# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 12 19_S67
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

67

manifold gifts wherewith the LORD the Holy Ghost adorns His instruments and confirms the success of the Word in the congregation.

V. 6. The sea of glass. This is a likeness of what is wrought in the world through Christ and His servants. The sea points to the knowledge of God, not especially to Baptism, which it indeed also embraces. Compare Is. 11. 9. Also Is. 60, 5 ("the abundance of the sea") belongs here: for if the knowledge of God covers the land as the waves of the sea, this is the more to be praised because the heathen are thereby cleansed of their uncleanness and also come before God's throne. The LORD is as it were a fisher before this sea.

The sea is before Christ's throne: His glory is mirrored in it. It is called crystal or glassy on account of the bright gleam of the transparent clear flood: for the knowledge of God has this peculiarity, that in and of itself, so far as it comprehends the capacity of man, it is colorless, but is shone through by its content; what it is and appears to be it always takes from God; if He withdraws, it has in a moment nothing more, though shortly before it shone in the fullness of His majesty.

Concerning the cherubim v. 6-9, upon whom the LORD rides, who have been understood from of old as a prefiguration of the four evangelists, let one read Luther's preface on the prophet Ezekiel. Here only so much, that the number four shows the spread of the Gospel into all the world.

Of the six wings. Upon Christ, whom the 4 evangelists as it were bear, all labor in the kingdom of God is built; therefore the 6 wings sit on the 4 beasts, and indeed on each of them, because each evangelist describes Christ so completely that he is qualified for preaching of Christ. The number 6 refers to the day's work of Christ's servants. The wings recall Ps. 68, 14. (Compare Luther's precious exposition.) The laborers in the vineyard are as it were only the wings. The Holy Ghost swings them. He takes everything from Christ. About the testimony of Him the wings move. The Word "runs swiftly." Their line goes out into all lands!

V. 10 and 11 write as it were over the posts of the house of God the inscription: "To the LORD alone the honor!" In the lovely clouds of incense of adoration let also from the altar of thy soul the holy glow of faith ascend to Him who builds His kingdom for thy salvation, shields and upholds it!

Menno Simons.

Some weeks ago a little book was sent us by mail, bearing the title: "The Life and Times of Menno, the celebrated Dutch Reformer, by J. N. Brown. Translated from the English." This little book has been published this year by the American Baptist Publication Society both in English and in German.

To be sure, it is complained in this writing that historians hitherto have not followed the right principles in the presentation of historical persons and therefore have not rightly depicted Menno Simonis either; but the author of this writing himself has certainly done this still much less. The whole writing is nothing but a rather clumsy panegyric (eulogy) on the so-called Reformer of that Anabaptist party whose members call themselves Mennonites after him; indeed one might almost call the little work an apotheosis (a deification) of Menno. At the very beginning of the book it says: "Among the great church reformers of the 16th century he stood unquestionably very high; yea, in some respects, I boldly maintain, he was the greatest." Further on it says outright: "But there stood among them (the Reformers) One whom they knew not, who was greater than they, and whose life was in truth a more exalted image of their common Lord and Master. Posterity will wonder how long the Church has delayed to acknowledge the noblest church reformer of the 16th century." At the close the biographer says: "His (Menno's) labors resembled in their character more those of Whitefield and Wesley (the founder of the Methodist society) than those of the other church reformers of his own time; yet it seems to me that he surpassed them all in purity, meekness and self-sacrifice; in steadfastness and prudence, in heroic and yet humble zeal." — In order that the glory (the halo) which the writer seeks to draw about Menno's head may shine the fairer, he sets the other famous men and their works so much the lower beside him. Luther especially must take a sound beating. It is said that Menno sought the truth in respect of infant baptism with Luther, Bucer, Bullinger and others, but noticed that "every one followed his own reason (!)." Further: He (Menno) was 22 years younger than Luther. Gratefully he acknowledges the instruction which the writings of the German church reformer afforded him in some points. In other matters, on the contrary, he had left him far behind, because he was free from this spirit of self-exaltation which Luther, with all his piety, could not wholly subdue. The most celebrated church reformers of the 16th century conceded to princes and the secular authorities in ecclesiastical affairs the same supremacy which they had with such great right and earnestness denied the Pope *). None of them grasped the pure conception of the Church of Christ."

*) Who is not astonished at this impudent, lying slander? We hold it worthy of no answer, since every baptized, well-instructed Lutheran school-child knows how Luther taught of the power of the secular authorities in the Church.

That in the little work infant baptism is at the same time blasphemed goes without saying. Thus, for example, there occurs in it the godless saying that infant baptism has been "rightly designated the first-born error of Antichrist. *) As a consequence of such principles we read also in the little book the most reckless attacks upon the so-called national churches, which testify to an astonishing censorious spirit in the pitiable author. He writes: "All national churches are of necessity just as essentially antichristian as the Roman Church itself. That is in fact their character in Protestant states, if not in practice (in actual execution), yet more openly in theory" (doctrine). "Such dragon's teeth were sown in the church reformation of the 16th century." —

*) This the describer of Menno's life has probably learned from his hero himself; Menno also says of infant baptism in his Fundamentbuch (p. 50 ff.) that it is idolatry, that it is of the dragon and the beast, and nothing else than a ceremony of Antichrist.

That Menno, even after his celebrated thorough conversion, was and remained a poor sinner, his apologist naturally will not hear. He knows only of Menno's "heavenly meekness." It is remarkable that he has Menno relate that he "has had to endure much misery and persecution with his poor weak wife and little children now for nearly 18 years **)."

**) We should almost conclude that the "little children" within 18 years might by now have become rather big children.

What, for example, a David Joris, an Ubbo Philipps and others report of Menno, our biographer passes over in silence, in order not to let fall the slightest shadow upon the hero of his book. Even Gottfried Arnold, this advocate of almost all heretics and enthusiasts and hired slanderer of almost all orthodox teachers, writes in his Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (II, 281): "Meanwhile some (Baptists) themselves confess that he (Menno) was in most things too harsh and legalistic, so that the people lived indeed, for themselves, piously and blamelessly, but yet led more a pharisaical than a living, true Christianity according to its evangelical power, as among others the well-known Holstein Baptist writer Mehrning himself writes. David Joris" (the second in greatness among the Dutch Anabaptists after Menno) "also formerly wrote earnestly and sharply to this Menno and wished to show how much he still lacked of the true divine knowledge, that he had only the letter and was still far from having the Spirit." Still more serious is what Ubbo Philipps, who had ordained Menno Simonis to his Anabaptist ministry, confessed later. The same writes among other things in his "Confession and Declaration": "It grieves me still today that I promoted anyone to such an office, and did not at once desist from it, wherein I was so shamefully and miserably deceived. Since I, poor man, let myself be moved thereto, that at the desire of the brethren I laid upon Dirck Philipps the office in the Dom, upon David Joris the office at Delft, and upon Menno Simons the office at Groningen to administer." (See Jehring's Historie von den Taufgesinnten, page 217.)

The publication of our little book seems a