A LETTER OF JANNIJN BUEFKIJN, CALLED HANS KEESKOOPER, A NATIVE OF VERURCKE, WHICH HE WROTE WHILE IN PRISON AT GHENT, A. D. 1550.
A holy conversation, a living, spiritual faith, hope, and a true evangelical confidence in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our only Helper and Savior, I wish to my beloved friends, for glad tidings and an affectionate salutation, that through said faith and confidence in God you may grow up in a new and pure life, which life is perceived and richly found in the holy Gospel. O blessed are they who purify and sanctify themselves according to the tenor of the Gospel; without which purification and sanctification no man shall see God nor the Lord. Thus follow the advice of the Lord Jesus, who says: “Search the Scriptures.” John 5:39. I have done nothing else; as I and my fellow-prisoners said before the lords of the Imperial Council; and they can not, in truth, bring any charge against us. They asked us, me first, and then the others, one after another, whether we were baptized.
I said: “Yes, my lords.”
_Ques._ “How long since?”
_Ans._ “Four years, my lords.”
_Ques._ “What do you hold concerning your baptism received in infancy?”
_Ans._ “Nothing at all, my lords.”
_Ques._ “Concerning the sacrament of the priests, do you not believe that flesh and blood is there, and that it is God?”
_Ans._ “No my lords, how should it be flesh and blood and God,” said I before the priests of Jezebel. “Cover over this whole table with them [with wafers], and I will blow them away like dust; hence they are not God, for God can not be handled or eaten bodily.”
They then asked whether I would hold to this. I replied: “Yes, my lords, till the contrary is proven to me with the Scriptures.”
Thereupon I was led away from the council, and another brought forward, until ten had made this confession, one of whom is not baptized yet, but he confessed that it is right and good, and said that he once went to the teacher to be baptized.
The lords then asked him: “How came it that he did not baptize you?”
The person, a mere lad yet, and a dear child, replied: “My lords, when the teacher presented the faith to me, and had interrogated me, he well perceived that I was still young in understanding, and bade me search the Scriptures still more; but I desired that it be done. He then asked me whether I knew that the world puts to death and burns such people. I replied: “I know it well.” He then said to me: “Hence I pray you, that you have patience for this time, until I come again another time. Search the Scriptures, and ask the Lord for wisdom; for you are yet a youth. Thus we parted.”
The lords then asked: “Are you sorry that you are not baptized?”
He said: “Yes, my lords.”
They asked him further: “If you were not imprisoned, would you be baptized?”
He replied: “Yes, my lords.”
He was then led away from the council.
See, dear friends, these are beautiful signs and miracles; open your eyes, and behold when such young persons give themselves for the truth, delivering their bodies into prison, and even unto death. We have told the lords, that they should bring forward all their learned men, and we would prove to them with the truth, that they are all false prophets, and that they have deceived the world for almost thirteen hundred years with their deceitfulness, and that we would rather dispute with them publicly upon a scaffold, in the midst of the market-place, than secretly; but this the priests will not do, and will spare no pains to escape it. Thus all the learned men were called to dispute in the consistory, all the lords of the council being present, and also four of the most learned priests of Ghent; I was present and heard it myself.