In the year 1570, on the 7th of April, there was apprehended for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, at Gouda, in Holland, a pious follower of Christ, named Faes Dircks, a chair-maker by trade. Afterwards, the 27th of May, he was very unmercifully and tyranically tortured by the blood-thirsty servants of antichrist, and led forth under the blue sky, and on the 30th of May of the same year, put to death, and burned for the genuine faith of the truth, following the footsteps of his Lord and Master Christ Jesus. Some time prior to this two other pious followers of Christ were put to death at Gouda, for the testimony of Jesus, one of whom according to the counsel of God, was not yet baptized upon his faith; but the God of all grace, who knows the heart, mind and thoughts of all men, accepted in him the will for the deed. Thus they suffered with Christ, and shall be received with him into eternal glory, at that time when all the earthly, carnal generation of men shall weep and lament over themselves eternally.
Subsequently, when Gouda was taken by the troops of the prince of Orange, it was deliberated upon to exhume the priest who had been the cause of the imprisonment and death of said Faes Dircks, and of the dispersion and persecution of many of those who feared God. They afterwards changed their mind, but hired a man for about four guilders, who took down the bones of Faes Dircks from the scaffold, and opened the grave of the aforesaid priest, who had previously died, and been interred in the church of the Franciscans, near the high altar, and then laid the bones of Faes Dircks upon the body of the priest; thus deriding this traitor, because he had deemed the godfearing unworthy to live with him in the same town, and, after their death, their bodies unworthy of burial, but they had to be given as food to the birds of heaven. But at the speedy coming of Christ from heaven, this idolatrous priest shall find, when it will be too late for repentance, who of them both will be acknowledged and accepted by the chief Shepherd as an acceptable sheep, or as a rejected goat.
Concerning this martyr Faes Dircks we have obtained three examinations, namely, two without torture and one on the rack, just as the same have been extracted by the secretary there from the town records of Gouda, which we therefore will communicate to our fellow believers for the greater confirmation of the foregoing account; they read as follows.
COPY OF THE CONFESSIONS MADE BY FAES DIRCKS IMPRISONED HERE IN THIENDEWEGS GATE.
_First Examination._
The 11th of May, 1570, the Bailiff of Gouda brought to examination the hereinafter mentioned person; there being present, Gijsbert Jan Maertenss, and Gerraert Huygen, burgomasters, Dirck Andries, Mr. Heyndrick Jacobs, Mr. Cornelis Heyndricks, judges.
Faes Dircks, chair-maker, about thirty-one years of age, says that he is a native citizen of Gouda, and that on last Easter day he heard the pastor of Gouda preach; that those who go to the Lord’s table do not receive roasted, sodden or raw meat, but that they receive the roasted flesh of our Lord, roasted on Good Friday, on the tree of the cross. Hence, hearing this, he went out of the church, since he did not feel well at this, nor deem himself worthy to receive it, and did not go to the Lord’s table.
He says and confesses, that he does not consider the sacrament of the altar real flesh and blood, and this for the reason that there is but one God.
He also confesses, that about a year ago he was baptized at Rotterdam, and that he did not know the one that baptized him, but that the latter delivered an exhortation, saying that the Lord had said: “That all that believe and are baptized shall be saved.”