31 May 1567 A.D. Guido de Bres Martyred—Confessor, Martyr, Reformed Churchman & Author of
the Belgic Confession.
Chapter 31
Guido de Brès: Author of the Belgic
Confession
Introduction
Part of the power and enduring value of our
confessions is the fact that they arose out of the life of the church. They
were not drawn up by men sitting in ivory towers, contemplating the truth of
Scripture, but far removed from the battle for the faith. They breath the life
of the church's struggles.
The Heidelberg Catechism was written in the
struggles between Calvinism on the one hand and Lutheranism and Romanism on the
other hand, as these struggles were bitterly fought out in Frederick's
Palatinate. The Canons of Dordt arose out of the fierce battle with Arminianism
which all but engulfed the churches in the Netherlands in the first part of the
17th century. The Confession of Faith (Sometimes called, The
Belgic or Netherlands Confession) was written during and reflects
the bitter persecution of the saints in the Lowlands in the early years of the
Reformation.
It is this persecution, in the midst of which it was
written, that gives to the Confession of Faith its moving power. The
affirmations of the confession, "We all believe ..."; "We
confess ..."; "We believe and profess ..." take on new meaning
when we understand that they are shouts that arise from scaffolds, burning
piles of tinder, deep prison cells, and cruel torture chambers.
Its author, Guido de Brès, died on the scaffold for
his faith. To his story we know turn.
Early Life And Conversion
Guido de Brès was born in Mons in 1522, the fourth
child of a family of glass painters. In Mons the art of glass painting had been
highly developed, and Mons deservedly had an international reputation for the
skill of its artists. Guido himself was trained for this work.
Guido's family carried on the traditions of the
guilds in Mons, although the children were split on Reformation doctrine. John,
the oldest, while remaining Roman Catholic all his life, helped Protestants in
times of persecution. Christophe was a seller of glassware, but spent his
entire life distributing Bibles and Protestant literature, often at great risk
to his life. Jerome became a cloth dyer and remained within the Romish Church.
Marlette, the only girl, married a Protestant in Valenciennes and, with her
husband, was deeply involved in Protestant affairs.
The city of Mons was on the border of France and the
Lowlands, that part of the Lowlands which is now Belgium. Here Lutheranism had
first come and had been eagerly studied by the citizens; but the Hugenots from
France soon followed with the purer Reformation doctrines of John Calvin.
Guido, already in his teens, heard from others Reformation
truths and could not help but listen to the stories of those who, already then,
were being killed for the sake of the gospel. He was only 14 when the news
reached him of Tyndale's cruel martyrdom. It may have been Tyndale's
willingness to die for the sake of translating the Bible into the language of
the people that led Guido to study the Scriptures. But it was through this
study that God led him to true faith in Jesus Christ.
Guido decided, perhaps because of persecution in the
Lowlands, to go to London and join a refugee Church in East London. East London
was a haven for refugees from many different countries in Europe who were
forced to flee because of persecution. And so in that part of London could also
be found a Walloon congregation composed of French-speaking citizens of the
Lowlands, to which Guido joined himself. The refugees had peace in England
because of the benign rule of Edward VI who, though young, favored
Protestantism. Here he studied for the ministry and listened to the powerful preaching
of the great Reformers á Lasco and Martin Bucer.
Work In The Lowlands
But Guido's love was for his native land, and in
1552 at the age of 30, he returned -- as an evangelist and traveling preacher.
From that moment on his life was in almost constant danger.
His first field of labor was the city of Lille, in
which a large secret Protestant community had been established under the name,
the Church of the Rose. From Lille he went to Ghent, where he published a tract
entitled Le Báton de la foi ("The Staff of the Faith"), a
stirring defense of the Reformed faith.
Guido enjoyed a brief interlude at this time.
Traveling to Frankfurt in Germany, Guido met Calvin and was persuaded to come
to Geneva. In the three years he spent in Geneva, Guido learned the Reformed
faith more perfectly, mastered Greek and Hebrew under Beza and Calvin, and was
more fully equipped for the gospel ministry. During this period (1559), he also
married Catherine Ramon and with her had four or five children, the oldest
named Israel, and the second, Sara.
While Guido was in Geneva, Charles V retired, weary
and careworn, to a monastery in Spain, and his cruel son Philip II came to the
throne. Philip was determined to stamp out all "heresy," especially
in the Lowlands. While, therefore, up to this time persecution had been
sporadic and relatively light, it now became more severe and bitter.
de Brès, after returning again to the Lowlands, was
forced to travel in disguise and under the pseudonym of Jerome. Although the
cities in southern Belgium and northern France (Lille, Antwerp, Mons) were the
area of his labor, his headquarters was in Doornik where he ministered to the
congregation which had chosen as its name, the Church of the Palm.
Here two former ministers had been burned at the
stake for their faith; here the congregation knew de Brès only as
"Jerome"; here the meetings of the congregation were always held in
secret and at night, with small groups of not more than 12 attending at one
time.
In spite of the problems which the congregation
faced, de Brès organized the church with elders and deacons and faithfully
administered the sacraments.
But even this situation did not remain, for a more
radical group of the believers, under the leadership of Robert du Four, thought
it cowardly and unfaithful to Christ to keep their faith secret. The group,
several hundred strong, moved in public procession through the city singing
Psalms in open defiance of the authorities. The next night, September 30, 1561,
500 Protestants gathered for the same purpose. The result was that Roman
Catholic investigators were sent with orders to suppress Protestantism in the
city.
Although Guido managed to hide until December and
flee in safety, all the information of the secret congregation was discovered,
Guido's true identity was found out, the people of the church were forced to
flee or be killed, and Guido's rooms were ransacked and his papers (including
letters from Calvin) were burned. Guido was hanged in effigy.
Guido concentrated his work for several years in
northern France, perhaps some of the quietest years of his ministerial career.
Although also in France persecution against the Hugenots raged, in Guido's area
the church had peace. He worked in Amiens, Montdidier, Dieppe, and Sedan,
building up the congregations and preaching faithfully the gospel.
But he could not refrain from making periodic trips
into his own country, a "lion's den" of danger. He traveled three
times to Doornik, his old congregation, once to Brussels to meet with William
of Orange concerning matters of union between Calvinists and Lutherans, once to
a secret Synod of the Reformed Churches held in Antwerp (the password for entry
was "Vineyard") where de Brès' Confession was adopted as the official
confession of the Reformed Churches.
In 1566 de Brès went to Valenciennes to become a
preacher in the church there, a congregation which called itself the Church of
the Eagle. While the Protestant faith grew so rapidly that the Roman Catholic
authorities dared not interfere in the religion of God's people, certain
radical elements once again stepped forward and created trouble. Stirring up
large mobs, they went through all the cathedrals smashing, burning, destroying
anything that in the least smelled like popery. Philip II, infuriated at this,
sent troops to lay siege to the city, which surrendered on Palm Sunday, 1567.
Although de Brès escaped with four companions, he was soon captured and
imprisoned.
His Martyrdom and Importance
de Brès spent the first part of his captivity in a
prison in Doornik, where he could receive visitors. Many of his visitors,
however, were enemies who came to taunt him. But just as was the case with the
apostle Paul (Philippians 1:12-14), Guido's imprisonment became an occasion for
him to witness to the truth. When a princess, along with many young court
ladies, came to mock, and the princess said in horror at Guido's heavy chains,
"My God, Mr. de Brès, I don't see how you can eat, drink, or sleep that
way. I think I would die of fear, if I were in your place," Guido
responded: "My lady, the good cause for which I suffer and the good
conscience God has given me make my bread sweeter and my sleep sounder than
those of my persecutors." And, then, still responding to the princess,
"It is guilt that makes a chain heavy. Innocence makes my chains light. I
glory in them as my badges of honor."
Soon Guido was transferred to Valenciennes and
thrown into a dark, cold, damp, rat-infested dungeon known as The Black Hole.
In spite of the cold, the hunger, the horror of this hole, Guido wrote a tract
on the Lord's Supper and letters to his friends, his aged mother, and his wife.
A letter to his wife is an especially moving testimony of his faith.
My dear and well-beloved wife in our Lord Jesus.
Your grief and anguish are the cause of my writing
you this letter. I most earnestly pray you not to be grieved beyond measure . .
. . We knew when we married that we might not have many years together, and the
Lord has graciously given us seven. If the Lord had wished us to live together
longer, he could easily have caused it to be so. But such was not his pleasure.
Let his good will be done . . . . Moreover, consider that I have not fallen
into the hands of my enemies by chance, but by the providence of God . . . .
All these considerations have made my heart glad and peaceful, and I pray you,
my dear and faithful companion, to be glad with me, and to thank the good God
for what he is doing, for he does nothing but what is altogether good and right
. . . . I pray you then to be comforted in the Lord, to commit yourself and
your affairs to him, he is the husband of the widow and the father of the
fatherless, and he will never leave nor forsake you . . . .
Good-bye, Catherine, my well-beloved! I pray my God
to comfort you, and give you resignation to his holy will. Your faithful
husband, Guido de Brès.
Guido was publicly hanged on May 31, 1567 at the age
of 47. He was pushed off the ladder while comforting the crowd which had gathered
and urging them to faithfulness to the Scriptures. His body was left hanging
the rest of the day and buried in a shallow grave where dogs and wild animals
dug it up and consumed it.
Guido de Brès is the author of our Confession of
Faith, although he was assisted by Adrien de Saravia (professor of theology
in Leyden), H. Modetus (chaplain of William of Orange), and G. Wingen. It was
written in the vain hope that it would persuade the cruel Philip II to see that
the views of the Calvinists were truly biblical and to stop persecution against
them. Roman Catholics had lumped the Calvinists with the radical and wild-eyed
Anabaptists who rejected the authority of magistrates, and the Confession sets
the Reformed faith over against Anabaptism.
The Confession was thrown over the wall in Doornik
and ultimately did reach the king but it served only to arouse Philip to
greater fury against the saints of God.
In a letter which was added to the Confession, Guido
and his co-workers protested being called rebels. They solemnly averred that
though they number over 100,000 and were cruelly oppressed by
"excommunications, imprisonments, banishments, racks, and tortures, and
other numberless oppressions which they had undergone," they obeyed their
government in all things lawful, and that "having the fear of God before
their eyes, and being terrified by the threatening of Christ, who had declared
in the Gospel that he would deny them before God the Father, in case they
denied him before men, they therefore offered their backs to stripes, their
tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to the
fire."
From this spilled blood God caused to emerge a
confession of faith which has held a special place in the hearts of Reformed
believers. It is as if, knowing that the confession was written in blood, the
saints receive it as a sacred trust, precious and vibrating yet with the faith
of their fathers.
Our fathers both knew what they believed and were
faithful to it, even to death. We have received, by the Spirit of truth,
the glorious fruit which God worked through them. It is entrusted to our care
that we may be faithful to it and teach it to our children.
We ought earnestly to pray that we may know as they
did the faith, and that we may be faithful to it as they were, for persecution
shall soon also be our lot.
