And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. Daniel 11:33-----"Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen." Luther, Reply to the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Sikke Freriks

His lord said unto him, Well done, 
good and faithful servant;
Matthew 25:23

"Dutch artisan Sikke Freriks, beheaded in 1531 in Leeuwarden‘s market, was the first Anabaptist put to death in that Friesland city.

While a minor milestone in the crowded history of Reformation
martyrdoms, Freriks had a noteworthy posthumous effect: word of his heresy — adherence to adult, rather than infant, baptism — came to the ears of a Catholic priest, who later wrote that a man’s dying for this illicit doctrine led him to investigate it further.


To his amazement, the priest found no scriptural support for the established church’s practice of baptizing infants before they developed the maturity and volition to embrace Christ from the will of their own hearts. Christians are “cheated” by the loss of that opportunity of freely giving oneself in baptism, he later wrote."
executedtoday

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