THE EXIT:

OR

CONVERSION

OF

MENNO SIMONS,

Dear Reader: Since we are so fiercely attacked and accused by our opponents with falsehoods, as if we supported the Münsterite doctrine A reference to the Münster Rebellion (1534–1535), a radical and violent Anabaptist uprising that Menno Simons spent his life distancing himself from., regarding a King, the Sword, rebellion, striking back, a multitude of wives, and other such abominations: but my good reader, know that I never in my life agreed with those of Münster in the aforementioned articles, but according to my small gift have warned and stood against everyone regarding their abominable errors, yes, for more than 17 years now.

I have also brought several of them to the right path with the Lord’s Word; I have never seen Münster in my life, nor have I been in their fellowship: I also hope through the Lord's grace to neither eat nor drink with such (if there may be any), as the Scripture teaches me, unless they confess their abomination from the heart, and perform the sincere fruits of repentance, and follow the Gospel original: Euangelium in the right manner.

Pingjum, 2 hours from Franeker.

My Reader, I write the truth to you in Christ, and I do not lie. It happened in the year 1524, in my 28th year of age, that I entered the service of the priests in my father’s village called Pingjum, where two others, peers of my parents, were in similar service with me. One was my pastor, somewhat learned, and the second was after me. Both of these had read the Scripture to some extent, but I had never touched it in my life, for I feared that if I read it, I would be led astray. See, such a foolish preacher was I for about two years.

My concern over the Bread and Wine of the Priests.

In the first year after that, a thought occurred to me as often as I handled the Bread and Wine in the Mass: that it was not the Lord’s flesh and blood. I

whether it was indeed flesh and blood.

thought the Devil brought this before me so that he might drive me from my faith. I confessed it many times, sighing and praying, yet I could not be freed from these thoughts.

My recklessness and great blindness in the Papacy.

The two mentioned young men and I led our daily lives in playing, drinking, and pastimes, in all vanity with one another, as (alas) is the manner and nature of such fruitless people. And when we were then to handle the Scripture a little, I could not speak a word of it seriously with them, for I knew absolutely nothing of what I meant; so closed did God’s Word lie before my eyes.

The beginning of my reading. My release regarding the aforementioned Bread.

I thought at last that I would investigate the New Testament once with diligence: I did not get far into it when I soon saw that we were deceived, and my troubled conscience regarding the aforementioned Bread was also soon released from its anxiety without any [external] direction: nevertheless, helped so much by Luther that human commands cannot bind one to eternal death.

My growth in the Scripture.

I proceeded through the Lord’s enlightenment and grace in that knowledge of the Scripture from day to day, and was soon praised by some (though unjustly) as an Evangelical preacher: everyone sought and wanted me, for the world loved me, and I the world; yet it still had to be said that I preached God’s Word and was a fine man.

After that it happened, before I had heard of any brethren in my life, that a God-fearing, pious hero named Sicke Snijder Sicke Freerks, a tailor (snijder) who was executed in 1531. His martyrdom was a pivotal moment for Menno. was beheaded at Leeuwarden because he had renewed his baptism. It sounded very strange in my ears that one spoke of another baptism. I searched the Scripture with diligence and reflected on it earnestly, but could find no report of infant baptism.

When I noticed this, I held a discussion on these matters with my aforementioned pastor, and after many words, brought it so far that he had to admit that infant baptism had no foundation in the Scripture. Yet I did not dare trust my understanding so, but asked advice from some old writers (who teach—