The Triumph, Peace, and Power of True Christianity

I am pleased to present “The Tri­umph, Peace, and Power of True Chris­tian­ity”, An Early Anabap­tist Tract on Defence­less­ness and Fidelity to Christ, by Pil­gram Marpeck. He was a true Chris­t­ian in the tur­bu­lent 16th cen­tury, when Protes­tants killed Catholics, Catholics killed Protes­tants, and both killed and per­se­cuted the Anabaptists.

Read “Tri­umph”. (pdf ver­sion)

Good quotes:

“Is it not a won­der that Christ and the Apos­tles (espe­cially Saint Peter after the con­ver­sion of thou­sands in Jerusalem) did not ordain some head­man to rule over the church? Accord­ing to the new “evan­gel­i­cals,” Christ and the Apos­tles must not have been think­ing very far.”

“The world has peace only as long as prop­erty “rights” are not dis­turbed. But when people’s pri­vate pos­ses­sions are in dan­ger, their peace is already disturbed.”

My favorite sec­tion (I went through a very sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence, but dif­fer­ent teachings):

I must admit that I learned a good amount, in the past, from the writ­ings and the ser­mons of these “evan­gel­i­cal” preach­ers. I used to be a solid Roman Catholic. Their teach­ings brought me to see that Roman Catholi­cism was wrong, but it led me only into a free­dom of the flesh. Instead of being bound in my con­science as before, I now felt free to eat and drink with such teach­ers. I thought I must be a good Chris­t­ian now and set myself against Catholi­cism with all the writ­ings I could find to serve my cause. Every­one praised this under­stand­ing of mine, but it was not what entered the mouth but what came out of the heart that defiled me (Matt. 15).

I gladly accepted “evan­gel­i­cal” posi­tions against auric­u­lar con­fes­sion, papal rules, for this did not infringe on my flesh, and I could do so with­out the true spirit of Christ in my heart. I accepted many “evan­gel­i­cal” teach­ings, which were true. But the mys­tery of the cross of Christ and the nar­row gate was not spo­ken about nor taught, just as it still is not taught in “evan­gel­i­cal” cir­cles. They were totally quiet about this way of the cross that leads from Baby­lon­ian cap­tiv­ity back to free­dom in Jerusalem. Much more, if any­one had dared to open his mouth about it, he would have been per­se­cuted by them and deliv­ered to the hang­man. It is easy to see that these “evan­gel­i­cal” preach­ers are the evil­do­ers to whom Christ says, “Depart from me” (Matt. 7).

You can buy a copy at: http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/more-Triumph.html