CHAPTER 9 Introduction to the Belgic Confession Introduction—The Blood of a Martyr Shortly before he was hanged for his Protestan- tism, the Belgian Reformer Guido de Bres (pro- nounced GEE-doe de BRAY) wrote to his wife Catherine from the foul dungeon in which he was imprisoned. Because the letter enlightens us both about de Bres and about the circumstances sur- rounding his Belgic Confession, we quote a part of it: My dear and well beloved wife in our Lord Jesus: Nour grief and anguish, troubling me in the midst of my joy and gladness, are the cause of my writing you this present letter, I most carnestl Pray you not to be grieved beyond measure. "1 the Lord had wished us to live together longer, He could easily have caused it so to be. But such was not His pleasure. Let His good will be done then, and let that suffice for all reason. Moreover, consider that I have not fallen into the hands, of my enemies by chance, but by the providence of my God, which guides and governs all things, small ag well as great. 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 right and good Tam shut up in the strongest and wretched- est of dungeons, so dark and gloomy that it 1e8 by the name of the Black Hole. | can get Bat title air, and chat of the foulest, Thaveon my hands and feet heavy irons which are a con- stant torture, galling the flesh even to my poor bones. But, notwithstanding all, my God fails not to make good His promise, and to comfort my heart, and to give me 2 most blessed con: tent. Upray you then, to be comforted in the Lord, tocommit yourself and your affairs to Him, for 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 bray my God! to comfort you, and give you resignation to His holy will. ‘Your faithful husband, Guido de Bres Minister of God's Word at Valenciennes, and at present prisoner for the Son of God. In this moving attempt to console his grieving wife, de Bres shows some of the great personal ‘courage and profound commitment to the provi dence of God which marked the noblest. souls of the Reformation in the Netherlands. De Bres knew he was doomed. He knew that any day he would be forcibly compelled to meet the Lord who had been his guide through the valley of the sha- dow of death, Yet, remarkably, he surrenders not to self-pity, but to the everlasting arms which had all along been holding him up. Indeed, he speaks of his “joy and gladness.” He speaks more than once of comfort. Up to his neck in trouble, he at- tempts to speak solace and strength to her who must soon discover whether God is indeed “Hus- band of the widow and the Father of the father Tess.”" Of this sort of heroism most of us know very lit: tle personally. Yet without it, an important branch of the Calvinist Reformation could never have flourished, ‘The Netherlands Situation Guido de Bres (1522-67) was a native of the area known as the Lowlands or Netherlands. In the middie sixteenth century, this area comprised seventeen provinces of territory in what is now Holland, northern France, and Belgium. It is ‘THE BELGIC CONFESSION 35