First and only edition of this important apologetical work by the Catholic priest Martinus Duncanus or Maarten Donk or Verdonck (Kempen ca. 1505-Amersfoort 1593) presenting his arguements against the Anabaptists. He lived in the heart of the Anabaptist movement in Waterland, The Netherlands, in 1535. At least 57 persons in his village were persecuted, including 32 who had taken part in the infamous procession to Münster. After his studies in Louvain he became priest in 1536. In 1541 he was appointed priest in Wormer (North Holland) where he founded a Latin school and where he actively defended the Catholic faith against rising Protestantism and especially Anabaptism among his parishioners. In 1550 Charles V appointed him one of the book censors in the Netherlands. From 1558 to 1572 he served as priest of St. Hippolytus in Delft; from 1572 to the "Satisfaction" in 1578 as priest of the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam.
Duncanus was one of the first Catholic opponents of Menno Simons. He directed the present book against Simons, the "leader" of the Anabaptists. He presented it to the city of Amsterdam and received as a gift from the mayors the sum of 12 Carolus guilders. It was the first of Duncanus's apologetical writings and one of the most violent books ever published against the Dutch Anabaptists.
With an inscription of Michael de Bay (1513-1589)? on the first fly-leaf: "Bibliotaca Baij". The book was also possessed by J.F. van de Velde in 1786, with a note on Duncan on the verso of the first fly-leaf. Also with the 19th-century bookplate of Antiquarian bookseller Frederik Muller, Amsterdam and with the coat of arms on the back of the front board of Howard Osgood (1831-1911), from Rochester Theological Seminar (see: "The late Professor Howard Osgood", in: The Biblical world, 39, 2 (1912), pp. 74, 137-139), who also wrote his name on the first title. He is the author of a rather famous book on the same subject: Protestant pedobaptism and the doctrine of the Church (1880).
Backstrip lacking (heavily damaged), some quires partly detached, but otherwise a good copy. Belgica typographica 987; Buyck, M16.0; Hillerbrand 3654; F. Rütten, Martin Donk (Martinus Duncanus) 1505-1590: biographischer Beitrag zur Nederländischen Kirchengeschichte (1906); P. Noordeloos, Collatie Pastoor Maarten Donk (1948); Hans Simons, "Martin Donk van Kempen", in: Heimatbuch 1972 des Kreises Kempen-Krefeld, pp. 231-236; for the author: The Mennonite encyclopedia II, pp. 108-109; NNBW III, cols. 309-312.