Now, let me ask you a question. After hearing about all that happened there in Münster yesterday, I—I mean, what were your impressions of that? I mean, could you imagine now being a Christian, a serious Christian in those days, and not being a Catholic or something, and trying to be taken seriously after all that just happened? I mean, it would have been rough to be a Christian in those days, wouldn't you think? To give a little backup of these times, I have you here on your handouts there, if you look.
Again, if you look at the whole Reformation in Holland, just like in Europe, it was a time where there was a lot of weakness in the church. Again, you had the ideas, like I talked about yesterday and the days before, where the monasteries owned lots of the areas, and that weakened the economy, caused people, the peasants and such, to be upset and those types of things. But also in Holland, you had a concept which is an oxymoron to some degree, but nevertheless, it has its expression there in Holland.
It's the idea of Christian humanism. And I agree, those words don't really go well together because we think of humanism, it just means the whole—as we think of humanism, and I think it's right that we do, of the idea of the human person enlightening without the need of God. But in Holland, there was a mix of trying to say that Christianity made sense. And this was the kind of thing that Erasmus was trying to give.
And although he didn't preach a biblical repentance, he certainly didn't preach being born again and accepting a cross life and that type of a thing, nevertheless, he tried to make arguments of, "Hey, these teachings of Jesus actually make sense. Why are we killing each other when we could be doing some of these things?" And they began to talk about Christianity on a humanistic level.
And that was more popular in these northern areas than even they were down south, especially according to your book, Cup and the Cross. And during that time also, do you remember we talked about during this when we came up close to the Swiss brethren and all that, we talked about Geert Groote, remember that little scene that I read to you from the—where they walked into the monastery and they were talking back and forth with who Meyer and Bucer was in there and one of the people of the brethren of the common life.
And they were really good into bringing in education and Christian enlightenment into this area. And particularly, if you recall, they stressed the inner life. And this was important. They stressed that these external things that we're doing, if there's not a true inner life of devotion, then we've lost it. You get some great writings, Thomas à Kempis and Imitation of Christ. Have you all read that, Imitation of Christ? Yeah, it's a good book.
I mean, there are some things we wouldn't agree with it, particularly it gets at the end, there's some talkings on the sacraments and things that I think would be a little offensive. But nonetheless, you definitely see in there his concept of an inner life where he says things like, "What good does it do for us to debate on the Trinity if we don't have the Trinity within our heart?" And those types of things come out of Thomas à Kempis.
And out of this enlightenment or a new way of saying, "We've got to take Christianity deeper," and people who did get a hold of scriptures, of course, that affected them. Erasmus spread his teaching. Remember, Erasmus was raised by the education of one of these groups of the brethren of common life, which again were one of these monasteries, but you didn't have a vow. It was more voluntary and that type of a thing. Erasmus came out of that, and of course, his teachings went everywhere.
Because of all that education, they had a high literacy rate. It was a little different place. And we're going to see this maybe play out through today and tomorrow, maybe entirely, as something I'd like to talk about, is just the different feel of Holland versus the mountains of Switzerland. You know, it was a little different. High education, high literacy, cities, metropolitans in their degree. You know, it was more of a built-up area than the mountains of Switzerland, things like that.
And so when the Reformation got there, it was received very quickly. And early on in the 1520s, a lot of the religious leaders, a lot of priests and bishops actually in that area received them. As a matter of fact, even the archbishop of Cologne for a while, which is not in Holland, but if Holland is here, as you saw that, and you go on to Germany down here, Cologne would be about here. And in those days, you know, they didn't have such clear marked areas.
It's kind of like maybe if you're a missionary in Africa today and some king tells you, "He's king of this tribe," which goes between Kenya and Tanzania. Their ideas were surrounded by people groups. And so a lot of these people went back and forth from their language, from their people group, and things like that. And that certainly was the case there in Holland. But Charles V, as we've been hearing about his life through all this time, had his effect there in Holland as well.
And he came down hard here in Holland. He actually then also instituted here the Spanish Inquisition. And I'm sure you've heard that growing up, you've heard that term, and it was brutal there. And the very first execution, at least in Western Europe, occurred here in Holland and the Spanish Inquisition. And this was brutal. It was brutal for the Anabaptists. It was brutal for anyone who disagreed with Roman Catholic thought at the time. And so that was, you know, it certainly had its effect on that.
The writer of the Cup and Cross brings out an interesting point. He says that in the Germany, with Luther being able to quickly get the attention of the kings and such, that the Reformation kind of spread from the top down. Remember, even when the peasants revolted, what was Luther's response? "All right, they're getting it," or, "Kill them." You know what I mean? He quickly got the power from the top, and then he was able to use that power to bring in the Reformation from the top down.
In Holland, the top was squashed from the beginning by Charles V. So the writer makes the argument that the common people still, though, were very dissatisfied, and there was more of a grassroots movement in Holland that began to spread and spread more in that way. And perhaps it was some of that that led to all of that dissatisfaction and all the kind of craziness that happened with Münster, as we heard about yesterday.
But interestingly, by 1530, there are no known records of Anabaptist thought, Swiss brethren, anything in Holland. I think somebody asked that question yesterday. And so it's interesting. So remember, 1530, think of all that happened down south there by 1530. I mean, you had all of happening in Switzerland, Zurich, you had the migration into the Moravian, the Moravian Anabaptists, you had the Schleitheims, you had the Martyr Synod, you had the Hutterites being formed, and all those sorts of things were happening.
And none of that, are there records of that actually making it all the way to Holland to spread that, say, "Okay, this one was a direct came from Holland." Later you do. They certainly start bringing missionaries up there. But by 1530, according to the Mennonite Encyclopedia, there was no record of Anabaptists up there. And then in comes Melchior Hoffman, which we talked about yesterday at length, and for a good reason.
When he brought it in there, he had somehow that fire that lit that common person's need for a better expression of Christianity, and it caught fire. And we've again talked at length about that yesterday. But there's a couple of converts that Hoffman made, which you need to make attention to, and I have them on your handout here. Okay.
He made some converts, and some of those were Sicke Freerks, Obbe Philips, and Jan Matthias, which, of course, is the guy that became that first guy with the big beard who came to Münster there and did all his things there. But those were some of the important converts that Hoffman made. And that particularly, I'd like you to focus in on Obbe Philips. Now, Obbe Philips had a brother named Dirk Philips, and both of those began to be something that brought this apostolic Christianity to Holland in their time.
And those become kind of common names in our circles. How many of y'all know somebody named Dirk? Yeah. How many of you know somebody named Obbe? Well, there's a reason. All right. It's interesting. And it's too bad. You know, I mean, we could have had a name like Obbe in our circles, but you know. Anyway. But these brothers helped to emerge out of the rubble an ancient Christianity and tried their best to be able to live that out.
They began early to complain about that the preachers had not enough regard for the scriptures themselves. And this began to be very early a point to them that these Hoffmanites, Melchiorites, these Münsterites, and these other people, this spiritualizing, these new prophecies, new visions and things, they began to be concerned of from the very beginning. And they believed that they completely then rejected the idea of revelation over the scriptures.
I think I touched on that just a little bit yesterday, but again, what does the scripture say about these things? And you know, I think that it's good for us to know. I thought about even Münster as we look at it. In your own life, when you're trying to find the will of God, it's easy for us somehow to, like Rothman, saw three suns and said, "Oh, that's it," and begin to go and to put those things over the scripture, even in our own lives.
In other words, it's easy for us to laugh at these guys, but we have to be careful that the scriptures becomes, remains the sure word of prophecy, as it says there in 2 Peter 1:19, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, not cunning devised fables and things, as the scripture tells us." And so again, don't just laugh at these guys.
Look at some tendencies in our own lives, because I think in all of these extremes, we can find tendencies in ourselves and in our churches that can go off in some of these different things. The word of God needs to be what forms us and makes us. All right. So as these people went, the Philips, Obbe Philips, and Dirk began to rebuke these different radical groups. It wasn't just the Münsterites. There was a lot of weird stuff happening at Holland.
And I don't know if it was again because of the it was originally brought Melchior Hoffman with all these revelations, but a lot of people ended up with a lot of strange things, and all this fell on the lap of these brothers and Menno Simons. I have here bottom of page two, Obbe Philips, when he rebuked the Münsterites and the other spiritualist groups, they reacted against him. There was one particular group, the Batenburgers.
And this was a person that came out of the whole Münster thing, and they had this kind of strange idea that they thought, "Well, everything belonged to God," right? I mean, we would agree with that, wouldn't you? Everything belongs to God. And if you're of God and this guy's not, well, then I own what he has because everything belongs to God.
So they had no problem taking over little monasteries or taking over some guy's house or killing somebody or sharing their wives or whatever they could do because everything belonged to God. And they brought in a kind of Münster polygamy, and they were going around blowing stuff up and everything. It was a pretty bad group. Unfortunately, they also baptized adults, and so they got kind of thrown into this whole mix of things. Well, Obbe Philips came directly against that even early on.
And interestingly enough, when they did, this group of people made a pact, like the days of Saul, you know, before he was converted. They made a pact that they would make an oath to persecute and kill the Obbenites. And so it kind of gives you some of the conflicts of even trying to find biblical Christianity here in Holland in the early days. So again, the Obbenites pull Christianity out of the rubble of these different things. No direct contact with the Swiss brethren.
However, with the scripture, they came essentially for the most part to the same conclusions. They had the word of God, and they allowed those things to form them. I have here just a few questions, and then I'd like to talk in particular about a few of these personalities because I think it's good to just mention them. What were some of the cultural differences that made a different emphasis between what happened here in Holland, even out of the Philips brothers, Obbe and Dirk, and Switzerland?
I have just a couple of suggestions. I'm not saying this is it, but I wonder as I look at these different things and I look at thinking about tomorrow also when we start talking about the church splits and the different things that occur tomorrow. I wonder about some of the differences. And some of the things that I see as I look into it is even just the different way society was formed. Down in Switzerland, remember they had the peasant war. They had like their 12 articles.
And the concept of a community, a little town being able to be autonomous and to say, "This is what's going to happen to our town. We can elect our own preachers. We can decide our own taxes and that kind of a thing," was a Swiss concept. Holland, it was a little bit more city, a little bit more built up, a little bit more hierarchical.
I wonder, is there some possibility that some of that general feeling is a difference between a hierarchical Dutch church that comes out in a more of a community model with the Swiss brethren? Interesting. I also have on here, see what your thoughts are, a Jesus hermeneutic, if you can let me use that word, versus a theological hermeneutic. And let me explain what I mean by that. Hermeneutic means your interpretive principle. Ideas have consequences, right?
And this is the kind of thing I keep harping on the whole time. Well, again, when you go to a concept of a creed, there's a good quote by Chesterton who says in his book on orthodoxy, something to the effect of, "I didn't make the creeds," or orthodox Christianity, as he calls it, "it's making me." I didn't make it, it's making me. And this concept is a very good concept, although I think we need to take it one step further. These fundamental principles of who you are as a people affect everything.
Ideas have consequences. And so Chesterton or Cardinal Newman, who would think that the creeds and the council period forms them, it's right. That makes who you are. What's important? You know, if creeds are important, then getting the right creed, getting the right doctrinal definition will form you as a people, and this will be what you make sure is important. I think Chesterton has a good point. The deeper point I wonder, though, is this: isn't the ultimate Jesus?
And I know I keep harping this the whole five weeks, but I think it's a good thing to harp on. It does come to Jesus. And I see the more simple, the more kind of of a more uneducated people, if you would, although the first leaders were certainly very educated.
But the whole Swiss people had more of a concept like the Waldensians of a Jesus people of saying, "Okay, this is going to be our creed, is going to be the Sermon on the Mount and the teachings of Jesus, and this forms us of who we are." And so it keeps going back to, "Well, are we getting to this?
Are we getting to this?" I wonder, and I just throw this out now in thinking of our discussions for tomorrow, even though biblically, because they used the Bible as the thing that formed them, does the Dutch end up with a little bit different of a slant because it becomes to the right interpretation of their articles and their creeds, even though they were good creeds, it's still the bottom line thing was a little different than the Swiss. I just throw it out. I don't want to cast any negative thing on them.
Just some of the things I observe as I look at the two groups. They also, you can't ignore this, they come out of a persecution a hundred years earlier than the Swiss brethren. And so they had to deal with materialism. They had to deal with free time to talk about stuff when the Hutterites and the Swiss brethren were still fighting for their very lives. And so I think maybe that had the most thing to do about it. All right. Question on. Yep. You mentioned education. What was education like in Holland? Were they?
Yeah, it was. People tend to be more educated. People tend to be more educated. And your textbook brings that out, is that because of the emphasis that these brethren of common life and the different enlightenments that they were going through, the general people were an educated people and a literate people that could read. And so your book brings out that when Luther's books came through, that it was quickly received on a large scale all over there.
So yeah, it would seem that there was a higher literacy rate from those types of people. Yeah. So interesting. All right. So let's start looking at just a few of these personalities, and then we're going to take a break and come back and finish the time with Menno Simons. But I just wanted you to at least touch these guys because I think it's important, again, to know what some of the things that these Dutch people were dealing with. Obbe Philips.
We have a debt to pay to Obbe Philips because, again, he was a guy who helped those difficult years between the Hoffmanites, Melchiorites, and all those types of people that were trying to do some extreme stuff. Obbe Philips stood in the gap. But we'll see why we don't have little children named Obbe anymore in our churches. Okay. Obbe Philips, again, was an illegitimate son of a Catholic priest. Who else was in history? An illegitimate son of a Catholic priest.
We've talked about there's been several in our little one particular one? Erasmus. Erasmus. And another one was Felix Mons. Oh, you got it. All right, Esther. Yeah. Felix Mons, an illegitimate son of a Catholic priest, Obbe was another one of those. And so it kind of gives you a little insight into their upbringing. But the father gave his son a careful education. He chose to go into medicine, became a barber surgeon, and began to practice those types of things in his area.
He was quickly interested in the Reformation stuff that started coming around with Luther, and particularly this quiet group.
The Mennonite Encyclopedia mentions this about a group that wished to, I have it quoted on the bottom of page three there, "Worship God quietly in the manner of their fathers and the patriarchs so that each one could seek God from his heart and serve and follow him without a preacher, teacher, or any other outward meeting." Kind of like an inner little group that you just kind of stay at your house and be all by yourself. Maybe a preview to extreme pietism or something like that.
But that was something he was early attracted to. But when Melchior Hoffman came through, he was very interested in what was happening with all those guys and jumped on the bandwagon. A little later, Jan Matthias, the guy who went down to Münster and started all the extreme stuff down there, sent some missionaries through. Obbe enthusiastically joined with them. And from there, this he emerged from the seclusion and was baptized with many others by these missionaries. And this happened on December of 1533.
Again, Münster, if you took it to your dates, was destroyed in 1535 to give you a remember how all this was going on. Quick rise to the ministry. He was baptized this day. Well, the missionaries must have considered that he was best suited because the next day he was ordained to preach, baptize, and lead out in the brotherhood. So they recognized that. And again, this was a movement. Remember, they all thought the world is ending. We've got to hurry. And so they made him a minister right from the beginning.
Filled with zeal, Obbe left the city at once after the ordination and began to preach, to baptize with the brethren and promote the new doctrine. Meanwhile, however, the authorities had become aware of this movement and everything else that was happening in Münster. And making matters worse, another one of the ministers there, a fellow minister, when he left his town one day, came into his town and began to call for the imminent destruction of all tyrants.
So already, Obbe is finding himself, "Okay, this isn't where I'm going. What do I do about this?" And so he then finds out that the magistrate of his area sees his name on the list. It says that he's one of the seducers and deceivers who wander about the country, who rebaptized people and teaches bad and dangerous errors and sects, cults, in other words, in their mind. And so he thought, "Okay, it's time to leave." He went to Amsterdam and met this one little group. And I love this name, the Boongenoten.
I'm sure I'm butchering the Dutch, but the name of the group was Comrades of the Covenant. And it's too bad we lost that name. They actually all ended up going into the Münster thing. But Comrades of the Covenant was a group. And he kind of met with them, met with this quiet group, and eventually began to find that there's definitely a split in this faith that's coming, this Anabaptist faith, and he's not getting in with all this crazy stuff. And of course, he doesn't go to Münster. It's time to leave that area.
He was there in Amsterdam, and he found out these other people were even more and more getting influenced with Jan Matthias, who wanted to bring about a violent means of the imminent coming of the kingdom of God. We heard all about that yesterday. So he did not stay in Amsterdam, and he was no longer secure anywhere. In the late fall of 1534, he came to Delft, where he ordained, very important, he ordained David Joris as an elder. He also ordained his brother, Dirk Philips, and later he ordained Menno Simons.
And that's where that comes from. Later on, he's in the mix of all these things. Münster now has all that catastrophe. He's trying to work with people, have this balance between all these things. Finally, he gets so sick of it, he leaves, renounces his Anabaptism, and goes into secrecy. It's thought that perhaps some of the scholars today think that maybe he was one of these that went back into that secret mode where he just kind of had church in his house and prayed to God. But that was the story of Obbe.
But his brother, Dirk, gets even more excited and becomes a leader. So let's talk about Dirk Philips. And he's important. And here's his writings, Dirk Philips. And he becomes very known in the Amish, the Beachy, still to this day. And he becomes an important figure for you to know. Moderate Mennonites and people, progressive, however you want to use the word, liberal or however you want to word that, don't like him. And I'm going to even mention some of the quotes here in the Mennonite Encyclopedia.
And so it's some of the things I'd like to talk about, the concept of old order or conservative Mennonite versus the different ways to look at things. And Dirk would certainly represent more of an old order concept. Here's published by Pathway Press. Okay. So all right, let's talk about Dirk. Dirk was also, of course, in that same household another, I guess, illegitimate son of a priest. But he, instead of going the route of the surgeon, became a Franciscan friar. And so he was there with the Franciscans.
And so he took a more spiritual direction right from the beginning. Later on, he quickly, with his brother and all that, joined the Anabaptists. And in 1534, remember, Münster was 1535. In 1534, upon the wishes of the brethren, he was ordained by his brother there. In the following years, he quickly becomes a big leader in the movement. He is all at all the important meetings when they get into discussions, and he gets into the different debates. And it does seem Dirk was certainly theological-minded.
The Mennonite Encyclopedia says if there's any a theologian in its classic sense of the Anabaptists, it was Dirk. And I think it was Bender who says in the Mennonite Encyclopedia, a dogmatician. In other words, the guys who said, "It has to be this way. It cannot be that way." He was a straight shooter. It was this way and that way. And that became the legacy of Dirk Philips. And when they dealt with all these now kind of crazy things that happen, we'll see tomorrow, some of that is difficult.
And some of that balance between standing for the truth and bending with your brother we're still, of course, struggling with, and any conservative group, I think, struggles with. We see them struggle with that. And Dirk seems to be in the midst of all that kind of discussion. At first, he wrote a book against Bernard Rothman's book on the restitution. Remember where he was claiming that Christians need to usher in this thing?
And he wrote a book against that called On the Spiritual Restitution and began to speak out on non-resistance and those types of things. One I said I have here on page six, and you thought your church service was long. And one of the church services there, it says they met at four in the morning, and they were there until seven in the evening. Four in the morning, seven in the evening. Now, the Encyclopedia says perhaps that was just because they needed to be in secret and couldn't leave. And who knows?
They're not saying they were sitting there in church the whole time. But nevertheless, I just had to throw that in because I thought it was kind of funny. Okay. He's described here later in the 1550s as an old man, not very tall, with a gray beard and white hair. After 1550, at home in Danzig, was a number of Dutch Mennonites had already located. He is more systematic than Menno, it says in the Encyclopedia.
And he also stood for Menno's conception of the incarnation, which we've talked about from time to time through the five weeks. He was strong on the doctrine of the Trinity, and that became a contesting point, believe it or not, here with some of these early guys. He was a very strong believer in the visible church, just like the Swiss brethren and the Hutterites were. And so to him, particularly since they got into worldliness and materialism a lot quicker, that became a more sharper point of what you do with it.
And he also then, of course, became very strong on the teaching of the ban, excommunication, which became something famous for him. So he also talked about seven ordinances. And I put in here seven sacraments. In those days, the Roman Catholic Church would have talked about very important that they listed their seven sacraments, seven particular channels of grace. And Obbe excuse me, Dirk mentions these. He talked about that his seven ordinances were the pure doctrine. That was an ordinance. Interesting, yeah?
It kind of pure doctrine was an ordinance. Scriptural use of the sacraments, in other words, a right way that you use communion and baptism. Washing the feet of the saints. This is something different in Holland. The Swiss brethren never quite got into that till later. The ban, in other words, excommunication. A command of love. That was another sacrament or an ordinance. And obedience to the commands of Christ as an ordinance. I like that one. Love and obedience to Christ. Those are two good ordinances.
And suffering and persecution as an ordinance. And I think there's something interesting about that list. The legacy of today, again, even if you go on the Mennonite Encyclopedia today and read about him, what do they say about him? Too strict, too unbending, too got-to-be-my-way type of thing is the rebuke that's put upon him. I don't know. I think we can discuss that. It says here he's less agreeable, less friendly in charm than his comrade there, Menno Simons.
Bender, I think it is on the Encyclopedia, says it is unpleasant to note that Menno's name does not appear once in Dirk's writings. I don't know. Was he trying to say by saying that? Does that mean I don't know. But anyway, Dirk was very involved, and they worked together in many of those things.
It says here, "When in the first half of the 17th century, the practice of the ban became more lenient among the Dutch and North German Mennonites." It is interesting that the interest in Dirk Philips then began to be going away. So Dirk Philips is an interesting fellow. And Silas, would you mind grabbing me a couple of glasses of water? I forgot to grab me some water, please. So what do you think of Dirk? Interesting guy. Interesting guy. Yes, sir? He went to Danzig.
Are we going to get into that a little more and see where the people of Danzig came from and when they went there? I'll try to make sure I do that for you. Is that coming into your heritage and that type of thing? Exactly. In particular, even the splits between the different groups of Holland people, he plays a part in that that we're going to see tomorrow. Tomorrow's going to be a little ugly in that I'm going to hopefully talk about church splits tomorrow. And we're going to go through a lot of Dutch splitting.
And it's not pretty, but I think it's something that we haven't learned a lesson yet for. So it's time to take a look and say, "Okay, if this can happen and we haven't learned our lesson yet, then maybe we should go back and read the history." Thank you very much, Silas. It seems like this Dirk Philips was just really uncompromising. Did he have much grace for those that didn't agree exactly with him? That's the question. How tight of lines of brotherhood do we have to have?
And those sorts of things are the questions we're still asking today. And yeah, we'll bring and think of those kind of discussions. Those are the kind of things I want to particularly bring in tomorrow in our discussion on church splits and the Dutch. Another guy, one of my favorites just because of his incredible record of evangelism and baptizing, and also plays a role tomorrow in the church splitting world, is Leonard Bouwens. Leonard Bouwens was interesting.
In his youth, he was part of a political oratory club. In other words, what that means is he would, as a little boy, have been in this club that you'd practice speeches. Okay. And a little interesting insight. And so he then became a big member of the Anabaptists and began to be a very big preacher among them all. He was ordained and imdun by Menno Simons himself in 1551 and lived in the neighborhood as a missionary. And he traveled extensively.
But it's interesting, a little note, that his wife wasn't always that happy about his missionary journeys. And as we've seen, some of these ladies of the somebody should write a book once of the ladies of these Anabaptists. There are some interesting ones of the martyrs and things like that. But some of these ladies of famous preachers have some hard lives. And I was reading one by, I think the one of Jonathan Edwards, Married to a Difficult Man. And there's another one on Baxter's wife.
And certainly, John Wesley's wife probably could write one. But she apparently wasn't always very happy with his very extensive missionary things. And maybe we have some lessons to learn about preachers who go around preaching all the time away from his home, spending five weeks at places like this, and then things going on in his home that he's not taking care of. You know what I'm saying? That there's maybe some lessons that we can learn because he does become a very popular preacher by the end of his life.
There seems to be a few things that you start to question. In 1681 edition of Menno's work, there's a letter that Menno wrote to his wife trying to persuade her to consent to her husband's trips, where he says, "Hey, you should really Bouwens' activity extended further and further and all around different Holland." And he took very good records. And to the person he kept these records, to the number of 10,252 baptisms. Wow. It's a busy boy. 10,252.
It says that a lot of Dutch churches can trace their lineage back to a baptism, obviously, that they got from this man. And so a little later in his life, he starts to get into some problems with Dirk. And he becomes actually one of these that are very strong on the ban and encourages the Anabaptists to take a very strong view of the ban and is there with Dirk, but then later gets in trouble with Dirk and ends up getting silenced for a while, some different behavior issues that were talked about.
And spent some years in silence until after Dirk's death, he began to preach again. But he also seemed to play a part in the split that we'll talk about tomorrow. Another few just people I'm just going to mention. Adam Pastor. Adam Pastor was from Münster himself, left Münster as one of those early missionaries that left from Münster, and finally came up and gave up those beliefs and was later ordained by Menno Simons as a preacher.
But Adam Pastor, who had this little gathering, started preaching and gathering people together, ended up denying the Trinity. And so it was another thing that the early Anabaptists of Holland had to deal with. And that's Adam Pastor. And then particularly now, one more radical spiritualist I'm going to throw onto your list is David Joris before we get into Menno Simons. And David Joris was kind of a strange guy. And there's a famous painting of him there. You can see it there.
And I don't know what that little hand position there is thing is there. I don't know. If they had satanic hand symbols back then, I don't know. It looks creepy, but I don't know. But that's David Joris. And he becomes kind of a strange guy, but he starts, like a lot of them, kind of an interesting guy. And he ends up in the Reformation time and begins to get excited about these things. He gets acquainted with the Anabaptists of Holland and is deeply moved by their martyrdom.
He joins them and is actually baptized by Obbe Philips, who's the guy we talked about. He came against the Münsterites when their militarism and these types of things. And even that guy, that Batenburg, who believed that all things were his so he could take over stuff, he came against him as well. So he was strong against the sword and those types of things.
But his biggest thing is he was very outwardly spoken, again, on this concept that the scriptures have to be both spiritual or even more so spiritual than they are in the literal. And he says that if you're just sticking to this literal word, you're not getting these new prophecies. You're not tapped into the Spirit. And because of that, you're not getting the full revelation of God. He came into a lot of conflict with Menno Simons. And he and Menno Simons pretty much duked it out in the paper world.
And it began to be very serious between them two. When Menno wrote about him in his book on the fundamentals, Joris wrote back and he said, "Girt on your sword, Menno Simons. Arm yourself with the most powerful scriptural weapon. Who advises you, Menno, to appear so boldly before the Lord that you elevate yourself above all? Do say, dear man, what spirit or witness advises you to teach? Who has sent you?
I will show you however firmly you may think you have it that you do not know it." You don't know where you're sent from. "Nor do you know what is truth and wisdom except after the letter." It emphasizes you've got to be able to get these new revelations. He answers back, calling him an antichrist, a man of sin, the son of perdition, the false prophet, a murderer of souls, deceiver and falsifier of the divine truth and the commands of Christ. So they weren't buddies, I guess. But it's a serious issue, though.
I mean, if you think about it, imagine Menno's going everywhere. He's trying to teach the word of God. These early Anabaptists are teaching the word of God. And these guys are saying, "Oh, no. You see, I got this letter. It came from this little group up here. This prophetess, she said this, and someone else passed this." And the whole integrity, the whole bottom line of what we stand for, the word of God, was in jeopardy.
And so yes, these were a strong Menno took a very strong and sort of Dirk and all these people against this. Nevertheless, if they'd have lost the very basis of who we are with the scriptures, I think it could have been very serious. He goes back and ends up living in Bern under a false name. Ends up kind of a secret life and kind of has little mystical fellowships and things like that and ends up becoming very wealthy down there.
And I think, if I recall, in one of the things I read, it wasn't until after his death that all of his children found out who he really was. Strange guy. Strange guy. And this house, kind of a big house there, the outskirts of Bern, is still there to the day of he ended up down there. Just a few more crazy things. We'll take a street. We'll take a break. This is what happened in the street. Another crazy thing.
Melchior Hoffman had this thought that he said, "We come totally naked before the Lord and coming into the kingdom of God." Well, some of these people took him literally. It's the heart that matters. And the modesty on the outside doesn't matter. You may have heard that today to the extreme. They come running into Amsterdam, 12 men and women madly shouting with nothing on but a smile, screaming, "Truth is naked. Truth is naked." And they aroused the anger of the people.
And of course, they got thrown in jail and they were executed. Again, unfortunately, these were people who had rebaptism. It was crazy. Another people who came, escaped from Münster during December of 1534 with 40 followers, stormed the courthouse in Amsterdam. Was it Amsterdam? Amsterdam. During May of 1535, where a celebration was taking place, the attack failed. And the scrimmage of burgemeister and several citizens fell.
On the following morning, 11 survivors and rioters were all those 11 survivors and rioters were executed. So a group of 40 people tried to take over this courthouse and thing during a celebration. So again, again, I'm painting the picture that the life in Holland was difficult. And for these brothers to now dig into the word of God and say, "Okay, this is true. This is not true," would have been difficult. Let's take a quick break. Let's get back and let's follow Menno's journey.
I'm going to try to give you actual writing. So stay tuned and tuned into it. And I think it'll be interesting to hear the writings of Menno come out with his conversion and his life. So take a quick break. New birth. Right. That everything comes from this being born again. And this kind of fervent love of Christ and this attention to the new birth comes out in his writings. And we're going to see this in this testimony. I think it's a very powerful testimony. Even though it is a big at length, it is a bit lengthy.
And I apologize for that. But he's such an important name in Anabaptist history that I want you to understand the thinking and the soul, if you would, of Menno Simons. He writes this. He says, "My reader, I write you the truth in Christ, and I lie not." This is giving his testimony. "In the year 1524, being then in my 28th year, I undertook the duties of the priest in my father's village called Pingjum in Friesland. Two other persons about my age also officiated the same sanction.
The one was my pastor and was well learned in part. The other succeeded me." In other words, one knew things, whether he's even more smart than him. "Both had read the scriptures partially, but I had not touched them during my life. For I feared if I should read them, they would mislead me." He mentions in his early life that he was actually scared of the scriptures. He saw what happened to Luther. It happened to Zwingli. He heard all the stories. There when he was studying, he said, "No thanks.
I'll stay away from those." So he went through all of his study for the ministry and never read the scriptures, which was not uncommon for them. I remember Zwingli in Zurich says, "I want everybody to get a copy of the Bible." And some of the priests were saying, "We don't have one. We don't have enough money to buy the Bible." They didn't have one yet. And so that's not uncommon for their day. "Just behold, such a stupid preacher was I.
For nearly two years, in the first year thereafter, a thought occurred to me, as often as I handled the bread and the wine and the mass, that they were not the flesh and blood of the Lord." He began to think of the church dogma. I mean, this actually is? And he began to question that. Now, there was a group, the sacramentarians and things like that in this area that would have been kind of more of a radical reformer type of people that began to have more of a Zwinglian view of the communion.
And I remember Hoffman was involved with some of that. And that was maybe had some play in his mind in there, but we don't know. "I thought that it was the suggestion of the devil." Why are you even doubting church dogma? "That he might lead me off from the faith. I confessed it often, sighed, and prayed. Yet I could not be freed from the thought." And then he goes on and discuss how he works with that.
"Menno admitted that his knowledge of the scripture was so limited that he could not discuss biblical concepts intelligently." He says, "I could not speak a word with him," his fellow priest, "without being scoffed at, for I didn't know what I was driving at. So concealed was the word of God from my eyes." Even when he would try to talk about these things, they would laugh at him. "You don't know the Bible." And he had this aching to know the Bible more.
Does anybody remember an early Anabaptist who, when he was coming to these convictions, wrote a letter to his friend of how he was aching to wish that he knew the Bible more? Does anybody remember another person? Yeah, exactly. Conrad Grebel writing to Vadian. He said, "Oh, I want to get in and discuss these things, but I don't know the Bible well enough." There seems to be this aching to really understand the word of God. Conrad Grebel had that quote to Vadian.
"Finally, I got the idea to examine the New Testament diligently. I had not gone very far when I discovered that we were deceived. And my conscience troubled on account of the aforementioned bread was quickly relieved even without any instruction, just reading the word of God. Through the illumination and grace of the Lord, I continued daily to examine the scriptures and was soon considered by some, though undeservingly, as being an evangelical preacher." He started to know the Bible.
He probably started preaching from the scriptures, and people started liking him there in his church. And he writes back in his testimony now, "You didn't know who I really was. Yeah, I might have been quoting scripture, but it hadn't yet permeated into his soul." "Everyone sought my company. The world loved me and had my affections.
Yet it was said that I preached the word of God and was a fine man." And he says, "I loved." Later, he says, "The world loved me and I loved the world." But then I have here, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Afterwards, it happened. So he went through that first with the communion. Now, he's still opening up the word of God.
And afterwards, it happened, "Before I had ever heard of the existence of the brethren," the Anabaptists, the brethren, "that a God-fearing pious man named Sicke Snyder was beheaded in Leeuwarden for being baptized, for being rebaptized." It sounded strange to me. A second baptism? Spoken of. I never heard of that. So this is the first time Menno Simons hears of the Anabaptists. "I examined the scripture assiduously and meditated on it earnestly, but could not find anything in them concerning infant baptism.
After I had discovered this, I conversed with my pastor on the subject. And after much discussion, he had to admit there was no scriptural foundation for infant baptism." And I'll just give you a personal testimony. I remember for me, when I was in the middle of the army, and when I looked at the scripture, this kind of thing where you're staring at it and you're saying, "Everybody around me is seeing this differently." And I did the same thing. I went to the chaplain. I went to talk to my pastor.
And I said, "How are we dealing with this?" And I began to do this study. So I can understand kind of this frightful journey of, "Does the scriptures really mean what they're saying?" And this seemed to be a kind of a journey Menno's on here. "Nevertheless, all this, I dared not trust my own understanding, but consulted several ancient authors. They taught me that children were to be washed by baptism from their original sin.
Augustine taught that unless a child is washed from original sin, that's the reason we get baptized." He said, "Well, that's not in the Bible." "I compared this doctrine with the scriptures and found that this, if I say that," listen to this point now, "that makes baptism take the place of the blood of Christ. What washes away this sin? Infant baptism or the blood of Christ?" And he concludes that this was a wrong view. So where did it come from?
"Afterwards, desiring to know the grounds for infant baptism, I went and consulted Luther." I'm sure he means by the books there. "And he taught me that children were to be baptized on account of their own faith." And you think this is I heard a Lutheran sermon once on the radio who actually was preaching. It was an apologist for classic Lutheranism, saying that some kind of primitive faith is in the infant that you're baptizing them for. So he read that kind of thing from Luther.
And he said, "I perceive that this also was not in accordance with the word of God." And he rejected that. "Next, I consulted Bucer, who was the Zwinglian type of reformer down in Strasburg.
He taught that infants were to be baptized, that after baptism, this would cause their training to be more careful in the bringing them up, that this would make it better for the families to bring them up in the Lord." He said, "Okay, well, that's nice, but that's not in the Bible." "And so I perceived, too, that this doctrine was without foundation. I then consulted Bullinger." He was actually the man there at Zurich. "And he directed me to the covenant of circumcision.
And that I found incapable of being substantiated by scripture." And that was the biggest one. And I think the most prevalent one that's even to the day, that baptism takes the place of circumcision in the Old Testament. But again, they answered back, "Yeah, but you can't circumcise a baby that's not born." And so a person has to be born again and then is baptized, yes, let's have that be the likeness of circumcision. But to baptize an infant before he's born again would be silly.
And so he concluded that that was wrong as well. "Having thus observed that the authors varied greatly among themselves, each following his own opinion, I became convinced that we were deceived in relation to infant baptism." What does this feel like when you're Menno Simons? Your parents, your church, your job, everything about you, and now your whole world has to change. A little bit, I know what that's like. And it's a scary thought.
I remember the time I asked Tanya, I said, "I read Matthew 5, and the sermon on the mountain talked about loving your enemies." And I said to her, "What do you think of that?" And she said to me, "Well, it sounds very simple." I said, "Yeah, but we're in the army. And loving your enemies is kind of difficult when you're blowing people up. It's hard." And so here, excuse me, Menno Simons is dealing with these things one thing after time. But still, this is still head knowledge. This is still doctrine.
This is the point that I don't want you to miss. He now takes it inside. And he really starts looking at himself. If Christianity then isn't just some outward rites of baptism, what is it? "Shortly after I went to the village that I was born, called Witmarsum, and there a covetousness and desire to obtain a great name," he wanted to be a famous preacher, "were the inducements which led me to that place. There I spoke much concerning the word of the Lord without spirituality or love, as all hypocrites do.
And by this means, I made disciples of my own stamp, such as vain boasters and light-minded babblers who, alas, like myself, erred but little about these matters. Although I had now acquired considerable knowledge of the scriptures, yet I wasted that knowledge through the lust of my youth in an impure, sensual, unprofitable life without any fruit and sought nothing but gain, ease, favor of men, splendor, reputation, and honor, as all generally do who embark in the same ship." Head knowledge Christianity.
Head knowledge Christianity. I knew the scriptures. I knew the faith. I knew what were wrong on this. I could talk about being wrong on this scripture and wrong on that scripture. But there was no real change of life. And this comes out because Menno doesn't think that getting born again is something you just go do like a little ceremony. He thinks it's a proof, a witness of the Spirit that God has truly changed someone. And we're going to see that come out. Okay, he meets early some Anabaptists.
"Meanwhile, it happened when I had resided there about a year that quite a number broke in about baptism. But once the first beginners came or where they resided or where they properly were, to this hour is unknown to me. Neither have I seen them since." So he started to meet some early brethren, some early Anabaptists, and he says, "I don't know where those guys are now. Who knows where they are?" And then he goes and he began to, even in this early day, he began to be famous. Now, Munster happened.
And as his evangelical preacher, he quickly begins to be in the fray already of speaking against the Munsterites. "Afterwards, the sect of Munster made inroads by whom many pious hearts in our quarter were led into error. My soul was much troubled. For I perceived that though they were zealous, they erred in doctrine. I exerted my feeble efforts as far as I was able in opposing them by preaching and exhortations. I conferred twice with one of their leaders, once in private and again in public.
But my admonitions availed nothing because I did that myself, which I knew that was not right." In other words, I was a hypocrite. My words had no value to them. "Afterwards, the poor straying flock who wandered as sheep without a shepherd, after many severe edicts and slaughters, assembled near a place of residence called the Old Cloister." And here's a scene that really mattered to Menno. So all these radical Anabaptists are out there, but some are into the Munster stuff, and some are there.
And now they gather around this place called the Old Cloister. Probably to remember what happened during the peasant revolt, they were going to take over a monastery. That was their right to do. They wanted to do some of these things. And they gathered at the Old Cloister. "And alas, though the ungodly doctrines of Munster and in opposition to the Spirit, the word and the example of Christ drew the sword to defend themselves, which the Lord commanded Peter to put up in his sheath." And they were killed.
They were all put down there. One of them, they believed to be Menno Simon's younger brother, was there. "The great and mighty God has made known and revealed the word of true repentance, the word of His grace and power." Now, the conviction starts to come heavier. "After this had transpired, the blood of the slain, although it was shed in error, grieved me so sorely that I could not endure it. I could find no rest in my soul.
I reflected upon my carnal, sinful life, my hypocritical doctrine and idolatry, in which I continued daily under the appearance of godliness. I saw that these zealous children willingly gave their lives and their estates, though they were in error, for their doctrine and faith. And I was one of those who had discovered some of their abominations. And yet I myself remained steadfast with my unrestrained life and my defilements.
I wished only to live comfortably and without the cross of Christ." I just want to live comfortably. I just want to be, just leave me alone. I just want to live comfortably. And God wouldn't let up on him. "Thus reflecting upon these things, my soul was so grieved that I could not endure it. I thought to myself, 'I miserable man, what shall I do?
If I continue in this way and live not agreeably to the word of the Lord, according to the knowledge of the truth which I have obtained, if I do not rebuke to the best of my limited ability the hypocrisy, the impenitent carnal life, the perverted baptism, the Lord's supper, and the false worship of God, which the learned teach, if I through bodily fear do not show them the true foundation of the truth, neither shall all my powers to direct the wandering flock, who would gladly do their duty if they knew it, to the
true pastures of Christ, oh, how shall their shed blood, though shed in error, rise against me at the judgment of the Almighty and pronounce sentence against my poor, miserable soul?" And he begins to be convicted about these brethren and their life and everything.
"My heart trembled in my body.
I prayed to God with sighs and tears that He could give to me, a troubled sinner, the gift of His grace and create a clean heart within me, that through the merits of His crimson blood, He would graciously forgive my unclean walk and unprofitable life and bestow upon me wisdom, spirit, candor, and fortitude that I might preach His exalted and adorable name and holy word unprevented and make manifested His truth to His praise." And he was beautifully born again and talked about a new changed life.
And this testimony of this converted life began to be something very big to Menno. It became part of him. Later on, as he was even going through that, he still hadn't had been baptized. A group of the brethren had come to him and said, "Menno, we need you. We need your gifts and your talents. Why don't you break with this?" And finally, him wrestling, you heard some of the wrestling passages there earlier. He finally broke with it.
Finally said, "I've got to do this." And he ends up throwing his lot in with the brethren. And he was baptized. A year later, he was ordained. And quickly, his gifts came out. And he began to be very big in all the different areas and spreading the truth and the gospel all around. Turn to page 19. I made a little poster there, "Wanted Dead or Alive." The authorities quickly began to see that he was very much of a threat. And there were edicts and proclamations against him all over the place.
Some man ended up being tortured on the wheel, put on a wheel and killed and tortured just because he let Menno stay there in the evening and preach that night. The authorities came very much against him. There they had different posters that would be put up and trying to get him. A hundred gold guilders were at his head for anyone who could stop him. Charles V said that any crime, complete pardon would be given to you if you could just get a hold of Menno.
"I don't care what you did." And Charles V wanted him stopped at all costs. But they couldn't stop him. They couldn't stop him. And he began to be involved, involved with the difference and spreading the Anabaptist faith there in this area.
And I wanted to just, in these last few minutes, give a few also writings to give you a bit of a spirit of the importance of this new birth and some of what Christianity meant to Menno and for all these churches, these thousands of believers that he spread around, what were some of the things that he spread. I'm going to be reading you right out of the works of Menno Simons in these last few minutes. And I'm going to be quoting from the Pathway version.
And so the testimony that I gave was from page 5, but also some little tidbits I'm going to give on his conversion is from 169. In this, he in another place, let me just jump in here real quick. In another place in his, he talks about, I think it's Psalm 25. Again, it's a beautiful language of how he was penitent before God and can come under the conviction of sin and how Christ saved him and what born again meant to him. But in page 169 of this, I'm just going to give you a few things.
And this is on a tract called A New Birth. He says, "My beloved reader, take heed to the word of the Lord. And once learned to know the true God, I warn you faithfully to take heed. He will not save you nor pardon your sins nor show you His mercy and grace except according to His word, namely if you repent, if you believe, and if you are born of Him, if you do what He has commanded and walk even as He walked." In other words, unless you completely give your life in totality to Christ, it's empty.
He's saying that just an empty mental faith is not what he's talking about. In talking about his concept of a clear baptism, a clear conversion before baptism, let me give you some of those. And I'd like to say a few points on this. Okay, let me give you a little disclaimer. He's obviously talking to a people who believe in infant baptism, right? I mean, that's his big thing.
But when you hear what he has to say, I'm going to ask you the question, do you think this theology still holds of the importance of a new birth in our life before our baptisms? And listen to what he has to say. He says, "Behold, this is true regeneration with its fruits." He's talking about true salvation. "Behold, this is true regeneration with its fruits, of which the scriptures speak and comes through faith in the word of God, without which no one who has arrived to the years of understanding can be saved.
As Christ said, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' in John 3:3. Yay, listen to this.
'It is all in vain if one were even baptized of Peter or Paul or Christ himself, if he were not baptized from above with the Holy Ghost and with fire.'" Matthew 3:11, as Paul says, "In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." And next page 29, "We do not read in scripture that the apostles baptized a single believer while asleep. They baptized those who were awake and not the slumbering." Interesting point, huh? What do you think? Interesting?
Again, he carries this sort of thought. And then one of his most famous passages in book 2, this Pathway version divides it in two different books. And if I can find it here, book 2:246. And I gave you that. He's talking about, again, this whole balance between his belief just in the head, his belief, a changed life. What is it? And here's again on some of his teachings on what does a Christian look like.
And on page 246, towards the back of the Pathway version, it says this, "Behold, most beloved reader." And as somewhat inheritors of this tradition through the years, let's all listen. Behold. Let's get back to the center. "Most beloved reader, thus true faith or true knowledge begets love. And love begets obedience to the commandments of God.
Therefore, Christ Jesus says, 'He that believeth on Him is not condemned.'" Again, at another place, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life. For true evangelical faith is of such a nature that it cannot lay dormant, but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love.
It dies unto flesh and blood, destroys all forbidden lust and desires, cordially seeks, serves, and fears God, clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, consoles the afflicted, shelters the miserable, aids and consoles all the oppressed, returns good for evil, serves those that injures it, prays for those that persecute it, teaches, admonishes, and reproves with the word of the Lord, seeks that which is lost, binds up that which is wounded, heals that which is diseased, and saves that which is sound.
The persecution suffering and anxiety which befalls it for the sake of the truth of the Lord is to it a glorious joy and consolation." Wow. True faith is going to take you to Christ. And it's going to show itself out as a manifestation of Jesus Christ being lived out in the real world. And that's the kind of thing that is expressing. The last one I'm going to give you is in page 81 of the first section of the Pathway version. And he talks about non-resistance. He talks a lot about non-resistance.
But this one comes out very nice. And then we'll end with this. All right. All right, he's talking to exhortation to all in authority. Kind of a bold title. He said, "No, my beloved sirs, it will not acquaint you in the day of the righteousness of God. I tell you the truth in Christ.
Notice the rightly baptized disciples of Christ who are baptized inwardly with the Spirit and fire and externally with water, who are baptized according to the word of God, know of no weapons other than patience, hope, quiet, and God's word.
Paul says, 'The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, through the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.'" 2 Corinthians 10:4. And he explains, "Our weapons are not weapons with which cities and countries are desolated, walls and gates broken down, and human blood shed in torrents like water.
But they are weapons with which the spiritual kingdom of the devil is destroyed, and the ungodly passions are annihilated, and the flinty, like a flint rock, hearts are broken. They have never been sprinkled, those hearts, those rocky hearts that are broken, that have never been sprinkled with the heavenly dew of the holy word. We have and know no other weapons besides.
The Lord knows, even if we should be torn into a thousand pieces and as many false witnesses were to rise against us as there are spears of grass in the fields and grains of sand upon the seashore, that they have no other weapons but the weapon of the Holy Ghost. Again, Christ is our fortress, patience our defense, the word of God our sword, and our victory is a candid, firm, unfeigned faith in Jesus Christ. We let those take spears and swords who alas regard human blood as swine's blood alike.
He that is wise, let him judge what I mean." Wow. So you can see the passion, the spirit, the faithful spirit of this true conversion, this need for a true changed life. The focus coming back and saying, "True faith is going to look like this." If you open up Matthew 25 and it talks about feeding the poor, helping the visiting those in prison, if true faith isn't producing a Christianity that looks like Christ, Menno Simons is saying, "It's not true evangelical faith." Reality is what he's calling for.
So that was the from him spread many things. And he starts to spread these churches all around. And a little later, he lives a long time. He's able to avoid persecution for a long time. And then the church gets a little bigger and a little bigger and a little bigger and gets a little bit more lax with the persecution. Menno Simons is finding himself in a house of a lord who allowed him some protection. And he has time to think and to write.
And a little later in his life, we get into tomorrow of what happens to the church when it begins to divide. So this is the passionate beginnings. And tomorrow we're going to look at, Lord willing, the division of what happened with these churches. And I hope that we can learn some lessons from them.