Chapter 13—The Netherlands and Scandinavia
In The Netherlands the papal tyranny very early called forth res-
olute protest. Seven hundred years before Luther’s time the Roman
pontiff was thus fearlessly impeached by two bishops, who, having
been sent on an embassy to Rome, had learned the true character of the
“holy see“: God “has made His queen and spouse, the church, a noble
and everlasting provision for her family, with a dowry that is neither
fading nor corruptible, and given her an eternal crown and scepter; ...
all which benefits you like a thief intercept. You set up yourself in
the temple of God; instead of a pastor, you are become a wolf to the
sheep; ... you would make us believe you are a supreme bishop, but
you rather behave like a tyrant.... Whereas you ought to be a servant
of servants, as you call yourself, you endeavor to become a lord of
lords.... You bring the commands of God into contempt.... The Holy
Ghost is the builder of all churches as far as the earth extends.... The
city of our God, of which we are the citizens, reaches to all the regions
of the heavens; and it is greater than the city, by the holy prophets
named Babylon, which pretends to be divine, wins herself to heaven,
and brags that her wisdom is immortal; and finally, though without
reason, that she never did err, nor ever can.”—Gerard Brandt, History
of the Reformation in and About the Low Countries 1:6.
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Others arose from century to century to echo this protest. And
those early teachers who, traversing different lands and known by
various names, bore the character of the Vaudois missionaries, and
spread everywhere the knowledge of the gospel, penetrated to the
Netherlands. Their doctrines spread rapidly. The Waldensian Bible
they translated in verse into the Dutch language. They declared “that
there was great advantage in it; no jests, no fables, no trifles, no deceits,
but the words of truth; that indeed there was here and there a hard
crust, but that the marrow and sweetness of what was good and holy
might be easily discovered in it.”—Ibid. 1:14. Thus wrote the friends
of the ancient faith, in the twelfth century.
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