THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.
The Low Countries, conquered from the sea by indomitable energy--the land of Erasmus, of free cities, of inventions, and flourishing commerce --was flooded, through merchants, soldiers, and books, with Protestant ideas from Germany and France, as with waters from the Rhine and the Meuse. Already in 1521 Charles V., who afterwards regretted that he had not burned Luther at Worms, issued from that city an edict for the suppression of heresy in this the most valuable of his inherited dominions. To Belgium belongs the honor of having furnished the first martyrs of evangelical Protestanism in Henry Voes and John Esch, two Augustinian monks, who were burned at the stake in Brussels, July 1, 1523, reciting the Apostles' Creed and singing the Te Deum, and who were celebrated by Luther in a stirring hymn. [960] This was the fiery signal of a fearful persecution, which reached its height under Philip II. of Spain, and the executor of his bloody designs, the Duke of Alva, but resulted at last in the establishment of national independdence and of the Reformed Church in a large part of the Netherlands. The number of her martyrs exceeds that of any other Protestant Church during the sixteenth century, and perhaps that of the whole primitive Church under the Roman empire. [961] During the ever-memorable conflict under William of Orange, who was assassinated by a fanatical papist in 1584, and his second son Maurice--an able military commander and strict Calvinist (d. 1625)--the Bible, with the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism, was the spiritual guide and comforter of the Protestants, and fortified them against the assaults of the enemy. Calvinism, which fears God and no body else, inspired that heroic courage which triumphed over the political and religious despotism of Spain, and raised Holland to an extraordinary degree of commercial and literary eminence. [962]
GUIDO DE BRÈS.
The chief author of the Belgic Confession is Guido (or Guy, Wido) de Brès, a noble evangelist and martyr of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. He was born about 1523 at Mons, in Hennegau, educated in the Roman Church, and by diligent reading of the Scriptures converted to the evangelical faith. Expelled from his country, he sought refuge in London under Edward VI., where he joined the Belgic fugitives, and prepared himself for the ministry. Afterwards he studied at Lausanne, and became a traveling evangelist in Southwestern Belgium and Northern France--from Dieppe to Sedan, from Valenciennes to Antwerp. After the conquest of French Flanders he was, together with a younger missionary from Geneva, Peregrin de la Grange, taken prisoner, put in chains, and hanged on the last day of May, 1567, for disobedience to the commands of the court at Brussels, and especially for the distribution of the holy communion in the Reformed congregations. From prison the youthful martyr wrote letters of comfort to his brethren, his old mother, his wife, and his children, and met his death as if it were a marriage-feast. [963] In his proper home Protestantism was completely suppressed, but in the neighboring countries of Holland and the Lower Rhine it spread and flourished.
THE BELGIC CONFESSION.
The Belgic Confession was prepared in 1561 by Guido de Brès, with the aid of Adrien de Saravia (professor of theology in Leyden, afterwards at Cambridge, where he died, 1613), H. Modetus (for some time chaplain of William of Orange), and G. Wingen, in the French language, to prove the Reformed faith from the Word of God. [964] It was revised by Francis Junius, of Bourges (1545-1602)--a student of Calvin, pastor of a Walloon congregation at Antwerp, and afterwards professor of theology at Leyden--who abridged the sixteenth article, and sent a copy to Geneva and other churches for approval. It was probably printed in 1562, or at all events in 1566, and afterwards translated into Dutch, German, and Latin. It was presented to the bigoted Philip II., 1562, in the vain hope of securing toleration, and with an address which breathes the genuine spirit of martyrdom. The petitioners protest against the charge of being rebels, and declare that notwithstanding they number more than a hundred thousand, and are exposed to the most cruel oppression, they obey the Government in all lawful things; but that rather than deny Christ before men they would 'offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to the fire, well knowing that those who follow Christ must take his cross and deny themselves.' [965]
The Confession was publicly adopted by a Synod at Antwerp (1566), then at Wesel (1568), more formally by a Synod at Emden (1571) [966] by a national Synod at Dort (1574), another at Middelburg (1581), and again by the great Synod of Dort, April 29, 1619. But inasmuch as the Arminians had demanded partial changes, and the text had become confused, the Synod of Dort submitted the French, Latin, and Dutch texts to a careful revision. Since that time the Belgic Confession, together with the Heidelberg Catechism, has been the recognized symbol of the Reformed Churches in Holland and Belgium. [967] It is also the doctrinal standard of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, which holds to it even more tenaciously than the mother Church in the Netherlands. [968]