Some Examinations Of Jan Hendrickss.

The Bailiff then rang the bell, and the beadles came. I then said to the priest: “If my lord had not been present, I would not have made so many words with you.” “That I believe,” said the priest. I took off my cap and bade them good evening, and they me. And I said to the pastor and begged him, that if I had spoken any word too hastily, he should excuse me for it. “Yes,” said the Bailiff, “and so do you to him, do you not?” “Yes,” said I: and thus we parted.

It further happened that they confined us all three in separate places, apart from one another, and took away the Bible from us, one which they themselves 894 had let us have, and which the Bailiff had previously consented that we might have; but we remained of very good cheer, the Lord be praised.

On Sunday, the 16th of July, 1570, I was taken down again, and they tied my arms, which they had never done before, for I had gone down with the jailer, fettered together with another. This surprised me much, whereupon the beadles told me, that the priests had required it of the Bailiff. Thus they brought me before two priests, namely, Mr. Maerten, and the pastor of the New Church, who had once before been to see me. When I came to them, I bade them good day, and they returned the salutation. Then they said: “We have visited you once, and now we come again, to see whether you are not more willing to yield, than you were the other time.” I said: “I say as I have already said: If it can be proved to me clearly and expressly, that infants were baptized, I will gladly suffer myself to be instructed:” With this answer they were not well pleased, since they have no Scripture for it. But they asserted that I must suffer myself to be instructed, and that infants had of a long time been baptized in the Christian church; and that it had always been an ordinance; but I held to the proof furnished by the practice of the apostles. They said that we ought to walk in the old paths. “Yes, in the right ones,” said I; “thus it is written.” Jer. 6:16. They had come to instruct me. “Yes,” said I, “I cannot understand it so.” This they did not like to hear, that I could not understand it; and they said: “You want to understand it before you accept it.” “It is written,” said he, “in the prophet Isaiah, that we must first accept it, before we believe it.” “Where is this written?” said I. “I do not know,” said the priest. “Rom. 10:10,” said I, “we read: ‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’ I must certainly believe your things with the heart, if I am to accept them: but now I cannot understand it as you do.” This they would not hear; but if I had soundly assented with the mouth to what they said, whether I had believed it or not, it would have been all right.