The Netherlands, comprising what is now known as Holland and Belgium, were, in the Middle Ages, a collection of small semi-independent states which came gradually under the rule of Austria and finally became part of the great empire of Charles V, who came to the throne at the time the Reformation began. Unlike Germany, which was controlled by the electors, the Netherlands were entirely under the power of Charles. For this reason, the gospel revival had to make its way against the most bitter opposition. It has been estimated that during the last thirty years of his reign, fifty thousand persons were put to death for their faith, while in the reign of his successor, Philip II of Spain, one of the most relentless, perfidious and cruelest persecutors that ever ruled over man, many thousands more were beheaded, hanged, buried alive, burned alive or otherwise put to death, while a vast multitude perished miserably in the bitter conflicts, sieges and massacres that were the outcome of his tyranny, and many thousands more fled as refugees to other lands. England, in the reign of Elizabeth, became a city of refuge to these outcasts who, in many cases, brought their arts and crafts to its hospitable shores.
In earlier days, John Wesselus of Groningen had let his light, dim though it was, shine in Holland. Waldensian refugees had found their way into the Netherlands with their Romance version of the Scriptures. Tyndale’s English New Testament was printed there in 1525.
Owing to its close proximity to Germany, the country quickly received the illumination of Luther’s testimony. The Augustinian monastery in Antwerp was so permeated with Luther’s teaching that in 1532 the authorities razed it to the ground. In 1519 its Prior, named Spreng, was converted and became a preacher of the gospel, but under threat of death, he recanted; however, he went to Bremen and renewed his preaching. In 1523 three of the monks perished at the stake. Henry Zutphen, who had also received Luther’s teaching, was thrown into prison, but a sympathetic crowd of townspeople broke open the prison and set him free — a significant indication of the favor with which the gospel was received. Having made his escape, he preached elsewhere, but was murdered by a mob in Holstein.
Crowds gathered to hear the preaching of the gospel, but a price was set on the heads of the preachers. One day a huge crowd had assembled in a shipyard. No preacher having appeared, a youth named Nicholas went forward and spoke to the people on the Lord’s feeding of the five thousand. He was seized by the monks and, with the aid of two butchers, forced into a sack and drowned in the river.
The Emperor now began to act. Placards were constantly issued threatening those who taught or received the Word of God, but neither threats nor burnings stayed the progress of the truth. Believers multiplied. In 1524 the printing of books was made subject to strict censorship, and when about this time Luther’s Bible was translated into Dutch, the printer was beheaded. Edict followed edict. In 1535 the most desperate measures were enacted to stem the tide of the so-called heresy, and in 1540 these measures were again renewed. Even recantation no longer saved the life of an accused heretic. It merely changed his mode of death. Instead of being burned alive, repentant heretics were allowed to die by the sword (if they were men) or by being buried alive (if they were women). In spite of all, the gospel spread in Flanders, Brabant and Holland. Notwithstanding the vicious edicts of the Emperor, conventicles continued to be held in Antwerp.
The first martyr in Holland was John de Bakker of Woerden, near Utrecht, a priest, twenty-seven years of age. He made a bold and intelligent defense of the truth at his trial. On September 15, 1525, he was led to the stake. On his way, he passed the prison in which other believers were held and exhorted them to have good courage. The prisoners answered by shouts of joy, clapping of hands and the singing of hymns. At the stake, he cried, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” His last words were, “Lord Jesus, forgive them, for they know not what they do. O Son of God, remember me and have mercy upon me.”
Many more were to follow the path of suffering to glory in the next thirty years of Charles’ reign. In 1555 he laid aside his imperial crown to be succeeded by a son more cruel and bigoted than himself. Mary of Hungary became regent of the Netherlands, and the agents of Rome saw to it that the faithful were discovered. In the first few years of Philip’s reign there was a little respite; martyrdoms did not cease, but less blood flowed. But in 1559 the horrible edict of 1540 was revived. A court corresponding to the Inquisition was set up. Even Spain had been revolted by the horrors of the Inquisition; to the liberty-loving people of the Netherlands, it was insupportable.
“The citizens beheld, in a long and terrible vista, calamity coming upon calamity — their dwellings entered at midnight by masked familiars, their parents and children dragged to secret prisons, their civic dignitaries led through the streets with halters around their necks, the foreign, Protestant merchants fleeing from their country, their commerce dying, autos-da-fé blazing in their cities, and liberty, in the end of the day, sinking under an odious and merciless tyranny. It was death to pray to God in one’s own closet; it was death not to bow when an image was carried past one in the street; it was death to copy a hymn from a Genevese Psalter or sing a psalm; it was death not to deny the heresy of which one was suspected, when one was questioned, although one had never uttered it.”
To sustain these measures and intimidate the inhabitants, Philip kept a small but highly trained army of Spanish soldiers in the land. But the fortitude of the martyrs matched the fury of their persecutors. Wives accompanied their husbands to the stake, standing by to encourage them. Young women lay down peacefully in their living graves or went to the scaffold or the stake dressed as if to their marriage rather than to a cruel death. The same divine grace that bore the earliest martyrs in triumph through the cruelties of a heathen persecution now sustained with superhuman peace and strength these men and women, young and old, in the frightful torments inflicted by a so-called Christian Church. If Satan had captured Christendom and made the Romish Church the wretched tool of his relentless hatred of Christ, the Spirit of the glorified Saviour carried these saints of the sixteenth century in triumph through prison and torture chamber and through the horrors of cruel deaths into the glorious presence of Him who had died for them. Now they were yielding their own lives in faithfulness to Him. “O God, Eternal Father,” cried one youth at the stake, suffering alongside his father after the flesh, “accept the sacrifice of our lives in the name of Thy beloved Son.”
Year after year the dreadful work continued, and to the long roll of martyrs were added thousands of names, recorded in heaven but not on earth, people mostly in humble stations of life—weavers, tapestry workers, tanners, stone cutters and such like — but they belonged to a higher nobility than this world knows, a family more royal than that of any who ever sat upon an earthly throne. Did faith fail in the Netherlands? Far from it. In 1561 the Protestants of the Netherlands boldly put forth a Confession of Faith. It was entitled “A Confession of Faith generally and unanimously maintained by the believers dispersed through the Low Countries who desire to live according to the purity of the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This was not the product of any church; it was the confession of a few, private believers and preachers issued originally for mutual help and encouragement. Five years later, a Synod of the Christians who were thus united sent their Confession to the King of Spain with a pathetic appeal for liberty of conscience and freedom from persecution. There were, they informed the King, over one hundred thousand who held the faith set forth in this Confession, which they sent, likewise, to the magistrates and rulers of the provinces.
The Prince of Orange (William the Silent), who had not yet abjured the Romish teaching, strenuously urged toleration in the councils of the government. This was in 1564. The King of Spain assembled a council of ecclesiastics, and even they counseled milder measures to avert rebellion. It was without effect; Philip was obdurate; he handed the people of the Netherlands over to the Inquisition. The trial and punishment of heretics was placed entirely in the hands of the Romish clergy. The anger of a nation deprived of its elementary rights now reached boiling point. The regent, the Duchess of Parma, was at her wit’s end. The more violent the methods of suppression, the more heresy abounded and the more the temper of the people rose. She wrote to her brother pointing out the danger and difficulty of the position. But he would brook no alleviation of the situation. To avoid publicity, the executions were carried out by drowning the prisoners secretly in prison in water butts.
Rumors got abroad of an awful plan to massacre Protestants on a wholesale scale. Such an idea had been intimated to William of Orange by Henry II of France some years before, and by reason of the fact that he kept this awful secret to himself, he was named William the Silent. But he paid heed to the warning and shaped his course accordingly.
For long years many thousands had yielded up their lives without resistance and died as defenseless sheep of Christ’s flock. Now the tide began to turn. Oppression stirred many, whose motives were not actuated purely by the gospel, to oppose this tyranny. A league of nobles was formed who raised the standard of revolt. About the same time another movement began. Protestants resolved to meet in spite of all opposition. At the peril of their lives, huge concourses of people met together to hear the gospel preached. It began in June 1566, near Ghent, when Herman Modet preached to seven thousand. On July 23 a vast and peaceful assembly again met to listen to the Word of God. Many of these had come armed in self-protection and stayed two days on the ground. The movement spread like a fire. The numbers were so great that the authorities feared to apprehend the people. Great congregations numbering as many as ten thousand — and in one case it is said twenty thousand — began to assemble all over the Netherlands. In a few weeks, the movement had covered the whole country. These great crowds came together not to ventilate their wrongs or denounce the government but to hear the Word of Life. “The wind bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:88The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)), and when the wind of God blows, its power is irresistible. So far the movement was a peaceful one, for it was the gospel of peace which was sounded forth, and not the tocsin of revolt. Every preacher preached with a price on his head, and those who listened did so at the peril of their lives, for the Inquisition did not slumber.
About this time a band of ruffians, who seem in no way to have been connected with this gospel movement and whose actions were reprobated by all true Christians, began to scour the land, plundering the Roman Catholic churches, mutilating the treasures of art with which they were adorned, and smashing the images. These iconoclasts confined their attention to the sticks and stones of Romish idolatry; to the priests and monks they offered no violence.
A long night of horror now passed over the land. William of Orange left the country. He foresaw what was coming. The meetings were suppressed by force, the preachers were driven away, and “the gallows,” says the historian Brandt, “were filled with carcasses and Germany with exiles.” The cup of woe was not yet full. The Duke of Alva was sent into the country with an army of ten thousand men. A “Holy War” was begun. Twelve thousand of the inhabitants fled the country. Many of those who remained were arrested. Alva set up the council which has come to be known in history as the “Council of Blood,” and this began its hateful work. Persons of every age and sex and condition of life were imprisoned, and many were put on the rack. It was sufficient to condemn a person to death (whatever his belief) that he had attended a meeting of the Reformed. Death reaped an enormous harvest by the stake and the gallows and the axe. Thousands were banished and their goods confiscated. Even this was not enough for Philip. He submitted the matter to the Fathers of the Spanish Inquisition and sought their advice. It was given. The whole nation were heretics or abettors of heretics and guilty of high treason. On February 26, 1568, the King of Spain passed sentence on the entire nation of the Netherlands and condemned the inhabitants to extinction. Everyone — men, women and children—were now to be put to death. The horrible work was actually begun, and the country became a charnel house. A nation condemned to die has little to lose by resisting. It found a leader in William the Silent, Prince of Orange. A long and awful struggle followed. Battles, sieges, massacres, hunger, misery and desolation were the lot of this sorely tried land. For our purpose it is sufficient to record that it ended in the formation of the United Provinces and, finally, in the throwing off of the Spanish yoke forever. Religious toleration became general, and while Holland remained true to the cause of the Reformation, the Southern Provinces (now Belgium) returned to the Romish religion.
Philip had offered a huge reward to anyone who procured the death of his enemy, William of Orange. Six attempts were made on his life, the last successful. He fell, shot through the body by an assassin, in 1584, and was mourned as a father by the people of the Netherlands. “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:1616Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Matthew 7:16) JND); all these horrors, which have been understated in this brief review, were the awful fruit of a false religion which inspired men to hate and murder and torture and burn those who dissented from its idolatrous tenets.
Nations, like men, reap what they sow. Holland rose to prosperity; Spain sunk lower and lower till she became poor and of little account among the nations.