There were also many people present, some of whom wept. He also requested that his hands be released a little, that he might lift them up to God, to thank and praise him, and to ask him, that he would give him strength to resist the false prophets and evil spirits. Finally he commended his spirit into the hands of God, and was thus beheaded for the word of God and his truth.
In this year 1591, on the nineteenth day of August, the brother Jacob Platser, a lock-smith, was apprehended at Silgen, in the Pusterthal, in the earldom of Tyrol, and remained in bonds and imprisonment about eight weeks, until the fifteenth day of October. When they could not accomplish their purposes with him, and he would in no wise renounce that which God had made known to him, nor depart from the truth, he was, in pursuance with the imperial mandate, sentenced to the sword. He was then led out to the place of execution, where he offered up his prayer to God, in which he was of good cheer, to die for the sake of his truth and the faith. The executioner then beheaded him, and afterwards buried him. Thus he testified valiantly unto death, to the word of God and the true faith, to which God gave him his grace and power.
In the year 1592, in the month of July, there were apprehended at Ghent in Flanders, for the practice of the word of God, two brethren and a sister, named Bartholomeus Panten, Michiel the widower, and Kalleken N., who suffered much temptation, and were severely examined, by the priests, the Jesuits, and also by the pensionary, before whom they freely and fearlessly confessed their faith, to which they adhered steadfastly without departing from it. Thereupon it happened, that the sister was released from her bonds and set at liberty. But the brethren were severely tortured, in order that they should apostatize from their God, and indicate their fellow-brethren. But God, who does not forsake his own, but keeps them as the apple of his eye, so succored them, that they were enabled to adhere steadfastly to him and his word, and to keep their lips from bringing their neighbor into trouble. Hence they were finally sentenced to death as heretics, for the testimony of Jesus Christ, and having first been hanged to the gallows, and strangled, in the Count’s castle, they were then buried without in the gallows’ field. And as they helped the Lord Jesus Christ bear his reproach, so they shall also be received up with him into his glory full of honor and light, to live with him forever in joy and gladness.
We have also added here, for the benefit of the reader, the letters which Bartholomeus Panten wrote in his bonds.
THE FIRST LETTER FROM BARTHOLOMEUS PANTEN, WRITTEN TO HIS BROTHER KAREL, RESIDING AT HARLEM.
After an affectionate greeting to you, my beloved brother, without forgetting your wife and household, I inform you, that through the grace of the Lord I am well in body; and as regards the spirit, it is my purpose, by the help of the Lord to adhere to the truth unto the end, which I also wish you. Further, my beloved brother, I inform you of the condition in which I now am, that is, that I am now imprisoned at Ghent, together with another man and a woman, for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the truth of the Gospel, for which the other man and I have been tortured, and I have unworthily suffered: and they threatened to inflict still further sufferings on us. But Peter says: “And be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts;” since they cannot do to you more than is permitted them of God. 1 Pet. 3:14,15. And Paul says to the Corinthians: “For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” 2 Corinthians 5:1–4.