The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians / who baptized only upon confession of faith, and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their savior, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660

by Thieleman J. van Braght

J. Spronssen.

Besides this writing of their High Mightinesses to the lords of Berne, there was drawn up also the following, to those of Zurich, which (excepting a few words expressed in the foregoing, and hence not necessary to be repeated), we will present here.

THE STATES, ETC.

To the city of Zurich in Switzerland:

Noble, very respectable, wise, prudent lords, especial good friends and neighbors. From the complaints of divers persons, delegated by their respective churches, who here in this land are called Mennonists, citizens and inhabitants of the cities of Dortrecht, Harlem, Leyden, Amsterdam, Goude, and Rotterdam, all situated in the province of Holland, we have learned, that their fellow-believers, under the name of Anabaptists, have suffered great persecution at Zurich and everywhere in your dominion, by virtue of very rigorous edicts enacted against them, and that they have thereby been compelled to leave every thing and to remove to other countries, to their great inconvenience and total ruin.

All this has moved us to Christian compassion, and we could therefore not forbear, but on the contrary, deemed it good, hereby to request you very kindly and neighborly, also most earnestly, that you, according to the good example of the magistrates of the city of Schafthausen, release the property of the fellow-believers of the supplicants, which you have now for several years had managed by directors appointed over them, and drawn the fruits thereof, and deliver them to the aforesaid persons interested, or those authorized by them, to be sold within a certain sufficient time, and turned into money for their benefit.

(The rest is identical word for word with the preceding letter.)

Besides the aforementioned two letters of the States General to the lords of Berne and Zurich, which are dated the same day, namely, the 19th of February, 1660, there followed yet a third letter, on the 9th of March of the same year, serving partly as a passport to the ambassador and bearer of said two letters to the cities of Berne and Zurich, and partly to request the neighboring potentates near and around those parts, to promote said matter for the protection of the Anabaptists. The contents thereof are as follows:

COPY.

The States General of the United Netherlands, to all who see this or hear it read, greeting.