History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

of sinners by faith alone, on the righteousness of
Christ, and, in short, in all the fundamental
doctrines of the Scriptures, the Belgic Confession
is in agreement with the Augustine Creed, and very
specially with the Confession of Helvetia, France,
Bohemia, England, and Scotland. The
Reformation, as we have seen, entered the Low
Countries by the gate of Wittemberg, rather than by
the gate of Geneva: nevertheless, the Belgic
Confession has a closer resemblance to the
theology of those countries termed Reformed than
to that of those usually styled Lutheran. The
proximity of Flanders to France, the asylum sought
on the soil of the Low Countries by so many of the
Huguenots, and the numbers of English merchants
trading with the Netherlanders, or resident in their
cities, naturally led to the greater prominence in the
Belgic Confession of those doctrines which have
been usually held to be peculiar to Calvinism;
although we cannot help saying that a very general
misapprehension prevails upon this point. With the
one exception stated above, the difference on the
Lord's Supper namely, the theology of Luther and
the theology of Calvin set forth the same views of
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