A Number of Believers, Baptized According to the Command of Christ

As Saint Paul, through the Spirit of God, foretold that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, so it was also proved true in the city of Rotterdam, about the year 1544, where a number of the pious followers of Jesus Christ had gathered together in the name of the Lord, to talk with each other about the Word of God, and so to build up and strengthen one another in the accepted truth of the holy Gospel; also to pray with a humble heart and with one accord to the great God of heaven and earth, for the forgiveness and remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and so to give praise and thanks with one mind to His most adorable name. Ephesians 5, verse 1; Hebrews 10, verse 24; Hebrews 3, verse 13; First Thessalonians 5, verse 11; Romans 15, verse 16; Acts 1, verse 14.

This good exercise in godliness the papists, who hate the truth, tried to prevent and stop as far as lay in their power, and so that God-fearing assembly fell into their hands, betrayed by a woman who came to the house to borrow a kettle. The defenseless sheep had now fallen into the claws of the wolves, and the wolves, true to their nature, treated them most cruelly, in order to draw them away from the truth; all of which they willingly suffered and endured with patience for the name of Jesus, in the firm hope of His imperishable kingdom. Therefore, since no tortures could bring them to apostatize, they were sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried out in the following manner: the men were beheaded with the sword at that place, while the women, most cruelly, were thrown into a boat and thrust under the ice until death followed. So these two assemblies, or classes of people, that is, the church of God and the congregation of Satan, clearly showed of which spirit they were children (First John 3, verse 10; Luke 9, verse 55); which can easily be seen by their fruits and nature. The anti-Christians by this, that, like ravening and devouring wolves, they were born by nature to seize and destroy. The congregation of Jesus Christ by this, that, like humble sheep and lambs, silent, and with no desire for revenge, they were thus led to the slaughter, and willingly gave their bodies for the name of the Lord. Matthew 7, verse 15; Matthew 10,

verse 16; Psalm 44, verse 22; First Peter 4, verse 13. Therefore these sheep shall, at the reappearing of the great Shepherd, hear, together with all faithful servants, the joyful voice: "Enter into the joy of your Lord." Hebrews 13, verse 20; Matthew 25, verse 23.

Among those who were thus offered there was also a young maiden of only fourteen years. She composed the hymn in the old hymnbook that begins:

Emanuel die is uytgetogen, uyt sijns vaders rijck in 's werelts pleyn.* [n670-1]