The Four Cs of Doctrinal History – Part 9: Early Protestant National Confessions

The Reformation fires were sparked by Martin Luther in a formal sense, but those fires were stoked and further spread throughout Europe due to not only Luther’s influence, but also men like Ulricht Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland, along with their many followers.

The name “Protestant” was assigned to those who protested the treatment of Luther in the 1520s by the Roman Catholic Church. What largely started in Germany spread to other regions as well. Along with the spread of Protestant views came also various confessional writing.

Switzerland and the Helvetic Confessions

The term “helvetic” is one that indicates a Swiss descent/nationality. It is derived from the national personification of Switzerland, Helvetia (Latin term for Switzerland).

The First Helvetic Confession of 1536 was an attempt to unite the Lutherans and Swiss Reformed. It was called for by seven Swiss leaders and was to be held in Basel. Many of the points of the confession could be agreed upon, but it was section 23 regarding the Eucharist that became a sticking point. Here is the opening paragraph to that section,

“But the mystical supper is that in which the Lord offers His body and His blood, that is, His own self truly to His own, for this purpose, that He might live more and more in them and they in Him. Not that the body and blood of the Lord are either joined naturally to the bread and wine, or included locally in them, or placed in them by any carnal presence. But from the institution of the Lord, the bread and wine are symbols, by which from the Lord Himself by the ministry of the church, the true sharing of His body and blood is exhibited, not in the perishable food of the stomach, but in the nourishment of eternal life.”

The Swiss reformed followed largely the teaching of Zwingli, whereas the Lutherans (as expected) followed the teaching of Martin Luther.

Though Luther rejected the notion of unifying with the Reformed sect, the confession itself is said to be the first Reformed Creed of National Authority.

This first confession led to a second, The Second Helvetic Confession of 1566. Henry Bullinger, who was involved in the first, and was a follower of Zwingli, was the sole author of this second confession.

It was called for by Frederick III, Palatine in Switzerland, due to his need to refute charges of heresy against him.

The first Helvetic Confession he believed was too short. Other writings done since then only dealt with the matters of the Eucharist and Predestination. He needed something more robust.

Ultimately, Frederick’s reading of this confession to his accusers released him from the charge of heresy.

Philip Schaff writes about this confession that it is the “most widely adopted, and hence the most authoritative of all the Continental Reformed symbols, except the Heidelberg Catechism.”¹

France and the Gallic Confession

The Father of the French Protestantism was Jacques LeFevre d’Etaples. He translated the New Testament from the Latin Vulgate into French in 1530. He taught justification by faith apart from works prior to Luther or Zwingli. He taught the supremacy of the Scripture, and also predicted a greater reformation. Schaff records him saying, “God will renovate the world, and you will be a witness of it.”² However, he apparently remained within the Catholic Church, seeking to reform it from within.

Despite the work of d’Etaples, John Calvin remains the most influential person in French Protestantism. In the early years of the Protestant reformation, France faced great persecution. Yet amidst all of that, Protestant theology still spread. In 1559 the first National Synod of the Reformed Churches in France convened in Paris. There, they adopted the Gallic Confession, one of Calvinistic persuasion, and still held as a standard by some French Reformed Churches today.

Scotland and the Scottish Confession

John Knox, “the thundering Scot” was the chief voice of the reformation in Scotland, but not the first. Men like Patrick Hamilton (1528) and George Wishart (1546) were both martyred for the cause of Christ.

Yet Knox remains the key voice for the Scottish Reformation. He and five other Scots prepared the Scottish Confession in 1560 along with their First Book of Discipline, a book regulating church order.

The Netherlands/Holland and Belgium, and the Belgic Confession

It is said that the first martyrs of Evangelical Protestantism were Henry Voes and John Esch, two Augustinian Monks, who were burned at the stake in Brussels, Belgium on July 1, 1523. As they stood there and died they quoted the Apostles’ Creed and sang the TeDeum (an ancient hymn of praise to God).

Holland and Belgium believers faced much persecution early on in Protestantism. Schaff says, “The number of her martyrs exceeds that of any other Protestant Church during the sixteenth century, and perhaps that of the whole primitive Church under the Roman empire.”³

These believers had a Calvinistic bent to their Protestant beliefs. As a means of seeking toleration, men came together and wrote the Belgic Confession in 1561, which was presented in 1562, then translated into German, Dutch, and Latin.

Over time, this document was accepted and publicly adopted at the Synod at Antwerp in 1566. It was later affirmed and adopted again in 1619 at the Synod of Dort, along with the Heidelberg Catechism.

During this time, the early days of the Reformation, these national movements see the beginning of various denominations. Martin Luther with his Lutheran group (in Germany and Scandinavian countries); John Knox with what would be called Presbyterians (Scotland), and the “reformed” group, which was more of a theological persuasion than a denomination, following men like Calvin and Zwingli.

As reformation fires blew across Europe, so did various attempts to articulate doctrinal truth, leading us to conclude that confessions and creeds are not uniquely Roman Catholic, but have been part of the broader Protestant movement since it began, and therefore have a role to play in the church today.

Previously in this series:

• Introducing the Four “C’s” of Doctrinal History
• The Origins, Division, and Authority of the Four C’s of Doctrinal History
• The Four C’s Part 3 – The Apostles’ Creed
• The Four C’s of Doctrinal History: Part 4 – The Nicene Creed
• The Four C’s of Doctrinal History: Part 5 – The Chalcedonian Definition
• The Four C’s of Doctrinal History Part 6 – The Athanasian Creed
• The Four C’s of Doctrinal History – Part 7: Luther and His Catechism
• The Four C’s of Doctrinal History – Part 8: The Lutheran Augsburg Confession

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Taigen Joos is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Dover, NH.

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Photo from World History Encyclopedia and is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

1. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Baker Books: Grand Rapids, MI, 1993), I:394. [↩]
2. Schaff, I:492. [↩]
3. Schaff, I:503. [↩]