A Letter of Jannijn Buefkijn, Called Hans Keeskooper, a Native of Verurcke, in the Year 1550

A holy conversation, a living, spiritual faith, hope, and a true evangelical confidence in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our only Helper and Savior, I wish to my beloved friends, for glad tidings and an affectionate greeting, that through this faith and confidence in God you may grow up in a new and pure life, which life is perceived and richly found in the holy Gospel. Oh, blessed are those who purify and sanctify themselves according to the tenor of the Gospel; without this purification and sanctification no one shall see God or the Lord. So follow the advice of the Lord Jesus, who says: "Search the Scriptures." John 5, verse 39. I have done nothing else; as I and my fellow prisoners said before the lords of the Imperial Council; and they cannot, in truth, bring any charge against us. They asked us, me first, and then the others, one after another, whether we were baptized.

I said: "Yes, my lords."

Question. "How long ago?"

Answer. "Four years, my lords."

Question. "What do you hold concerning your baptism received in infancy?"

Answer. "Nothing at all, my lords."

Question. "Concerning the sacrament of the priests, do you not believe that flesh and blood is there, and that it is God?"

Answer. "No, my lords, how should it be flesh and blood and God," I said before the priests of Jezebel. "Cover this whole table over with them [with wafers], and I will blow them away like dust; so they are not God, for God cannot be handled or eaten bodily."

They then asked whether I would hold to this. I replied: "Yes, my lords, until the contrary is proved to me with the Scriptures."

Then I was led away from the council, and another was brought forward, until ten had made this confession. One of them is not baptized yet, but he confessed that it is right and good, and said that he once went to the teacher to be baptized.

The lords then asked him: "How did it happen that he did not baptize you?"

The person, still only a boy, and a dear child, replied: "My lords, when the teacher presented the faith to me, and had questioned me, he clearly saw that I was still young in understanding, and told me to search the Scriptures still more; but I desired that it be done. He then asked me whether I knew that the world puts such people to death and burns them. I replied: 'I know it well.' He then said to me: 'So I ask you to have patience for this time, until I come again another time. Search the Scriptures, and ask the Lord for wisdom; for you are still a youth.' So we parted."

The lords then asked: "Are you sorry that you are not baptized?"

He said: "Yes, my lords."

They asked him further: "If you were not imprisoned, would you be baptized?"

He replied: "Yes, my lords."

He was then led away from the council.

See, dear friends, these are beautiful signs and miracles; open your eyes, and see when such young persons give themselves for the truth, delivering their bodies into prison, and even to death. We have told the lords that they should bring forward all their learned men, and we would prove to them with the truth that they are all false prophets, and that they have deceived the world for almost thirteen hundred years with their deceitfulness, and that we would rather dispute with them publicly on a scaffold, in the middle of the marketplace, than secretly; but this the priests will not do, and they will spare no effort to escape it. So all the learned men were called to dispute in the consistory, all the lords of the council being present, and also four of the most learned priests of Ghent; I was present and heard it myself.

Therefore, search the Scriptures, which the Lord commands you to do, and act according to them, on pain of the damnation of your souls, and of being cast into everlasting fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth forever; which Scriptures the priests forbid you to read, on pain of being hated by all men all the days of your life, and of having your body burned at the stake; which is soon done, as may be seen. So we would rather do what the Lord commands, though we are despised for a little while, and cast out of this miserable world by men, and rest in the Lord, than do what men command, and be forever the enemy of God, in the horrible pit of hell. Therefore, search the Scriptures with an upright heart toward God, and the Lord will give you understanding. The Lord be with you. My love to you.

From me, Jannijn Buefkijn, imprisoned at Ghent, for the testimony of Jesus. I wish salvation to all who seek the Lord with a sincere heart. Written in the dark with poor materials.