TO THE

STRAYED SHEEP

From the AMSTERDAM

LAMB’S FOLD.

Latin original: "And to what have these wretched brothers been led by discord?"

Blasphemous stains
Upon the Church of Christ, where God established on the throne
Love, Peace, and Faithfulness,
Ornaments of the new temple's construction:
Which in its springtime days
Was well worthy of bearing the name of the Lamb,
And with that high price
Represented the Lamb of the new Paradise.
The unanimous prayers
Offered from below upon the altar of love,
The voice of thanksgiving and praise
Echoed with the music in the angelic court.
Who gives you cause for tearing,
You who dishonor the highest desires:
Who, with a stubborn spirit,
Nurture the pestilence of discord in this time of plague,
And with back-and-forth pulling,
Tear the robe of your Savior wretchedly into pieces?
Your judgment, blind to reason,
Remains unyielding; or does it feign that the friend Galenus Galenus Abrahamsz, a prominent 17th-century Mennonite leader,
When he unlocks the chest of his heart
Before you, and for the offering of the Crucified,
The source of salvation,
Zealously fights and pleads at the pulpit,
And hides our unworthy deeds
In the darkness before the sunlight of grace?
Does he lie, when his mouth
Calls to Baptism, the seal of the covenant,
The lascivious worldly people,
And upholds the faithfulness of the Church's ordinances,
In the scriptural account,
Performed as a test for the holy Lord's Supper?
Who shall give satisfaction,
To you, driven by your drift toward schism;
When reason gives way,
And self-love strikes an unjust judgment?
Oh, all too reckless ones,
You have too easily chosen the wrong path,
Galloping after the semblance
Of the old Lamb, where there are virtue-admonishers,
And faithful Church-protectors,
Where one builds upon the old. Oh, far-strayed Brothers,
You sift out the gnats,
And swallow, and drive Camels through the skin A reference to the biblical metaphor of straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:24)..

You tithe cummin and mint
While not touching the weightiest part of the law in one point;
Let it not sound too strange to you,
Since you brand the schism so lovelessly,
And cannot tolerate faults
That do not contest the Holy Faith of the Savior.
The olive branch speaks otherwise:
The oracle-lot of truth lies otherwise:
The white peace-defenders
In Christ's Church represent something quite different.
Show contradiction of weight:
But, no, the Snipe loves the twilight:
It abandons its own young,
And licks and caresses a bastard with its tongue:
Its work has little semblance
Of zeal for God, even if he mumbles with that grin:
And to cover his shame
He names the unworthy act of tearing:
Where love seems killed,
Envy condemns so many a Church-member:
The craving for schism appears, alas,
At midday clear to all those Church-stations,
And a temerity
That denies the Lord's Supper to Brothers,
Based not on truth, but on guesswork,
And evil suspicion of missing the mark in the faith.
We shall soon see the day,
(If God does not stop it) that fatherly respect
Is dishonored by the Son,
And true love does not dwell in the married couple,
That members of one Lamb,
And Brothers and Sisters of one stock,
That otherwise pious men,
Damn and banish one another to hell.
Brethren, turn away that damage,
Make Ephraim a name symbolizing the ten tribes of Israel the equal of Manasseh a name representing the reunification of the tribes:
We glow with longing
To receive you, aglow with love, once again.
Grant then, Lord, the day,
That Israel the unified community of believers may live in peace,
And the divided hopes
Run together as Lambs, in one fold.

A circular library stamp of the Mennonite Church in Amsterdam is visible, reading: LIBRARY OF THE UNITED BAPTIST [MENNONITE] CONGREGATION IN AMSTERDAM.