental signs according to the ordinance of Christ and his apostles, and through a free, unfeigned confession of faith in the precious blood of Christ. Therefore all the gates of hell rise up and rage, so that, alas, true Christians can find but little rest upon earth, as may be seen.

The rulers banish and persecute them; they drag them into prisons and dungeons, torture and rob them, and in many places deprive them of their manhood, their possessions and even their life.

This perverse and reckless people always call us Anabaptists. They heap one shameful lie upon another and point at us with the finger of scorn, as if we behaved in such a way that fire and sword were too merciful a punishment for our bodies, and eternal hell-fire too merciful a punishment for our souls.

The preachers and the learned “are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression; they speak loftily,” as the prophet says, Psalm 73, verse 8. We testify by so many tribulations that we, in our poor weakness, sincerely desire to fear and follow the Lord, and that we seek and desire peace with all mankind; yet we are infamously slandered. We are accused everywhere before the lords and rulers of cities and countries of being ungodly sects and Anabaptists, of seducing the populace, of conspiring to raise mutiny and rebellion, and we are falsely accused of other criminal intentions. They do this so that they may obscure and obstruct the precious word of God: the word of true repentance, the joyous gospel of grace, the true and powerful faith in Christ Jesus, and the pious, unblamable life that the Scriptures require; and so that they may destroy the glorious kingdom of Christ and his righteousness, lest their cause and unfaithfulness be made manifest to the world, as may be gathered from their fruits. And on the other hand, they do it so that the corrupt kingdom of antichrist, the kingdom of this world, may be preserved without interruption and maintained without shame to the end, in falsehood, impenitence, open idolatry, a carnal, easy life and unrighteousness, according to the desires of the old serpent.

See, this is how the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience” works, as Paul says, Ephesians 2, verse 2. Alas, this may be plainly seen in the case of Gellius Faber, if we consider well his writings, his slanders, his bitter, offensive words, his false accusations, his vain boasting and his gross garbling, and judge them according to the Spirit and word of the Lord.

It is well known to many thousands of honest and reasonable people (as I suppose) that we seek nothing else upon earth than this: that we may, in our weakness, willingly walk in the footsteps of Christ in obedience to his word; that we may light again the extinguished lamp of truth and call many to righteousness; and that we may save our souls by the help and grace of the Lord. On this account we poor people everywhere must endure so much tribulation, misery, anxiety, cross and persecution. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned Gellius, who in this matter should be our helper and protector (for he claims to be a servant of the holy word), still increases our anxiety and sore persecution, and the hatred and bitterness against us. He does it by his unscriptural arguments and his hostility to our foundation and doctrine, by his covert, malicious complaints to the magistracy, and by the infamous slanders which he publishes to the world in his writings, to the dishonor of God and his holy word, to the disgrace of all the pious, to the confirmation of his own condemnation, and to the deceiving of the simple. Therefore no well-disposed person will think hard of me if I, by an open reply, in accordance with the Spirit and word of my Lord, defend to the best of my ability the honor of God, the salvation of my brothers, the foundation of my faith and the praise of Christ my Lord, into whose service I entered, unworthy as I am, by his grace and calling, according to his divine will.

I trust, too, with the gracious help of God, that I will be able to do this so powerfully and clearly, with so many plain reasons and Scriptures, that not only the theologians but also all reasonable and impartial readers and hearers will, by the grace of God, clearly understand that he and the preachers of his kind support deceiving lies, and that we, through the grace of God, support the sure foundation of truth. I hereby humbly beseech and faithfully admonish all my readers, friends and enemies, to read attentively, examine diligently and judge according to Scripture this reply and defense which I have been forced to make; not with partiality, not drowsily and spitefully, but with care and impartiality. This matter is of equal importance to us all, namely, the praise of God and of Christ, and the salvation of our poor souls. Let no one imagine that he is left out.

There is only one road and gate that leads to life, and it is a narrow road, Matthew 7, verse 13; and there is also only one doctrine. If we wish to enter with Christ into the kingdom of his glory, we must all walk the narrow way, enter in at the narrow gate and be obedient to his word. Let everyone be aware of this.

It is evident, then, that Gellius and the learned base their doctrines, sacraments and so on mainly upon human wisdom, garbled Scriptures, ideas and opinions, and that we base ours upon God’s word; that he and his followers walk upon the broad road, and that our followers walk upon the narrow road; that he is not persecuted but does persecute by his writings, and that we, on the other hand, are persecuted and do not retaliate. Therefore all right-minded persons must admit that the truth and the true church are not with them but with us. For it is an infallible rule, proven by the word of God and the example of all the pious, that where the true church is, there also are, and necessarily must be, the saving doctrine, true sacraments, unfeigned love, a pious, godly life, and the excommunication or separation of the impenitent and perverse according to the word of God; as may be clearly gathered, by the grace of God, from the following reply.

I would therefore earnestly pray all the pious, for God’s sake, to help me by their ardent prayers to the Most High, that he may bestow upon me, a poor, weak man, together with my beloved brothers and faithful servants in the Lord, the gift of his grace and the power of his wisdom; so that we may silence all opponents by the strength of true doctrine and an unblamable walk, and so maintain to the end the house of our God in pure, godly zeal and Christian love, to the honor and praise of his great name. To him be praise and the eternal kingdom. Amen.

Pure and clear is wisdom; strong and powerful is truth; simple and desirable is righteousness. Happy is he who possesses them, for his heart rejoices in the Lord, his mouth speaks what is right, and his feet are upon the way of peace.

In the first place, Gellius brings forward the saying of Christ as a warning to all his readers, where he says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,” Matthew 7, verse 15.

Answer. If the reader can rightly distinguish, according to the Spirit and word of God, between the nature of the sheep and that of the wolves, and understands what this sheep’s clothing is with which the ravening wolves are covered, then the saying would undoubtedly be applied not to us but to our opponents. For what kind of clothing he himself appears in here, with which he keeps the simple in darkness and binds their souls to damnation, will be plainly and clearly shown, through the grace of God, to all the pious and godly readers in the following reply, if they compare it with his writing.

In the second place he brings forward Paul and says, “Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment,” First Corinthians 1, verse 10.

Answer. If we consider this saying well, we will find that it admonishes all true Christians not to live carnally nor to be sectarian, so that one does not boast of this one and another of that one; but it points us to the only and true Shepherd and Savior of our souls, Jesus Christ, who was crucified for us and in whose name we were baptized. All this we, in our weakness, would gladly and earnestly do, by the grace and help of God, as our tribulation, misery, affliction, blood and death have abundantly testified in many different instances.

But Gellius so construes it as to keep his readers away from the unity of the Spirit, word, house and body of Christ, and to keep them, through his deceitful doctrine, unscriptural infant baptism and so on, in the unity of the spirit, word, house and body of antichrist, and undisturbed upon the broad way.

In the third place, Gellius has addressed his writing to a nobleman, as is generally the custom with the learned, thinking perhaps that by this means their aim will be more easily attained through the favor and help of such high officials; something which the pious witnesses, prophets and teachers of God’s truth and word, especially of the New Testament, never desired, much less sought.

In the fourth place Gellius gives his two principal reasons why he has published his writing. The first is, he says, Because I see that these Anabaptists are daily coming into this country secretly from the imperial dominion, where they do and can do the most damage; and they not only sow their pernicious seed here anew by hedge-preaching, but also by publications, writings and private letters. We must stop and silence this, lest the unwary be deceived, and so that we may yet redeem some of them who have not yet become slanderers, and so on.

Answer. These very offensive words, such as Anabaptists, secretly coming, hedge-preaching, pernicious seed and so on, alas, plainly show the disposition of the man who penned them. Yes, my readers, Gellius knows as well as I do what Christ has commanded concerning baptism, and how the holy apostles practiced it. He knows, too, that Paul rebaptized some who had been baptized by John (although John’s baptism was from heaven), only because they had not been taught concerning the Holy Spirit; and that the worthy martyr Cyprian and the African bishops, together with the council of Nice, did not acknowledge the baptism of heretics as baptism, because they were outside Christ’s church and without his Spirit and word.

Notwithstanding all this, we must be called Anabaptists. They pay no attention to the fact that in our infancy we were baptized not only without the Spirit, faith, word or divine ordinance, but also without any reason and understanding, with an open, antichristian baptism, by such men as he and the learned of his kind themselves call antichristians, apostates, heretics and deceivers: men who rightly understand neither God nor his word; who practice open idolatry; who bend their knees before wood and stone; who put their trust in idle doctrines and commandments of men; who walk without restraint according to the lusts of the flesh; and who worship and honor a creature of God, namely, a piece of bread, as the only and eternal Son of God.

We have before us as a pattern Christ’s plain word and the saving doctrine and open practice of the apostles, and besides these, Paul and both the councils, as you have heard. Yet, alas, there are no bounds to the offensive words, such as Anabaptists and so on, which Gellius uses against us.

We may not retaliate, Romans 12, verse 19; otherwise we might call them infant-baptists with more propriety than they call us Anabaptists, for we have the whole Scriptures on our side, but they have not one word nor one example. But his saying that we do and can do the most damage in the imperial dominion shows, alas, his stupidity and blindness.

All the Scriptures teach us that idolaters and the carnally minded will die, and he knows well that in these countries their (the world’s) worship is nothing less than open idolatry and gross abomination, and that their life, generally speaking, is nothing but a reckless, impenitent and carnal life, as is the case at Emden and everywhere. Yet he dares to write that there they do the most damage. And he does this for no other reason than because they (the pious) storm the kingdom of hell with the Lord’s Spirit, word and power; rebuke open idolatry; teach the true worship; rightly confess Christ; and point out the true way to this perverse, impenitent and carnal generation. If this is damage, as Gellius calls it, then the Scriptures, which speak so very much of an unblamable, pious life, have badly deceived us; this you must admit. O, what a wrong judgment!

See, this is how the god of this world blinds such rebellious and contentious spirits, who so recklessly contend against the word of God and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, Romans 2, verse 8. They become so obstinate and perverse that they call the glorious gain in Christ, attained through his grace, Spirit and power, a loss; and they call good evil, and evil good. Woe to such, Isaiah 5, verse 20.

I would say further that in other places he also says that we are the only ones who obstruct them in their doctrine of impenitence and offensiveness, by our doctrine (which is not ours but the sound doctrine of Christ) and by our humble and unblamable walk, which comes from our doctrine through faith; and that we are therefore the cause of their not being as highly esteemed as before, and of their not being able to continue in their ways as they would like to. Perhaps that is why he complains that we do the most damage there. But we say it is because of this: they serve the world under the semblance of the gospel, only from carnal motives; they flatter the rulers so that they may enrich themselves with the property of church and cloister, which was intended (though wrongly) as a sacrifice to the honor of God, and so that they may maintain the gospel of Christ by force of arms; they flatter the people with the idea that Christ has taken away our sins, that faith alone avails, that they are poor, weak sinners who cannot keep the commandments of God, and other such idle consolations; so that everybody lives according to the lusts of his flesh, singing and crying, “The cord is loosed and we are free,” and they turn the grace of God into unrighteousness, as Jude says, Jude 1, verse 4; and they live in the old state of sinfulness without any fear of God, as if they had never in their lives heard one syllable of the word of the Lord, and as if God would not punish ungodliness and unrighteousness. Therefore the just Lord, who judges all things righteously, takes away from them again whatever knowledge they may have had, because of their ingratitude (for they teach and proclaim the gospel of his grace only according to the lusts of the flesh), and gives it to those who will bring forth fruit, as Christ said to the Pharisees, Matthew 21, verse 43.

Again, to the unreasonable and offensive words “secretly enter” I reply: Moses and Christ, the apostles and prophets, and natural reason as well, all teach us with one voice that we should receive, comfort, help, assist and serve the miserable, afflicted and needy stranger. And Gellius knows well that these poor children whom he afflicts have fled in unfeigned fear of their God to a foreign country for protection, with their weak wives and little children, to escape the bloody, tyrannical sword; not on account of crime or roguery, but on account of the testimony of God and of their consciences; just as hunted doves flee from the bird of prey. He knows that we, through the grace of God, place ourselves under the protection of this or that merciful and kind-hearted ruler; and that although they have been robbed of their native country, their possessions and their earthly comforts for the sake of divine truth, they can still, through God’s grace, reasonably support themselves, as is promised in Scripture. If he were in fact what he boasts of being, namely, a preacher of the holy word, then his inmost soul would be moved to compassion toward these afflicted orphans and innocent hearts. He would be kind to them and help them as much as was in his power; he would intercede for them before the magistracy, since he may see in them such a moving spirit and ardent zeal that they stake their possessions and their blood for the praise of their God, as anyone may openly witness. But now this misery and sore affliction, namely, their flight from the gaping lion’s mouth and from fire and sword into more merciful countries, must be called by him “secretly entering.” O Lord!

What kind of a preacher and Christian he is, how he acts according to love, and how he walks according to the word of the Lord in this respect, all reasonable persons who are not more than half blind may judge from these writings of his, together with his daily outcries of the same kind. To the slanderous phrase “sowing pernicious seed” I reply: Every seed brings forth fruit after its own kind, Genesis 1, verse 11.

My dear reader, take heed to what I write. God’s word, on every hand, requires a pure heart, a new mind and a penitent, Christian life, dead to sin. John the Baptist says, “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.” Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” Matthew 3, verse 8; Matthew 4, verse 17. Again, I have come to call sinners to repentance, Matthew 9, verse 13; and many other Scriptures of the kind might be brought forward.

The Scriptures, then, on every hand require of us true repentance, and the sacramental signs too, such as baptism and the Holy Supper, signify, represent and teach to all true Christian believers a penitent, unblamable life. According to the tenor of the Scriptures, no one can be a true Christian without true repentance, and every kind of seed brings forth fruit after its own kind, as already said: lies bring forth children of lies, and truth children of truth. It is a fact well known to many reasonable persons that God, in his great power and infinite grace, has through us and our fellow servants turned to the true and living God many a proud, avaricious, unchaste, cruel, lying, carnal and idolatrous heart, and has so humbled, moved, renewed and changed them that they would rather die than act hypocritically, or willingly speak or countenance any falsehood against the well-being of their neighbors, as is testified in our Netherlands by the precious blood of so many pious saints. And the fruits of Gellius’ seed, that is, his followers, remain so entirely impenitent in their lives and unchanged in their hearts that they live in pomp and splendor, go dressed in silk and velvet and decked with gold and silver, live in all manner of unrighteousness, avarice, carousing, hatred and envy; in short, they live according to the lusts of the flesh, and for the sake of a penny would swear falsely by the Lord or by their soul, and so on. Therefore we will let all reasonable and intelligent persons judge which of us bring forth bad fruits, Gellius and his followers, or we and ours. Let whoever sincerely seeks and loves the truth read and ponder.

O dear Lord! In this way your holy and precious word, the word of your grace, the word of your love, by whose power and grace we will live eternally with you, is called deceit and pernicious seed by this man and by others as well; and their open lies, obvious error and unreasonable adulteration of Scripture, of which more will be said hereafter, are called the true doctrine of Christ and the holy word of God. If it is willful slander and perverseness, then, alas, it is too bad. But if it is ignorant blindness or misunderstanding, then may the gracious Father grant them eyes to see. This is my sincere wish, as the Lord knows.

Again, he writes “that we sow our pernicious seed anew, not only by hedge-preaching, but also by publications, letters and so on.” To this I reply with holy David: We believe, therefore we speak, and must suffer tribulation. For God, the merciful Father, has given us poor creatures the Spirit of faith and bestowed upon us the Spirit of his love from on high through his Son Jesus Christ. He has sprinkled our hearts with the heavenly dew of his love, has opened to us the seven seals of the book of his knowledge, and has disclosed to us the mystery of his divine word and pleasure. He has awakened us from the dead and given us life, a new heart, mind and disposition, and has nourished us with the bread of life; so that we, through his grace, have found the beautiful pearl, the precious treasure and eternal peace, which we could never have acquired through the deceiving doctrine, subtle sophistry and false consolations of the learned. Therefore we would teach, proclaim and imprint on the hearts of all mankind, to the best of our ability, this manifest grace of his great love toward us, so that they may enjoy with us the same joy and renewal of spirit, and know and taste with all the saints how sweet, good and kind the Lord is to whom we have turned.

We preach, therefore, as much as is in our power, both day and night, in houses and in the open air, in forests and in wildernesses, here and there, in this and in foreign lands, in prisons and in dungeons, in water and in fire, on the scaffold and on the wheel, before lords and princes, by mouth and by writings, at the risk of possessions and blood, life and death, as we have done these many years; and we are not ashamed of the gospel of the glory of Christ, Romans 1, verse 16. For we are a living fruit and strongly feel its moving power in our hearts, as may be seen in many instances in the commendable submissiveness and willing sacrifices of our faithful brothers and joint heirs in Christ Jesus.

We would save all mankind from the jaws of hell, deliver them from the chains of their sins, and by the gracious help of God win them to Christ by the gospel of his peace; for this is the true nature of the love which is of God.

He then accuses us of preaching at night, and says in another place, “That we enter cities and towns secretly, from fear of the cross; that we sit behind closed doors to deal with the simple, not to convert them to true Christianity but to convert them to Anabaptism,” and so on. To this I reply in the first place: It is true that we sometimes have to serve the Lord and preach his word at night (in the dead of night), but I fear that Gellius and the learned are the principal cause of this. For they have so embittered, and still embitter, all lords, princes, rulers and magistrates against us by their fiendish, unmerited reproaches, slanders and defamations, that we cannot, alas, move them so much, by Scripture, petitions, tears, misery, tribulation, loss of possessions, blood or life, that we could safely go about to defend the word of God by mouth before these open enemies of the cross of Christ and of wholesome truth. Instead we must (understand, we teachers) everywhere hide ourselves in shops and out-of-the-way places to escape the persecutors and the bloodthirsty, if we do not wish to be torn apart and devoured at once by the terrible beasts which rise up out of the sea.

Beloved readers, observe well what I write. Gellius accuses us of “preaching at night.” It was in the year 1543, if my memory serves me right, that a decree was read throughout West Friesland “that criminals and even manslayers were promised pardon, imperial grace, freedom of the country (in those times banishing was in vogue), and besides that one hundred carl-guilders, if they would betray me and deliver me into the hands of the executioner.”

About the year 1539 a farmer, a very pious man named Tjaert Reyndertz, was seized in my place because, out of pity and compassion, he had hidden me in his house while I was hotly pursued. A few days later, after a free confession of faith, he was put on the wheel as a valiant soldier of Christ, after the example of his Lord; although even his enemies acknowledged that he was an unblamable, pious man.

Also, in 1546, at a place where they boasted of the word, four houses were confiscated at once, because the owner had rented one of them for a short time to my sick wife and little ones; although the neighbors were not aware of their presence.