Nederlandsche Geloofsbelijdenis
Nederlandsche Geloofsbelijdenis is the official confession of the Dutch Reformed Church. It was drawn up about 1561 by Guy de Brès, following the confession of the French Calvinists, which had been approved by the Synod of Paris in 1559 and presented to Henry II, king of France. On the night of 1-2 November 1561, a copy of the printed confession was thrown into the garden of the regent Margaret of Parma at Brussels to inform her about the doctrines of the Dutch Calvinists. This confession was approved by the Synod of Armentieres in 1563. The approval given by the Dutch General Reformed Synod at Dordrecht in 1619 made it the official confession of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands. In this confession de Brez tried to prove that the Calvinists were very different from the Anabaptists or Mennonites. Two articles of the confession deal with the Anabaptists (Wederdoopers): Article 34, concerning baptism, states: "We [the Calvinists] reject the error of the Anabaptists . . . who reject the baptism of the children of believers"; Article 36, dealing with the office of the magistrates, concludes, "For this reason [i.e., because the public authorities are of God] we reject the Anabaptists and all other revolutionary people, and in general all those who reject the authorities and magistracy, who wish to overthrow the administration of justice and to introduce community of property, who throw into disorder modesty, which God has established among men.”
Though it is clear that this judgment on the Anabaptists-Mennonites was untrue, the confession (as of the 1950s) had not been changed or corrected and was still being generally accepted by the Reformed Church.
| Author(s) | Nanne van der Zijpp |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1957 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Zijpp, Nanne van der. "Nederlandsche Geloofsbelijdenis." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1957. Web. 16 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Nederlandsche_Geloofsbelijdenis&oldid=108837.
APA style
Zijpp, Nanne van der. (1957). Nederlandsche Geloofsbelijdenis. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 16 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Nederlandsche_Geloofsbelijdenis&oldid=108837.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 818. All rights reserved.
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