A Testament Written by Jelis Bernaerts to his Wife, in the Year 1559

Grace and peace be multiplied to you, my dear and most beloved wife and sister in the Lord, according as His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and virtue: by which are given to us exceedingly great and precious promises. Second Peter 1, verses 2 and 3.

So, my most beloved, by these you are a partaker of the divine nature, if you flee the corruptible lusts of this world, as you have also done, and by renouncing them, and accepting regeneration, faith, and manifestation of obedience, which you proved by baptism, in which you put on Christ, and by this became a partaker of the divine nature. And this was not done for works of righteousness which you did, but according to His mercy He saved you, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Titus 3, verse 5. If you continue in this to the end, and are patient in whatever happens to you, you shall inherit what is promised you. Praise God, and thank Him for all His glorious benefits which you have received; and bless God the Father through Jesus Christ, though tribulation has now come upon you, through my departure for the Lord's sake; and know that according to His abundant mercy He has begotten you again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved for you and all that are in the same faith, who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, in which you, my dear and beloved wife, greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through many temptations: for know, my most beloved, we are tried in many ways, so that it may become manifest whether we truly love the Lord. First Peter 1, verse 3.

So be of good cheer, my most beloved, even though still much more tribulation should come upon you; for know that we must through much tribulation and suffering enter into the kingdom of God. And as Ecclesiasticus also says, in the second chapter, first verse: "My son, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation.

Set your heart right, and endure steadily, and do not make haste in time of trouble. Cling to him, and do not turn away . . . For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity."

But, my most beloved, even as James writes in his first chapter: "My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing;" for when we are in tribulation, we need patience. So I beg you from the bottom of my heart, and from my inmost soul, to be of good cheer, and with patience to let the trial of your faith become manifest, as Peter says, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. First Peter 1, verses 7 to 9. Then all suffering, tribulation, reproach, persecution, sighing, weeping, and lamenting will have an end. Revelation 21, verse 4. Therefore be of good cheer, and consider that the suffering which may happen to us here will all pass away, and all the glory and pleasure of this world must also perish and come to nothing; but look constantly to the future glorious promises that have been made to us, and which shall be fulfilled to us who believe, if we remain steadfast, since He is faithful who promised, for the Lord is not slack concerning His promise. Matthew 24, verse 13; Hebrews 10, verse 23; Second Peter 3, verse 9. But be of good cheer, and trust in Him, for He will not forsake you; and cast your care upon Him, for He cares for you; for He who has called and chosen you to this is a God of all grace, as Paul says.

But the God of all grace, who has called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a [little] while, (note, He says: A little while) make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you in that which you have accepted, namely, the faith in Him, and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be praise, honor and glory, now and forever. Amen. First Peter 5, verse 10.

After all heartfelt and affectionate greetings to you, my dearest, chosen and most beloved wife and dear sister in the Lord, I have received your letter, in which you write me to write you a testament, which I will not refuse to do, if the Lord gives me time; for if I could help you with my blood, I would do it. But now I cannot help you, except by writing, which I do for your comfort, out of true brotherly love, and from the bottom of my heart, intending to finish this, by the help and grace of the Lord, with the same mind with which I began it. Know therefore, my dear wife and sister in the Lord, how God visited His people in former times, when they were in Egypt, in the bondage of King Pharaoh, whom they had to serve for about five hundred years. And when it was His will to deliver them, He raised up Moses for their leader, through whom God delivered them out of Egypt's bondage and led them through the Red Sea, in which He drowned and brought to nothing King Pharaoh and all his host with which he pursued them, thus delivering them out of his hands. So they came into the wilderness, to go on to the land which was promised them; and the Lord God, through Moses their Leader, gave them laws and customs by which they were to walk. But they did not continue in His law; therefore God became angry, and swore in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. Concerning whom did He swear, but concerning unbelievers? And we see that they did not enter in, and this because of their unbelief. This having thus happened, the Lord spoke through the prophet, and said: "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more." Now in these last days He has revealed this covenant, given through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the true Moses, who has taken us by the hand, and led us out of Egypt, where we all sat and served the hellish King Pharaoh, under whom we were captive by sin; from which bonds and slavery we are redeemed through Christ, who through His death and the shedding of His blood redeemed and reconciled us, and delivered us from the hellish King Pharaoh, whom He destroyed and suffocated in his blood, thereby fulfilling the Old Testament; for all had to be fulfilled that was written in the law and in the prophets. Hebrews 1, verse 2; Matthew 5, verse 17; Luke 24, verse 44. So the fulfillment was accomplished, and the new testament confirmed with His blood; which, as already stated, He had promised through the prophets, and which is proclaimed to us through the Gospel, and confirmed with signs and wonders by Him and His holy apostles, whom after His resurrection He sent out to preach to all nations, that whoever should believe and be baptized should be saved, also commanding them to teach them to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them. Hebrews 2, verse 4; Matthew 28, verse 20.

And now, my most beloved, are we the people whom God chose before the foundation of the world, and made a better testament with us than He made with Israel, who daily had to offer up sacrifice for sins, by which they could nevertheless not atone? Ephesians 1, verse 4; Hebrews 7, verses 22 and 27. For burnt offerings and offering for sin He did not want, nor did God have pleasure in them, which were offered by the law; then He said (namely Christ), "Look, I come to do Your will, O God." He takes away the former, that He may establish the second. By that will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest then stood daily ministering and offering often the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from then on waiting until His enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Of this the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us; for after He had said before (as is written, Jeremiah 31, verse 31). This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them; and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin, as Paul writes. Hebrews 10, verses 8 to 18.

Therefore, my dear and beloved wife, we have (verse 19) a free and secure entrance into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and we have a high priest over the house of God, which is the church, which He cleansed with His blood, that it might be holy, without spot or wrinkle; of which you are a member, for it is the body of Christ, and we the members of that same body, and Christ the head and priest of the house of God, as stated. Ephesians 5, verses 26 and 27; Ephesians 1, verse 22. So, my most beloved, hold to it diligently, and let us always draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and let us wash our bodies with pure water, that is, put off all uncleanness of the heart and the flesh, and perfect all righteousness and holiness; and hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering, for He is faithful who promised; and always consider yourself — this I beg of you, my most beloved — to provoke to love and to good works. Hebrews 10, verses 22 to 24; Second Corinthians 7, verse 1.

Since you are a child of the New Testament, I write you this for a testament according to your request. So it is my request of you, my dear lamb, despised of men, but chosen of God, and called to His Testament, since He left us the Testament, that we should by it remember His death; namely the breaking of the bread, showing by it that He was broken for us on the tree of the cross, and that we should also remember by it that we are delivered through Him from the hand of our enemies. This He left us for an everlasting Testament, to observe it, even as the children of Israel were commanded to eat the Passover, and to observe it yearly for a memorial of their having been delivered from King Pharaoh; all of which was a figure and shadow, of which we now have the true substance, in the true observance of our redemption through the true Passover Christ, and His communion, in which you are certainly included, since it is but a short time ago that we showed it among the others by the breaking of bread, and drinking of wine, that you are a partaker of the New Testament, and of all the glorious promises which are promised to the children of the New Testament. So it is my request that you will faithfully continue in it to the end, so that you may inherit all the promises, for he that overcomes shall inherit all things; to him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me in My throne; he that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; he that overcomes, him will I confess in heaven before my Father, and will write his name in the book of life; and other beautiful promises that, as you well know, are promised to all that overcome. Revelation 21, verse 7; Revelation 3, verses 5 and 21.

Therefore, my most beloved, see that you remain faithful; for you are still in the wilderness, where you must yet be proved, even as Israel was proved in the wilderness forty years, that God might make manifest by it what was in their hearts. So know that all perished who did not remain steadfast, and that they could not inherit the promises, as stated before. But now we have a better testament, which is forever, and not as Israel, a law written in tables of stone, but written in the tables of our hearts. Hebrews 8, verse 6.

So, my most beloved, since we have a better testament, walk the better in it, and continue steadfast in the faith, and let this be shown by the fruits of faith, and the law which is now written in your heart, by the Spirit of God; let him be read from you, and this by fulfilling the works of the Spirit, that you may thus be an epistle of Christ, which may be read by all to whom you are manifest, as Paul testifies of the Corinthians (Second Corinthians 3, verse 3), that they were the epistle of Christ ministered by them, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables in their hearts; for Christ also says (Matthew 5, verse 16): "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father." For if we now have a new testament given by Christ, who is our Leader and Lawgiver, we must keep His commandments, follow Him (as I wrote to you in the other two letters), and show forth His image, even as the image of the Father was shown forth through Him, as He said to Philip: "Philip, he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how do you then say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak to you I do not speak of myself, but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works." John 14, verses 9 and 10.

Now, my most beloved, since through the grace of God you have heard the Gospel, which has been preached in all the world (Romans 8, verse 18), and believe in it, and have been obedient to it, and are yet, as I trust through the grace of the Lord, and have put on Christ, let Him therefore be shown forth in you, even as the image of the Father is shown forth in Christ, through words and miracles, as you have also always shown Him forth by a pure Christian conversation; and thus truly follow Christ, since He is the true Moses, who went before us. Follow Him valiantly, no matter what you meet with in this wilderness, whether it be tribulation or affliction, suffering or persecution; be of good courage, Christ has gone before; follow Him boldly, for the servant is not better than his lord; nor the disciple above his master, nor the wife above her husband, nor the maid above her mistress; but it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, the servant as his lord, the wife as her husband, the maid as her mistress.

Therefore, dear sister in the Lord, be of good cheer, and consider the long suffering and patience of Christ, and all the pious witnesses who from the beginning until now have followed Christ. James 5, verse 10. He did not leave them without comfort, nor does He leave us, who are imprisoned here for the same testimony's sake, without comfort, but wonderfully comforts and strengthens us through the power of the Holy Ghost, eternal praise to Him for it.

So be of good courage, continue without ceasing in prayer and supplication, and thus show that you are a child of the New Testament, that the law of the Lord is written in your heart, and is thus read. May the merciful Father strengthen you to this end, through His Son, and the power of His Holy Spirit. With this (since my paper is used up) I commend you, my dear wife, to the Lord, and to the word of His grace.

Written in my bonds, on Monday, by me,

JELIS BERNAERTS, your dear husband.