The Belgic Confession

Its History and Sources

Nicolaas H. Gootjes

BakerAcademic

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2007 by Nicolaas H. Gootjes

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gootjes, Nicolaas Hendrik

The Belgic Confession: its history and sources / Nicolaas H. Gootjes.

p. cm. — (Texts and studies in Reformation and post-Reformation thought)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-8010-3235-6 (pbk.)

ISBN 10: 0-8010-3235-0 (pbk.)

1. Belgic Confession. 2. Reformed Church—Creeds. 3. Reformed Church—Doctrines. 1. Title.

BX9429.B4G66 2007

238′.42—dc22

2007029636

Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought

General Editor

Prof. Richard A. Muller, Calvin Theological Seminary

Editorial Board

Prof. Irena Backus, University of Geneva

Prof. Susan M. Felch, Calvin College

Prof. A. N. S. Lane, London School of Theology

Prof. Susan E. Schreiner, University of Chicago

Prof. David C. Steinmetz, Duke University

Prof. John L.Thompson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Prof. Willem J. van Asselt, University of Utrecht

Prof. Timothy J. Wengert, The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

Prof. Henry Zwaanstra, Calvin Theological Seminary

Contents

Series Preface

Author Preface

Abbreviations

1 The Early History of the Confession

2 The Author of the Confession

3 Calvin and the Confession

4 Beza and the Confession

5 The Authority of the Confession

6 The Revision of 1566

7 At the Synod of Dort

8 Translations

Appendix

Bibliography

Subject Index

Series Preface

The heritage of the Reformation is of profound importance to our society, our culture, and the church in the present day. Yet there remain many significant gaps in our knowledge of the intellectual development of Protestantism both during and after the Reformation, and there are not a few myths about the theology of the orthodox or scholastic Protestant writers of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These gaps and myths—frequently caused by ignorance of the scope of a particular thinker’s work, by negative theological judgments passed by later generations on the theology of the Reformers and their successors, or by an intellectual imperialism of the present that singles out some thinkers and ignores others regardless of their relative significance to their own times—stand in the way of a substantive encounter with this important period in our history. Understanding, assessment, and appropriation of that heritage can only occur through the publication of significant works (monographs, essays, and sound, scholarly translations) that present ...