At Antwerp there was imprisoned for the sake of his faith, with his wife and daughter, in the year 1577, the brother Hans de Ruyter, a minister of the church of God, and a very experienced man in the Scriptures. But when he was assailed with many severe trials, and many fair promises of release and other things were held out to him, he suffered himself to be moved to renounce his faith; yea, so that he even exhorted his wife thereto; but hearing afterwards, that he should have to die nevertheless, it produced such terror and dismay in him (seeing how he had suffered himself to be seduced with lies by the blind leaders, he who ought to have been a leader of others), that with a distressed heart and anxious mind (perceiving whereunto he had suffered himself to be brought, and what was approaching him), he turned himself to the Fountain of grace, and prayed with scalding tears, from the bitterness of his soul, that this apostasy from, and denial of his Lord, might be forgiven him, and he be received back into favor, with the prodigal son; and he would steadfastly adhere thereto all the days of his life, and suffer nothing again to turn him away therefrom. This he not only promised with words, but also proved it indeed, for whatever temptation, pain, or torture was afterward inflicted upon him, he steadfastly adhered to his reaccepted faith, so that he was finally burnt for it, with his wife and daughter; and they are now waiting under the altar, till the number of their brethren is fulfilled.
NOTE.--In the beginning of the preceding year, 1577, we showed the perverse zeal of certain followers of the Calvanistic doctrine, who, at Middelborgh in Zealand, had obtained so much, that the Anabaptists, who having fled out of the Romish Babylon, and settled there, were prohibited from exercising their temporal occupation or trade by which they had to sustain their life: and this, because they refused the swearing of the civil oath, and the use of external weapons of war.
Thereupon, as shown in that place, the Prince of Orange commanded the magistrate of said city, to allow the aforementioned people to live in quietness, and not to oppress their consciences.
But the magistrates there, instead of heeding this, as coming from high authority, acted entirely contrary; insomuch that the Anabaptists that lived there, and especially those in the country, were compelled again to betake themselves with an humble supplication to the Prince, to obtain their religious liberty; who thereupon, the second time, wrote and sent the following charge to said magistracy: