Disputation Between Herman Vleckwijk, Imprisoned By The Lords Of The Country Van Den Vrye In Bruges, And Friar Cornelis, In The Presence Of Mr. Jan Van Dam, On The 1oth Of May, A. D. 1569.

Fr. Corn. Indeed? if they are your fellow brethren and sisters in the Lord, why then do you bear such enmity and hatred to them, that you help burn or destroy their relics or bones, and break their images to pieces, wherever you have been able to get at them? is this not a fine brotherhood and sisterhood? accursed Anabaptists that you are.

Herm. We do not meddle with your affairs; if you would leave us alone in our faith and in our walk and conversation, as we leave you alone in your religion, and with your images, relics or dead men’s bones, your hands would remain unstained with and innocent of our blood. But you generation of Cain first killed the saints of God, and then take them to exalt and honor them with fasting and celebrating, and erect to them idolatrous images, which they themselves despised and rejected, and you honor their bones, as Christ says, Luke 11:47: Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets: and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also saith the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: that the blood of all the prophets [which was shed from the foundation of the world,] may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel. Matt. 23.

Fr. Corn. Ah, bah! would you * * * accursed Anabaptists compare yourself to the prophets, apostles, and to God’s holy martyrs, popes and priests, whose blood was shed for the Catholic, Christian faith, of which you Anabaptists are now such enemies, that you through the rejection of the sacrament of the priesthood reject, not only the six other sacraments, and all our Christian ceremonies and acts of worship, but also all the articles of the Christian, Catholic faith, as I have said; therefore you are put to death; do you understand this, you uncouth, blockheaded Anabaptist that you are?

Herm. However uncouth and blockheaded I am, I understand very well that you put us to death because we do not believe or observe these popish, or Romish, church articles, part of which you have mentioned. And you think that you do God service by killing us for it, as Christ says (John 16:2,3): “They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.”

Fr. Corn. Bah! you bewitched and devil-possessed Anabaptist, would you also fain claim this for your side, would you? Bah, and would you charge and upbraid us priests and Catholics with such things, would you? Bah, and would you also say that we priests know neither God nor his Son Jesus Christ, would you? Ah, bah! who knows God and Jesus Christ better than we Catholic priests? Hence this is all spoken concerning the Jewish priests, and concerning the Anabaptists, Calvinists, Lutherans, and other heretics, who in France and Spain in these lands and elsewhere, so tyrannically persecute, trouble, torment, and martyrize us priests, because we have the true knowledge of God and Christ, see.

Herm. It is to be feared that Christ will not know you, though you think that you know him so very well; for you are of so many different orders and rules. You are a Franciscan, the other an Augustinian, the other a Carmelite, the other a Jacobine or Dominican, the other a Benedictine; yea, innumerable are the orders and sects into which you are divided, and each has its special ceremonies and rules, according to which he must live, of which not a word is found in the teaching of Christ; how then shall he know you!

Fr. Corn. Indeed? you hellish, devilish Anabaptist, though we are so diverse in regard to orders, rules and ceremonies, are we ecclesiastics not all comprehended in one sacrament of priesthood, eh?

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Herm. Your sacrament of priesthood is nevertheless an article like all the other articles of your faith, of which nothing is found written in the holy Scriptures, hence I have no knowledge of, nor faith in it.

Fr. Corn. Ah, you accursed Anabaptist, answer me then, why God the Father should not be willing to know us, who are his priests, for do we not daily, in the Mass, offer up his Son Jesus Christ, in flesh and blood? Bah, whom should they both know better than us, their priests? What will you say now, eh?

Herm. How shall I here tell you the secret of the mass? I do not myself know it; but you know it very well.