Epistle to Martin Micron, Part 2

As for my making an exception in regard to doctrine, I did it to help the reader, to show that Paul and Christ did not use the terms “Verily” and “God is my witness” (which the learned would construe as an oath, to make a foundation for their doings) when treating temporal matters, but only in their teaching.

If this matter is to be weighed strictly in the balance of the holy, divine word, in such a way as to keep all the Scriptures in agreement, then it should be observed that the oath and certain affirmations do not have the same form in the Scriptures. For it is manifest that an oath was always sworn by God or by something else, and is still sworn so; this is not the case with an affirmation such as Paul and Christ used in their teaching. Abraham said to his servant, “Put, I pray you, your hand under my thigh; and I will make you swear (note) by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth,” Genesis 24, verse 2.

Again: “By the life of Pharaoh (note) you shall not go forth from here, unless your youngest brother comes here,” Genesis 42, verse 15.

Again: “You shall fear the Lord your God; him you shall serve, and to him you shall cleave, and swear by his name” (note), Deuteronomy 10, verse 20.

Again, Christ says, Neither by heaven, nor by earth, neither by Jerusalem, neither by your head, Matthew 5, verse 34; nor by the temple, nor by the altar, Matthew 23, verses 16 and 18. Read also James 5, verse 12. Again, neither by the world, nor by God, nor by the gospel, nor by a cross, and so on.

See, in this way an oath is always sworn by something. But this is not the case with an affirmation, which is made without an oath.

An affirmation may be made without an oath, but an oath cannot be made without an affirmation. And so Christ and Paul often affirmed their words with strong testimony, but did not swear to them. For nowhere did they say, “This we swear or affirm by the truth,” or “By God,” or “By our soul,” but only “Verily,” or “God is my witness,” and other such affirming words.

I humbly, plainly and strictly abide by the holy word, commandments and prohibitions of the Lord. I point my neighbors who would do things in the fear of God honestly to yes and no, as the mouth of Truth has commanded me and all true Christians to do. I sincerely strive, according to my small talent, to instruct the poor, blind world in the true, divine knowledge through Jesus Christ, without any respect of persons, and to point out the falsehood of antichrist and the old serpent according to the truth, so as to lead them by his grace to eternal peace. And the doctrine shows its fruit in many, as may be seen. That is why they are so enraged at me that neither Turk nor Tartar, neither tyrant nor fiend under the whole heavens, however ungodly he may be, is as hated as I, a persecuted man, am hated by the world, through the defaming, false, bloodthirsty writing and crying of the learned, who for the sake of their bellies teach the broad, easy way, with all the false prophets. He who created me knows what love I bear toward you and all my enemies and slanderers. If I could serve you to righteousness with my life, I would at all times be willing and ready to do so, by the grace of God. This I write with a good conscience, as before God, in Christ Jesus.

Dear Micron, do consider how, out of mere hatred of the truth, you treat me, an old, infirm man, quite contrary to all truth, and also contrary to the virtuous, pious nature of divine, Christian love, which would curtail or harm no one, and to the dishonor of the almighty, great God. But what good will it do? The innocent, defenseless Lamb must be hated and murdered in his members.

Since you will not be convinced, I will let you teach and counsel your church, the world, to fight and retaliate as Moses and the patriarchs did, after your manner; teach them to punish, scatter, imprison and destroy their enemies, and to condemn criminals, whether they repent or not, as you write. Teach them also to swear and be sworn, in the way Moses commanded the Israelites. But by the grace of God I shall and will faithfully teach and counsel all truly regenerated children of God and followers of Christ, both rulers and subjects, according to the sure word of the holy gospel: to use no other sword than the one Christ Jesus and his holy apostles used; to be merciful to penitent sinners, as Christ is merciful to us; to punish the impenitent mercifully and admonish them in love, as Christ admonished us; and to stand scrupulously by their yes and no, as the true Teacher and Executor of the New Testament, the ever blessed Christ Jesus himself, has distinctly commanded and taught us with his guileless mouth; no matter what the consequences may be for my person. Dear Micron, reflect, and see if I have not pointed rightly to the Scriptures; and consider also by what Spirit you have slandered me. The wise man’s word is true: “Who is able to stand before envy?” Proverbs 27, verse 4.

Eighthly, it is manifest that throughout your book you have labored with all your might to make the truth of Christ, which we teach according to the measure of our talent, offensive and hateful to the reader and hearer by means of my person, and to make the falsehood of antichrist, which you teach, pleasing and attractive by means of your own person. You have presented the matter (but alas, not with God’s Spirit) as though, if I had been a novice in the church for three or four months, I would probably have done about as I did now, according to your untrue, partial writing.

But in this way the righteous Lord makes manifest to the unsuspecting and innocent the impure spirit, heart, bitterness, ambition, hatred, envy, falsehood and infamy, and also the false doctrine, of all such people who cover their ravenous hearts with a sheepskin, as you do, so that the innocent can scarcely perceive it. The venomous, deadly arrows and lies aimed at me show the whole world what kind of spirit is in you. Now it is Menno’s inconstancy, next his ignorance, or his deceitful intellect, or artful roguery, Menno’s lies, and so on; and you also say that I have changed my doctrine. In short, I do not know what you wrote that was not written to the dishonor of God, of the saints, of the truth, of the church and of myself.

I thank my God with a joyful heart that by his grace he has kept me these twenty-one years in one doctrine and foundation of faith, without any change, even though I was unworthily called to my hard service in such perilous, dark, erring times. All those will admit this who have walked with me in Christ Jesus during the time of my pilgrimage, who have read my humble works and books from the beginning, and heard my admonitions.

It may be that I am an ignorant, coarse and unintelligent man, but I have never in my life boasted of great intellect, learning, arts and science. But I do boast that in my weakness I seek the praise of the Lord and the salvation of my soul, and that by his grace I have learned enough in the school of God to know that the whole, undivided Christ is God’s first and only begotten and true Son, and that those who contradict this are the spirits of antichrist; that all blasphemers of God, profaners of the saints, adulterators of the Scriptures, willful liars, public defamers, enviers of the pious, and ambitious, bloodthirsty men are ungodly persons, and not Christians. Again, that all those who hear and follow Christ, and submissively, obediently and conscientiously follow his word, ordinances and blameless example in faith, by virtue of the new birth, are the children of God, and that they shall inherit the kingdom of honor forever. I trust that by his grace I shall stand before the throne of the High Majesty with this gross ignorance of mine, which is wisdom in the sight of God but hidden from the world, while all the high-minded and bold-hearted, who are so wise in their own sight, shall hear: “I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity,” Matthew 7, verse 22. My dear friend Micron, take heed.

Again, I trust that before the Lord and his judgment I shall be found innocent of the charge of artful roguery that you bring against me; for I have dealt with you with no more artful and roguish a heart than those have who are daily martyred, with a glad and joyful mind, for the sake of the testimony of Christ and of their consciences. In spite of this I have to hear this unkind, false charge from you before all the world. But the Lord will be our judge.

Again, as to the charge of falsehood that you bring against me, this is my plain answer: I too am included in the word, “All men are liars,” Psalm 116, verse 11; Romans 3, verse 4. I trust that I would submit to being killed before I would willfully lie, whether slightly or grossly. I hate falsehood. I hated falsehood even before I knew whose seed it was. And in my old age I shall avoid it as far as possible, by the grace of the Lord, since I know its origin or father.

O Micron, Micron, how precisely you treat me as the false prophets and stiff-necked Jews, out of mere hatred of the truth, treated the good Jeremiah, saying, “Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah,” and let us not pay attention to his words, Jeremiah 18, verse 18. John the Baptist had to hear from the Pharisees and scribes that he was possessed by the devil; and Christ Jesus was called by them a winebibber and glutton, Matthew 11, verse 19, and one who cast out devils in the name of Beelzebub, as they said, Luke 11, verse 15, so that by these means they might lead the ignorant, reckless people away from the truth and keep them in their leaven and vain, false doctrine. Just so you treat me, an infirm man, out of mere hatred of the truth. For if you could only smear me with so much filthy falsehood that people would be frightened of me, you would think the cause of Christ already lost. So blind is the poor, foolish flesh that is not overshadowed by the brightness of the Lord.

You may fill up the measure of your fathers, so long as the hand of God does not intervene. Yet I am assured in my heart, by the grace of the Lord, that as Jeremiah, John and Christ remained Jeremiah, John and Christ, however much they were lied about by their enviers and persecuted by them out of hatred of the truth, so I also, by the merciful grace and power of God, will remain the same Menno Simon in Christ that I have been in my weakness for more than twenty years, however infamously you may lie about me and depict or portray me out of hatred of the truth. I am assured also that as the false prophets, scribes and Pharisees were enemies of the truth and bloodthirsty men, and therefore died without God, so you too are without God and his grace, and that you, together with all false hypocrites, will receive your reward unless you sincerely repent. Of this there is only a very faint hope, because you so willfully suppress the truth about our discussion, tell so many falsehoods, so knowingly adulterate the Scriptures, and act so deceitfully against your neighbor in his absence, something 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 committed the grossest kind of shame and injury against yourself and your soul, which was purchased at so precious a price, for these reasons. First, because by your writing you have made yourself an open accuser and reprover, indeed a 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 be 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 of the visible, tangible, dying and risen 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 a one as I have written here.

Secondly, you prove yourself to be an open corrupter of the Holy Scriptures. For you write, “That Christ is of David’s seed, Romans 1, verse 3; that he is of a woman”; whereas 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 in the Lutheran and Zurich translations.

Thirdly, you write, “That Christ has partaken of the flesh and blood of the children,” Hebrews 2, verse 14; and the text says nothing more than “flesh and blood,” without the addition “of the children,” if we take the pronoun eorundem, that is, “of the same,” in its scriptural meaning.

Fourthly, you write in different places, “That Christ has taken on him Abraham’s seed” (in praeterito, that is, in the past tense), while the text says, He takes on him (in praesenti, that is, in the present tense). Whoever does not believe it may read the text, Hebrews 2, verse 16.

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It is manifest that you have deliberately adulterated the holy, divine Scriptures and made yourself a translation and Scripture of your own (as Tatian made himself a gospel, as you write), so that you may better maintain your antichristian doctrine before the unsuspecting and ignorant. Therefore I will leave it to the judgment of all impartial, reasonable readers in all the world what kind of teacher and writer you are.

O dear Micron, consider what you have already come to. It seems as if you had nearly lost both the Scriptures and common sense through the deadly disease of your ambitious and envious partiality. Suppose you were to defame his imperial majesty and his son Philip as you have defamed the heavenly Father and his blessed Son Christ in your writing, and were to say plainly, No, King Philip is not the son of the emperor, but the son of another person, and is only called the son of the emperor; suppose you were besides to adulterate their public mandates, sentences and commandments, as you have done with the Scriptures cited and with the plain ordinances, word and commandments of Christ concerning baptism and the oath; and suppose you were moreover to deride, upbraid, scorn and lie about their sworn courtiers and faithful servants because they honored and respected the emperor as the true father of Philip, and Philip as the true son of the emperor, and because they faithfully respected and obeyed their mandates, sentences and policies: O Lord, what an outcry there would be about you, and what blood-songs would be sung! But what reward you now deserve and must expect in due time from God the Lord, because you so lamentably blaspheme 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, ordinances and explicit, plain commandments; and because you so lamentably slander, upbraid, lie about, hate and persecute their faithful servants by your indiscreet writing, I will leave to almighty God and his judgment. Dear friend, ponder what is said here.

First, you have made yourself an open, perfidious falsifier. For you call on God as a witness (which in my opinion is the same as an oath) that you have given a true narration of the discussion, and the very first thing you wrote in your book is an untruth. For you write, “A true Narration.” And how very untrue it is, God knows, and you yourself, and we. We have also partly touched on this above, in the description of the discussion.

Secondly, you have quoted in your book my first words and very brotherly admonition: “If you now hear more powerful truths and a surer foundation from us than you have heard until now, then you ought not to seek your own praise and honor, but you ought heartily to seek the honor and praise of the Lord,” and so on; and you have coupled a gross falsehood with it, and rendered it as if I had said that you had sought your own honor and praise by your writing in England. At that time I had never thought of such a thing, for I knew no more about you than I would have known had you never been in the world. Yet you garble my words to make it appear so. I will leave you yourself to judge whether it was the Spirit of truth and of godly, faithful love, or the spirit of impure falsehood and faithless envy, that inspired you to write like this.

Thirdly, you write, “That Herman Backereel had already proved to me that Mary was a daughter of David.” It seems you are not at all ashamed to tell a falsehood, if only it can make your cause appear true. Whoever can prove to me by virtue of the Scriptures that Mary was a daughter of David must have a Bible and Scripture different from ours; for it cannot be found in our Bibles and Scriptures. I asked no proof of it from you or from Herman, since it was irrelevant. And now you falsely make it appear that I said she was not, and that Herman proved to me that she was. This is certainly a falsehood.

Fourthly, you write, “That you frequently confessed to us that the Son of God died for us”; while I dare to say and testify with a good conscience that you never touched on it during the whole discussion. But when at the last discussion I asked you whether you did not still call the man Christ (who you said had no Father) the Son of God, you answered yes. When I asked further why you called him so, the kind of answer I received to that question has been related above. Yet you dare to write down falsely, “That you frequently confessed it to us,” as has been heard.

Even if you were not ashamed to tell gross falsehoods against us before men, because you know that you cannot abuse us enough in the sight of the world, which is your church, one would still reasonably expect you to be ashamed to do so before your God, who tries the hearts and reins, and to remember that it is written that “A thief is not so bad as a man accustomed to lies,” “for he can never attain to honor,” Ecclesiasticus 20, verses 27 and 28; that the lying mouth kills the soul, Wisdom of Solomon 1, verse 11; that God will destroy the liars, Psalm 5, verse 6; and that their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, Revelation 21, verse 8. [Note 1]

Fifthly, you write, “That you maintained the purity of your Christ against us”; whereas before the Lord, before you and before us all, it happened in no other way than I related in the narration of the first discussion, concerning the inconsistency that you had an impure Christ.

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I was also surprised that there was not enough common sense left in you to consider that by your partial writing and gross falsehoods you might have brought it about that many of the readers, and particularly those present at the discussion, would suspect you of writing falsehoods out of mere partiality, and might leave your church because of it. But the spirit of wisdom, alas, has not kissed the dwelling place of your soul, nor greeted it with the friendly lips of its truth.

Fourthly, you have also made yourself a very unsteady, wavering and inconstant person, whom one cannot pin down to one foundation and doctrine. For at the time of the discussion you confessed, “That Christ was born of the Father from everlasting; that he was also from everlasting seated, divided and separated from the Father.” Now you have changed, and you write that he remained in the Father. Mark your first change.

Secondly, you confessed two Sons in Christ; and now you say there is only one; yet in fact there are two, if we consider your doctrine impartially.

Thirdly, you confessed that the crucified Christ who died for us was not God’s Son; and now you write that you frequently confessed that he was. Mark your second and third changes; and yet you write that he had no Father. Whether this is Simplex veritatis oratio, “the word of truth is plain,” as you write, I will leave you yourself to consider. It must be admitted that anyone who cannot see light-minded unsteadiness and false duplicity in this must be quite unintelligent and blind.

Fourthly, you confessed, “That Christ should not be worshiped according to his human nature”; and now you say, “That he should be.” Mark your fourth change. Yet you confess that he was an earthly man, of earth, born of Adam’s seed. If this is not idolatry, we may truly say that the Scriptures deceive us.

Whether so many confessions and recantations befit a sincere, pious, constant and well-grounded teacher and writer (as you want to be), who out of ambition falsely denies it all, I hereby leave all impartial readers to judge.

Fifthly, you have made yourself, before all intelligent persons, a very proud, self-conceited, bold and ambitious boaster, because you sing such great triumphs and glory in your book, while it is manifest to God, to yourself and to all who were present that you had already lost the whole point under discussion. It would also be manifest to the whole world if only you had told it impartially as it happened. For you confessed two Sons in Christ, and that the crucified one was not God’s Son, as in fact you still do; and by this you had already finished the discussion. You could not answer a word to all the Scriptures I read, by which I testified to you that the Son of man, the visible, tangible, eating, drinking, suffering, dying and risen Christ, was also God’s own true Son; nor could you reply a word to my four convincing answers, with which I overcame your unscriptural question concerning the birth from everlasting, the separation, and so on; all of which you have left out of your “Narration.”

Nor did you say anything in our discussion about the union of the two sons, which you generally called two natures, which is now your strongest Scripture, even though in fact it is not found in the whole Bible. For if you had mentioned it at the time of the discussion, you would have received an answer, with the help of the Lord. And besides telling such abominable falsehoods, you have changed the order of the discussion, garbled my words, misinterpreted them, shortened them or added to them at pleasure, and changed your own. By this it is manifest before God and man that your discussion with us, and particularly the account of it, was not prompted by a humble, converted and contrite heart, nor by the Spirit and love of Christ, but by an ambitious, self-conceited, proud, obstinate flesh and mind. I will leave it to the all-knowing God and to yourself (to whom your aims are best known), and also to the pious reader who walks in the truth, whether this is not the truth. O friend, teach yourself before you undertake to teach others. Look at yourself, inwardly and outwardly, in the clear mirror of Christ and his holy word, so that you may realize what an ignorant teacher and unfit Christian you are before God.

Sixthly, you have also made yourself a false prophet and teacher, a deceiver of men, an obvious hypocrite and a ravening wolf in sheep’s clothing. Do not take it amiss that I call you such and tell the truth. For how could you teach a falser doctrine than to teach that God the Father is not the true Father of the whole Christ, and that the whole Christ is not the true Son of God; to make the angel of God, John the Baptist and all the apostles of God false witnesses; to make Christ, the eternal truth, a false teacher (for he says that we shall not swear at all, Matthew 5, verse 34, and you say that we are allowed to swear to the truth); to make the baptism commanded by Christ, and taught and practiced by his holy apostles, a false baptism; and to want to teach a different doctrine and practice, of which not a word is found in all the Scriptures?

Dear Micron, if you would take good counsel, you would quit your writing at once. For make of it what you will, it is certain that with your strongest arguments and best points you in fact do nothing but supersede and teach the eternal Wisdom, Christ Jesus, the Son of God, and his Holy Spirit, together with the apostles of Christ; nothing but change their words, doctrine, commandments, institutions, ordinances and practices, as if these in themselves were not essential and right, indeed, as if they were powerless, vain and useless; and by this you show that you are their teacher and master. Beloved Micron, take heed. The more you write, the more manifest you make your own shame and false doctrine, and the greater you make the guilt of your deceit. My friend, let yourself be warned.

You console the poor, blind people with falsehood, deprive them of both Father and Son, First John 2, verse 22, and lamentably adulterate the word of the Lord. From this it is very plain that you forsake the Lord who has purchased us, Second Peter 2, verse 1; that you are moved by the spirit of antichrist, First John 4, verse 3; that it is anathema, Galatians 1, verse 8. You teach us a gospel that the apostles of Christ did not teach us. It shows that you rob God of his honor and are a murderer of souls, John 10, verse 1, souls which Christ Jesus has purchased at so great a price, First Peter 1, verse 8; a messenger of darkness who transforms himself into an angel of light, Second Corinthians 11, verse 14.

Do not take it amiss that I write the truth. I repeat: a ravening wolf in sheep’s clothing, Matthew 7, verse 15, who devours the souls of men by a false explanation of the Scripture under a pretended semblance of truth, robs them of the truth, and so offers and sacrifices them to the prince of hell for the sake of a woolen rag and a piece of bread. Not to mention that by your false doctrine you cause so much trouble to many a chosen saint of God, and deprive him of his possessions and even of his life, because, before the erring, blind and carnal world of blasphemers, blood-preachers, messengers of the devil, bloodthirsty tyrants and covetous robbers, you falsely charge, slander, defame and trample underfoot the doctrine, which is the clear, pure, unadulterated, powerful, saving and regenerating doctrine of Christ, as heresy and deceit, and the faithful children who are converted by it from unrighteousness to righteousness, and from the dumb idols to the living God, as deceitful, sectarian people.

O Micron, friend, how good it would be for your poor soul (if you do not sincerely repent) if you had never been born! What have you, miserable man, allowed your ambitious, proud, evil flesh to do? For the sake of a little breeze of vain honor, which you can enjoy only a short time in this confused, evil world, you have committed such abominable blasphemy against the almighty, eternal and great God; have so lamentably defamed his holy apostles and faithful witnesses; have so grossly profaned the Lord’s word; have so deadly deceived the people; have so unmercifully caused trouble to the godly and pious; and have heaped such great guilt and sin upon your own poor soul by your writing. Surely your whole book is nothing but a plain declaration and display of your own shame and antichristian doctrine, both for the present and the future world, which uncovers, proclaims and publishes your abominably great abuse and error to all men who seek the Lord. Friend Micron, reflect, and see if I do not rightly point out your very dangerous wounds and deadly sores, according to the Scriptures.

Lastly, you have made yourself a shame and dishonor, in the sight of all the pious in the world, to all the rest of the preachers who are your fellows in doctrine and service. For you moved from Flanders to England, and from England to Friesland, for the sake of the gospel, as is said; you do much writing and disputing; you lead a reasonable, civil life before the world; you are not particularly regarded as an adulterer, winebibber or coxcomb; in short, you are finely dressed in sheep’s clothing, and so on. Therefore you are probably looked on and regarded as an exemplary person, a head, a light, or at least one of the principal ones among them. And yet in truth, before God and all intelligent persons, you are found to be such a one as we have partly shown you to be in this epistle, by your own writings. Therefore we will let the reader consider in the fear of God what we should think of the others, who are not covered like this with sheep’s clothing, but who grasp, eat, drink and lead a pompous, ostentatious, careless, easy and carnal life, who fear neither God nor devil, who sell the souls of men for a trifle, who gladly accept liens and easy times, and still are in the same doctrine, vocation and service as you. And what we should do about attending the preaching of both you and them (for which they would bite their own tongues for madness), I will let everyone judge who heartily seeks God, according to the word of the Lord, Matthew 7, verse 15; Matthew 15, verse 13; Matthew 16, verse 6; John 10, verse 1; Romans 16, verse 16; Galatians 5, verse 8; First Timothy 6, verse 3; Second Timothy 2, verse 3; Titus 3, verse 9; Second John 1, verse 7; Second Corinthians 6, verse 14; Revelation 18, verse 4. [Note 3]