Andrew Claessen of Drourijp, in the Year 1535

(Copy of a certain old document)

"It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance," which our Saviour spoke and left for our instruction, saying: "Whoever will save his life shall lose it; but whoever will lose it for my sake, or the gospel's, shall save it" to life eternal. Matthew 16, verse 25; Luke 9, verse 24.

This gospel teaching, given for admonition and consolation, many faithful witnesses of Christ have taken to heart, who willingly gave up their lives for His holy name's sake, looking to the promises, and to the glorious reward that shall be given them not in this world, but in the world to come; for in the third chapter of Wisdom we read: "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seem to die; and their departure is counted as misery, and their going from us as utter destruction: but they are in peace. For though they are punished in the sight of men, yet their hope is full of immortality; and having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself. As gold in the furnace he has tried them, and received them as a burnt offering." Verses 1 to 6.

This is a glorious testimony, and it agrees well with the words of the holy apostle Paul, that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven (Acts 14, verse 22); as our Saviour also says that the way is narrow, and the gate is small, that leads to life; and that there are few who walk in it; few, compared with the great multitude and majority who choose the broad way, and walk through the wide gate, to their own destruction and eternal perdition.

Few were found at Sardis who had not defiled their garments; yet these few were to be crowned as conquerors, clothed in white robes, and their names were not to be blotted out of the book of life; and the Son of God shall confess their names before His Father and His angels, which is promised to all who overcome. Revelation 3, verse 5. This was taken to heart by those who did not look upon what is visible and perishing, but upon the invisible, as is seen in the pious witnesses and martyrs of Christ, who, for Christ's sake, gladly forsook not only all their property and the standing they enjoyed in this world, but also their own lives; for neither persecution, nor any creature in the world, could turn them from the love of God and Christ. Romans 8, verse 39.

Among others, it was seen also in the case of a manful hero and armed soldier of Christ, named Andrew Claessen of Drourijp, a village in Friesland, lying between Leeuwaerden and Franneker; who, in the year 1535, under the Stadtholder George Schenck, was arrested, brought to Leeuwaerden, beheaded on the sixteenth of March, and placed upon a wheel. This took place three days after his imprisonment; but the pious secretly took him down and buried him; and his soul is now also resting under the altar of God.