He then asked: “What is your faith, then?” “I believe with all the apostles, that he is the Son of God, as Peter confessed (Matt. 16:16; John 20; 6:69), visible and invisible; that the Word by which all things were made became flesh in Mary, through the power of the Most High.” He asked whether the Word became flesh like Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt, or the water, wine. I said: “No.” He asked: “How then?” I said: “It became man, and it continued to be the Word; that is, the Word which was invisible became visible; that which was impalpable became palpable; that which was impassible became passible.” He said: “Was the Word not God?” I replied: “It is God and man.” “Did God die?” he said. I replied: “He died according to his humanity, as Peter says: ‘put to death according to the flesh, but quickened according to the spirit.’ ” 1 Pet. 3:18.
I then asked him, how he confessed the unity. He confessed three persons and one God. I asked whether the Holy Ghost were a person. He said: “Yes.” I said: “When Mary was greeted by the angel, that she should conceive, and she did not know how this should come to pass, as she had never known a man, the angel said: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee. Luke 1:26. Now, if the Holy Ghost is a person, then one person conceived another. And in the Acts of the Apostles it is written that when the apostles received the Holy Ghost, he sat upon each of them. Acts 2:3. But a person can sit only upon one man. And in the first chapter (v. 7) of the Book of Wisdom it is written that the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world. To what person would you compare him?” He did not know what to say. He then said: “I do not consider them persons such as Pieter, Klaes and Jan.” I said: “To whom then do you compare them?” They then exchanged a few words in Latin, and said: “We only call them persons: did you think that we considered them three human beings?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “If you have taught men so, you must confess that you have slandered us, and that you are a false teacher.” I said: “I am no teacher; I have enough to do to teach myself.” I added: “You call them persons; are they not such? why then do you call them three persons.” He said: “It amounts to the same thing.” I said: “It does not; a person is a human being, and you certainly cannot compare them to human beings.” Then he said: “God the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father; the Holy Ghost is neither the Father nor the Son. And these are three; the one is what the other is not, and though they are three, yet are they but one God.” I said: “This is also my faith, and in accordance with it I know but one person, that is Jesus Christ, who was visible and palpable; but the others I do not know what to compare them to”. On this point we agreed, and he let go his persons. He then asked again whether God had died. I said: “You have sat here and acknowledged to me that you do not consider the Word to be the Father, nor the Father to be the Word, though they, according to the Godhead, are one God; but you regard them as three witnesses; and two of these witnesses did not become man, but the Word, by which all things were made, became flesh, as John says in the first chapter [of his gospel]. Although this Word became man, it therefore does not cease to be one God with the Father; else it could not be God and man.”
Then he said: “Jelis, you err.” And they adduced Rom. 1:3; in their Testament where it read: “Who became of the seed of David according to the flesh, is declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit.” I said that in rendering it became they had mistranslated the word; that it ought to read: born of the seed of David. “Go,” I said, “and examine the Testaments which you had printed thirty or thirty-six years ago; see whether in them it reads thus. I have read it therein: born, as it ought to be; but you have now caused it to be altered thus, to deceive the simple hearts.” This made them very angry. I then said: “Say it as it ought to be: born; for a woman can certainly not make a child.” Then he said: “Became or assumed is the same thing; as it is written: ‘He took not on him (the nature of) angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.’ ” Heb. 2:16. I said: “This also is changed; it ought to read: He receiveth not angels; but he receiveth the seed of Abraham as his children; and believers are counted for the seed (Rom. 9:8); for Paul says (1 Cor. 11:8), that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.” They said: “This is spoken of Adam and Eve.” I said: “Here God has plainly shown that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man, which is in direct opposition to your belief. Paul speaks still more fully on generation; for he says: ‘As the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.’ v. 12. This certainly has reference to generation, for Adam was not by Eve.” He said that it had to be understood so. I said: “I do not understand it so.” We had many more words yet concerning the promises; but I have not the space to write it.
All these words I had with the parish priest of St. Martins, a very crafty customer, craftier than any one I ever heard; all the others are as nothing compared to him. Written in haste, in the dark, with ink made of coals; bear patiently with it. The day before we were delivered to the secular lords, we were brought before the Dean of Ronse. He asked us whether we had come to a determination. I said: “I am always determined to eschew evil, and to do that which is good, as far as I know.” There were three or four Judges present, and the under-bailiff. He said it was great arrogance that I pretended to be wiser than all the world; there were Ambrose and Augustine, and other holy men: and they understood it so. I said: “I do not pretend to know anything; but I know the faith to be the truth, and herein I want to abide.” Farewell; I commend you to God.
Your weak brother in the Lord.
Jelis Strings.
HEYNDRICK EEMKENS, A. D. 1562.
In the year 1562 there was apprehended at Utrecht, for the testimony of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, a brother named Heyndrick Eemkens, a tailor, who, after all solicitations and pains suffered, finally received word that he was to die, at which he rejoiced that he should also have the privilege of being a witness for the name of the Lord. This message was brought him by the pastor of the Buer church and a Franciscan monk named Friar Jan van Herentals, who in a few words informed him of it, and then left him. He said to friar Jan: “You need not come again to-morrow, for I do not need you.” In the morning he was brought out from his prison into another room, where he had many words with the monk, who forthwith condemned him. Thereupon he replied: “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.” Luke 6:37. The monk said: “You confessed that you did not believe that Christ assumed flesh from Mary.” He replied: “I have said it once in my confession; shall I tell you again?” and he referred him to John 1.
The monk then asked him whether he would not confess to him. He answered: “I have confessed to God.” The monk said: “Have you lived to be so old without ever confessing?” “No,” said he, “I have indeed confessed to men; but God knows I heartily regret that I submitted so long to your confession.” The monk then asked him whether he did not want to hear a mass. He replied: “I have read so many, that I loathe the mass; and even though I do not want to have it, yet if you want to read it, nevertheless, how can I prevent it? Hence, if you want to do it, do so, but not on my account; for I do not wish it.” Then the monk asked him whether he would not have the sacrament; but he said: “No, but if I could partake of the Lord’s Supper, as instituted and commanded by the Lord, and observed by the apostles and their churches, this I should heartily desire, and thank the Lord for it, but your deception I do not want.” Upon this the monk again damned him two or three times.
The thief-takers then came, and wanted to give him something to drink, but he refused it. Then came one of the jailer’s daughters, a wanton girl, and wanted to put it into his mouth with a spoon, as they were sitting and drinking with the thief-takers, but Heyndrick said to her: “I have certainly told you that I do not want it; hence, let me in peace, if it is possible.” Thereupon one of the thief-takers said: “Do you want to go out of this world on an empty stomach?” He said to him: “I thirst for the true wine, of which I shortly hope to drink.” But the monk said: “God does not put new wine into old bottles.” But he said to the monk: “Because I have become renewed, therefore you hate me,” Much more was said yet, which has been forgotten, since he himself could not write. This was written by one who was present when Heyndrick spoke with the monk. Though he was not a brother or fellow member with Heyndrick in the church, yet his friendly disposition prompted him to write down what he remembered of it, just as he saw and heard it, for the remembrance of all lovers of the truth; and the following was seen and heard not only by him, but also by all the citizens generally, who can with him testify to it.