Some Examinations Of Jan Hendrickss.

Then the Bailiff said that I should name the persons, or he would torture me. Ans. “Sir Bailiff, who taught you this?” Then the Bailiff said that he had power to do thus with me, and threatened me greatly, and when he heard that I would name no one, he told the clerk to write: “Jan Hendrickss has confessed to us such and such things (such as I told them), but he has named no one, and this because he did not wish to implicate any one;” and so it was written. When the Bailiff had thus interrogated 891 me, and wished me many miles away, I said to them, “I would fain be in Hitland.” Then the Bailiff said: “Where is that, where the busses catch the herring?” “Yes,” “I indeed would that you were there, said the Bailiff, with all those that are of your persuasion.” Then one of the lords who, I was told was a burgomaster, wanted to speak to me concerning baptism, and asked me; If a man should lead a Christian life, but did not have himself baptized, whether he could not be saved; whether it would be an obstacle in the way of his salvation? I replied: “No; else salvation would be by the water; but baptism is a command of Christ, hence it must be practiced.” Then I think he said, that it was our view that infants ought not to be baptized, and asked me when they were to be baptized, and how old they had to be. Thereupon I replied to him that the Scriptures specify no year, whether they were twenty, or thirty, or fifty, or a hundred; whenever they repented, and requested it, it might be done; and so we use it, but not sooner, said I, and so did Christ teach, and the apostles practice it. Then they said that at that time it had to be so, that adults were baptized, but now the infants must be baptized, for then was the beginning or commencement; this was their pretense. I then asked the burgomaster whether Christ, Matt. 28 and Mark 16, had not commanded to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and whether the apostles had not observed the same, and had first taught the people and then baptized them? This he admitted; for we find, he said, that about five thousand were baptized at one time. Thereupon I think I asked him whether he confessed that adult persons were baptized at that time. “Yes,” he said. “Well then, we certainly find clearly enough, that the apostles lived more than ten or twenty years in the world, and they first baptized adult persons, as you confess yourself; and this had therefore to be done so at that time, because it was in the beginning: now, since we find that they lived in the world so long, infants enough must have come into the world in this long period of years;” this he also acknowledged. Then I said: “Now show me once where the apostles in this long time baptized infants; and transferred baptism upon infants; for you say that then adult persons had to be baptized, but now infants. If the apostles had wanted to change baptism, or wanted that it should be changed, they had time enough themselves, for they were long enough in the world, for Paul says: ‘I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God’ ” (Acts 20:27); but they could not prove it to me. Then the oldest judge said that they would prove it to me, but it was not done; and the same judge said that God created man once, and no more; and he commanded circumcision to Abraham once and no more; and he commanded baptism once, and no more. Ans. “This is true. Now, if God created the man Adam once, and no more, and commanded them circumcision once, and no more, and commanded them baptism once, and no more, and they observed the same, and did not change it, why then have they changed baptism from adult persons to infants?” Then they said: “Who has changed it?” Ans. “The Pedobaptists.” Then they told and begged me to consider the matter well, that it was not a convenient thing to be burnt. I replied: “I know that well; I have no desire to be burnt—it is not convenient to be burnt; if I did not know that I am right, I would rather ignominiously yield; than honorably lose my life; for it is no small matter to suffer one’s self to be burnt at the stake; I am not so desirous of death, I would rather keep my life, if it were God’s will.” “Yes,” said they, “consider it well.” Then the Bailiff said: “Jan Hendrickss, you have confessed this to us (and he had my confession read before my eyes, all that I had confessed); now if you will yield, my lords will do their utmost to procure your release.” Ans. “My lords, I am quite open to conviction; if you can prove to me that I am wrong, and when I can feel that, I will desist from that which is evil.” That was well, they said, and they told me to ask the Lord for grace, that he would grant me a good understanding. “That I will gladly do,” said I. This lasted about an hour and a half, whereupon they had me conducted up above again. These are the principal questions which they asked me, and which I have remembered, and these are my simple fisherman’s answers which I made, as far as I can remember, for it was written six weeks after I was before the lords; for there was a man confined with us, and for this reason we dared not write, but to write the words exactly as they were spoken, would be impossible for me, for my memory is weak.