So long as Philip, bishop of Utrecht, lived, the canons, although they had indeed persecuted Bakker, had not ventured to put him to death. This moderate bishop, so friendly to good men, having died on the 7th of April, 1525, the chapter felt more at liberty, and Bakker’s death was resolved on. The tidings of his approaching execution spread alarm through the little city;[[781]] and people of all classes immediately hastened to him and implored him to make the required recantation. But he refused. Calm and resolved, one care alone occupied his thoughts, the state of his father. The old man had followed all the phases of the trial. He had seen the steadfastness of his son’s faith and the supreme love which he had for Jesus Christ, so that nothing in the world could separate him from the Saviour. This sight had filled him with joy and had strengthened his own faith. The inquisitors, who were very anxious to induce Bakker to recant, thought that one course was still open to them. They betook themselves therefore to the old man, and entreated him to urge John to submit to the pope. ‘My son,’ he replied, ‘is very dear indeed to me; he has never caused me any sorrow; but I am ready to offer him up a sacrifice to God, as in old time Abraham offered up Isaac.’[[782]]
His Martyrdom.
It was then announced to Bakker that the hour of his death was at hand. This news, says a chronicler, filled him with unusual and astonishing joy.[[783]] During the night he read and meditated on the divine word. Then he had a tranquil sleep. In the morning (September 15) they led him upon an elevated stage, stripped him of the priestly vestments which he had been obliged to wear, put on him a yellow coat, and on his head a hat of the same color. This done, he was led to execution. As he passed by one part of the prison, where several Christians were confined for the sake of the faith, he was affected and cried aloud—‘Brothers! I am going to suffer martyrdom. Be of good courage like faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ, and defend the truths of the Gospel against all unrighteousness.’ The prisoners started when they heard these words, clapped their hands, uttered cries of joy, and then with one voice struck up the Te Deum. They determined not to cease singing until the Christian hero should have ceased to live. Bakker, indeed, could not hear them, but these songs, associated with the thoughts of the martyr, ascended to the throne of God. First they sang the Magnum Certamen; then the hymn beginning with the words, ‘O beata beatorum martyrum solemnia.’ This holy concert was the prelude to the festival which was to be celebrated in heaven. The martyr went up to the stake, took from the hands of the executioner the rope with which he was to be strangled before being given up to the flames, and passing it round his neck with his own hands, he said with joy—‘O death! where is thy sting?’ A moment afterwards he said—‘Lord Jesus, forgive them, and remember me, O Son of God.’ The executioner pulled the rope and strangled him. Then the fire consumed him. The great conflict was finished, the solemnity of the martyrdom was over. Such was the death of John van Bakker. His father survived to mourn his loss.[[784]]
John van Bakker was not the only one visited with these extreme penalties which the duke of Guelderland had demanded of the pope. There was in the convent of his order at Britz, a Carmelite, named Bernard, about fifty years of age. As a fearless preacher of the Gospel the monks detested him, and they succeeded in getting him sentenced to death. His execution was attended by some singular circumstances, which gave rise to one of those legends so numerous in the Romish church, and from which all the evangelicals had not yet freed themselves. Rome still left her mark occasionally on the Reformation. When Bernard was cast into the flames the fire went out. This was thrice repeated. The executioner then seized a hammer and struck the victim. Thus far the story is credible; but at this point it is changed, and passes from history to fable. The body being cast for the fourth time upon the pile, the fire again went out, and the body, it was said, was no longer visible to the bystanders; so that a report was circulated that this man of God had been translated to heaven.[[785]]
The death of these pious men did not extirpate evangelical Christianity. The seed scattered abroad in the Netherlands had everywhere sprung up and had borne fruit at Antwerp, and especially at Bois-le-Duc, both wealthy and powerful towns. ‘At Antwerp,’ said Erasmus, ‘we see, in spite of the edicts of the emperor, the people flocking in crowds wherever the word is to be heard. It is found necessary for the guards to be under arms night and day. Bois-le-Duc,’ added the Rotterdam scholar, ‘has banished from its walls all the Franciscans and Dominicans.’[[786]] By the vast commerce of the Netherlands men were attracted to the country from all quarters, and many of these immigrants were lovers of the Gospel. These provinces, it was said, resembled a valley which receives in its bosom the waters of many different regions, so that the plants which are to be found there thrive and bear the finest fruits. The year 1525 produced the most excellent of all. The New Testament in the Dutch language had been published at Amsterdam as early as 1523. The Old Testament appeared at Antwerp in 1525; and the same year, in the same town, Liesveld published the whole Bible. The Roman doctors, indeed, ridiculed the missionaries ‘whose office it is to sow in remote lands the leaves of a book which the winds carry one knows not whither.’[[787]] But these leaves, in conjunction with the preaching of the reformers, took from the pope, in the sixteenth century, the centre and the north of Europe.
Nevertheless, the best minds at the court, and especially the Governess Margaret herself, an enlightened princess, and one who was sincerely anxious for the prosperity of the Netherlands, were asking themselves what was the source of the evil, and whether the death of such men as Bakker and Bernard could check it. Erasmus and others replied that a reform of the priests and monks would render useless that which Luther called for. This was a mistake. More than once, in different ages, such a reform had been tried; some outward improvements had been effected, but the change had been only of short duration, because inwardly the deep principles of Christian faith and life had not been re-established. The government, however, attempted this superficial reform. About the close of September, 1523, Margaret addressed the magistrates of the Netherlands. ‘Be on your guard,’ she said to them, ‘lest the teaching of the priests, which abounds in fables, and their impure manner of life, give a blow to the prosperity of the church.’[[788]] She did more. Appealing to the priests themselves, she said—‘It is our intention that those men only should be allowed to preach who are prudent, intelligent, and moral.[[789]] Let the preachers avoid every thing which might scandalize the people; and let them not speak so much against Luther, and against his doctrines and those of the ancient heretics.’[[790]]
Such were the sentiments of enlightened Catholics; but neither Margaret nor Charles the Fifth had power to transform the Church. Their letters even called forth murmurs and objections. ‘Why, they are laying the blame on the priests for the wrongs caused by the reformers. Luther did the mischief, and now the monks must bear the burden and the penalty!’ It was a penalty for those who thus complained to have to begin to do well.
A New Edict.
After a gleam of good sense, the authorities went astray once more and resumed their rigorous proceedings. In the judgment of many this was the easier and more logical course. The papist party regained the ascendency, and declared with all their might that there was only one thing to do—to extirpate evangelical doctrine. A new edict was published in the provinces. Religious meetings, whether public or private, were prohibited. The reading of the Gospels, of the epistles of St. Paul, and of other pious works, was forbidden. Any person who asserted, either in his own house or elsewhere, any thing respecting faith, the sacraments, the pope and the councils, incurred the heaviest penalties. No work could be printed before being approved, and every heretical book was to be burnt.[[791]] This ordinance was carried into execution without delay, and its provisions were extended even to writings inspired by the most praiseworthy benevolence. A noble lady of Holland having lost her husband, her trial excited warm sympathy in the heart of Gnapheus. He wrote a book in which he set forth all the consolations to be found in evangelical doctrine, pointing out at the same time that the doctrine of the priests was destitute of them. He was immediately arrested and confined in a monastery, was fed on bread alone, and was condemned to three months’ penance. The humanist felt keenly the distress of the days in which he lived; and, desirous of alleviating his own bitter sufferings and those of his contemporaries, he began in his cell a work to which he gave the title of Tobias and Lazarus. Therein he offers to all Christians the most precious consolations, and shows how much those are mistaken who see in the first evangelical Christians of the Netherlands only more or less violent adversaries of the pope. ‘Receive afflictions with resignation and a joyful spirit,’ said he, ‘thou wilt straightway discern in them a source of true and permanent consolation. Give to God in faith the name of Father, and every thing which thou shalt receive from His fatherly hand will seem good to thee. Lay hold on Christ by faith, and then nothing will strengthen you like trials. Fatherly love is never better seen than in its chastisements; and it is in the midst of tribulations that the glory of the kingdom of God shines forth.’ This book bore wholesome fruit, and many by reading it were led to the knowledge of the truth.[[792]] Gnapheus in his day fulfilled the office of a comforter.
This was not the part which Charles the Fifth had chosen. On concluding (January 15, 1526) with Francis I. the peace of Madrid, he declared in the preamble that the object of this peace was ‘to be able to turn the common arms of all Christian kings, princes, and potentates to the expulsion and destruction of miscreants, and the extirpation of the Lutheran sect and of all the said heretics alienated from the bosom of Holy Church.’[[793]] It was very soon seen that this resolution was sincere.