Man Has Become Corrupt In All His Ways

Human nature has become, and is, morally corrupt in the fullest sense of the word. Man has become, and is, wicked and perverse in all his ways.

But is not this being a bit too harsh? After all, does not experience teach us that man is basically good? Oh, no doubt there are some "bad eggs" out there, men who are morally degenerate through and through, who inexplicably seem to delight in committing atrocious crimes, inflicting pain and suffering on others, reveling in debaucheries of the worst sort, who seem to have no conscience and no remorse in doing any kind of evil. But they are only a small minority, are they not? Surely most o mankind is guided by an inner moral compass to do what is right? Surely if given a chance, if properly taught, or perhaps reeducated, most men will be morally upright, will they not? Just look around you. What do you see? You see some evil men, but many good men: faithful spouses, hard workers, brave soldiers, devoted mothers, generous givers, and polite neighbors. Is it not a bit too harsh to say that man is wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways?

So reasons the Pelagian, ancient and modern, who denies the depravity of man's nature.

But we may not be taught first of all by experience. We must be taught first by the Word of God, and experience always confirms the Word of God if we look below the glittery surface of human nature into the pitch blackness of the soul.

The Scriptures teach that man has become, and is, morally totally corrupt in all his ways: "Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Psa. 53:1-3, cf. Rom. 3:10-12). Every man, woman, and child and will, and, apart from grace, our deepest heart too. Our nature is wicked, perverse, and corrupt. It is totally unable to think, will, or do what is good in God's eyes. It is wholly inclined to what is evil and despicable in God's eyes. Your nature is! Mine is! It may produce actions which appear good in our eyes: acts of heroism, generosity, and achievement. But it cannot, and does not produce actions that are actually good in God's eyes. Such is the case because every outward act has an inward cause. That inward motive is inextricably linked to that act in God's eyes. That motive and that act are one. If that motive, in the deepest sense, is evil, the act is evil too in God's eyes. Man cannot, does not, and will not keep any of God's commandments in his heart. You by nature do not! I do not! Man can only, does only, and will only grossly transgress all of God's commandments. And man is corrupt "in all his ways." Man is morally depraved in all that he sets himself to do or be, in private and public life, in home, work or school, and in all his human relationships.

Man is totally depraved. This article teaches the T of the TULIP of Calvinism. This biblical truth is one of the pillars, dark and ugly though it is, of the Reformed faith. The other pillar is the truth that God is sovereign in salvation. God has saved us from our moral corruption by His irresistible grace (the I of TULIP). That grace flows to us from the cross of Jesus Christ. Bow down, then, in humble thanks to God for saving  you by His grace through Christ.

Read: Psalm 53 and Romans 3:9-19

Rev. Daniel Holstege

Daily Meditations on the Belgic Confession

by pastors of the Protestant Reformed Churches of America

Articles 13-14, pp. 65-66

www.cerc.org.sg 

clm@cerc.org.sg 

A Return to the Old Paths (Brief History of the PRC)

The date was December 12, 1924.

The two other ministers and their consistories were also to experience the wrath of their classis. 

Rev. Henry Danhof was pastor of First CRC in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He had been a delegate at the synod of the CRC which had adopted the Three Points of common grace. At the synod he had raised his objections to the doctrine and had let it be clearly known that he would never support such erroneous views. He and his congregation were a part of Classis Grand Rapids West.

Rev. George Ophoff was pastor of the Riverbend CRC in what is now Walker, Michigan. While Ophoff had not been present at the synod of 1924, he had expressed his convictions with regard to the Three Points of common grace by joining the staff of the Standard Bearer.  This magazine had begun publication in October of 1924, partly because the pages of the official publication of the CRC, the Banner, were closed to Rev. Hoeksema, and partly because an organ was needed to inform the churches of the serious error the CRC had made at its synod. Rev. Ophoff did not only let his convictions be known by joining the staff of the Standard Bearer, but he had also clearly expressed himself on its pages in an early issue. Rev. Ophoff's congregation was also a part of Classis Grand Rapids West.

Classis Grand Rapids West was in no mood to dally. It wanted no discussion of the issues; it wanted no appeals to the next synod; it wanted no clarifications of the positions of Danhof and Ophoff. It simply required of these two men (and their consistories) that they submit without reservation to the decisions of the synod of 1924 with respect to common grace, or suffer deposition.

Those involved refused to submit. All were summarily deposed from office by official decision of the classis.

It was the beginning of the PRC.

True reformation in the church of Christ always involves a going back and a moving ahead. The going back is required because the denomination which needs reforming has become apostate and has moved away from what Jeremiah calls the "old paths." For this reason Jeremiah's admonition to Judah is always important in reformation: "Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls" (6:16). 

The old paths for the church of Christ in North America (as well as for Reformed churches throughout the world) were the paths of the Reformation of the 16th century with its sharp and unyielding emphasis on sovereign and particular grace. The old paths were the paths of the Synod of Dordt, which had emphatically repudiated the general grace of Arminianism, had charted the course of Reformed church polity, and had drawn up a confession which demonstrated beyond doubt that the teaching of God's grace for the elect only was the teaching of their history. 

This latter insistence of the Synod of Dordt (namely, that what it taught was the historic Reformed position) became evident in its statement that the Canons of Dordt were not to be construed as a new confession, but were a further explanation of some points of doctrine already contained in the Heidelberg Catechism and the Confession of Faith, both of which were official confessions of the Reformed churches of a half century earlier.

The activities of Classes Grand Rapids East and West showed that the church government of the denomination was also askew. Suspension and deposition of office-bearers is a part of ecclesiastical censure of sin and an exercise of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This task, as well as the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments, belongs to the local consistories and to broader ecclesiastical assemblies. For classes or synods to engage in discipline is the worst sort of hierarchy. Yet the CRC did not shrink from such hierarchy in order to rid itself of men who had been declared by the church itself to be Reformed, but who refused to agree to the false doctrine of common grace.

Faithful officebearers in the church of Christ, declared to be such by their own denomination, had been cruelly stripped of their offices, set naked on the street outside the doors of the church, and told to fend for themselves apart from the fellowship of the church.

And they were thus persecuted for no other reason than that they maintained the sovereignty and particularity of grace, a doctrine of the Reformed churches held since the days of John Calvin in Geneva.

A return to the "old paths," therefore, required also a return to the old true and tried Church Order of Dordrecht.

On March, 1925 the officebearers of the three congregations came together to form a new denomination. It was, in a sense, temporary, because all three congregations had appeals against the decisions of Classes Grand Rapids East and West pending with the synod of 1926. Because of the temporary nature of their federation, they called themselves, "The Protesting Christian Reformed Churches." But no one held out any hope of the synod of 1926 retracting the erroneous doctrines of common grace, and no one expected the hierarchical decisions of two classes to be repudiated by synod. And so it proved to be.

Already the temporary "Act of Agreement" which was signed by the officebearers of the three congregations spoke of a return to the three forms of unity and the Church Order of Dordrecht.

The reformation was complete. The doctrines of free, sovereign, and particular grace were once again given free course, unencumbered by the burden of heresy. The autonomy of the local congregations was once again established on the basis of the Church Order of Dordrecht.

But a true reformation of the church of Christ is not and can never be merely a return to the "old paths." Within the church one cannot live in the past. One cannot dwell on past injustices nor fight battles long over.

This is not to say that the past is unimportant. The confession, worship, and government of the church of Christ throughout the ages are given the church by the Spirit of truth whom Christ promised to His Church prior to His glorification (see John 14-16). The Spirit of truth guides the church into all truth. That means two things. It means, on the one hand, that the confession, worship, and government of the church of the past are the blessed fruit of the Spirit according to which the church must always live. But it also means that the work of the Spirit in the church is a continuing work, so that the Spirit, according to Scriptures which He Himself inspired, continues to reveal the truth in richer measure.

The church of Christ moves forward.

So it was with the PRC.

Some charged the PRC for existing only to inveigh against and do battle with the evils of common grace. It was said that the PRC rode an old hobby horse, lived to criticize others, found its joy in chiding other denominations, and would disappear if it could no longer fight against common grace. This is not true. 

Although indeed the PRC are compelled before God to show the evil of false doctrine, especially as it involves their own particular history, the churches have also moved forward by the guidance and direction of the Spirit of Christ.

Because the truth of sovereign and particular grace was the one great issue in the sad history of 1924, it was this truth which, emphasized in the churches, became the principle of further development of the truth within the churches.

Rev. Herman Hoeksema, rightly considered the spiritual father of the denomination, along with his colleague in the churches and in seminary, Rev. George Ophoff, made some distinctive contributions to what the church is called to believe.

It is not our purpose to go into these contributions in detail. But anyone acquainted with many writings which have come from the pens of Hoeksema and Ophoff will know of the contributions to an understanding of sovereign grace which both of these men made in the Standard Bearer and other writings; and they will know how Herman Hoeksema made a significant and important contribution to the knowledge of the Reformed faith in his Reformed Dogmatics.

But if there is one doctrine which is a distinguishing truth of the PRC, it is the doctrine of God's eternal and unconditional covenant of grace. Firmly committed to the truth of sovereign and particular grace, and applying that truth to the biblically defined doctrine of the covenant, Hoeksema has shown that Scripture teaches a unilateral and unconditional covenant in which God enters into friendship with His elect people in Jesus Christ. This was a major breakthrough in the Reformed understanding of God's covenant.

If one thing characterized Hoeksema's theology, it was its God-centered character. To begin with God and end with God - that was Hoeksema's purpose in all he did.

Beginning with God in the doctrine of the covenant, he demonstrated that God is in His own triune life a covenant God who lives in blessed and perfect fellowship with Himself. That covenant life which He eternally enjoys, God chooses to reveal in His own eternal Son, Jesus Christ, the Head of the covenant. He reveals it through Christ by taking Christ, through the way of Christ's cross, into the covenant life of the Trinity; and in taking Christ into that covenant life, He takes all His elect into the very life of the Trinity itself so that God and His people may have joyful fellowship together for ever. 

Such positive development of the truth is true church reformation.

And such God-centered theology takes all glory from man and gives it to God - where it belongs.

This is the history of the PRC.

READY TO GIVE AN ASWER, PP. 13-18

Herman Hanko

Herman Hoeksema

http://www.cprf.co.uk/bookstore/readytogiveananswer.htm#.VRN1W46kzMw

Guido de Brès and His Love Letter to His Beloved Wife

Part of the power and enduring value of our confessions is the fact that they arose out of the life of the church. They were not drawn up by men sitting in ivory towers, contemplating the truth of Scripture, but far removed from the battle for the faith. They breath the life of the church's struggles.

The Heidelberg Catechism was written in the struggles between Calvinism on the one hand and Lutheranism and Romanism on the other hand, as these struggles were bitterly fought out in Frederick's Palatinate. The Canons of Dordt arose out of the fierce battle with Arminianism which all but engulfed the churches in the Netherlands in the first part of the 17th century. The Confession of Faith (Sometimes called, The Belgic or Netherlands Confession) was written during and reflects the bitter persecution of the saints in the Lowlands in the early years of the Reformation.
It is this persecution, in the midst of which it was written, that gives to the Confession of Faith its moving power. The affirmations of the confession, "We all believe ..."; "We confess ..."; "We believe and profess ..." take on new meaning when we understand that they are shouts that arise from scaffolds, burning piles of tinder, deep prison cells, and cruel torture chambers.
Its author, Guido de Brès, died on the scaffold for his faith. To his story we know turn.

Early Life And Conversion

Guido de Brès was born in Mons in 1522, the fourth child of a family of glass painters. In Mons the art of glass painting had been highly developed, and Mons deservedly had an international reputation for the skill of its artists. Guido himself was trained for this work.
Guido's family carried on the traditions of the guilds in Mons, although the children were split on Reformation doctrine. John, the oldest, while remaining Roman Catholic all his life, helped Protestants in times of persecution. Christophe was a seller of glassware, but spent his entire life distributing Bibles and Protestant literature, often at great risk to his life. Jerome became a cloth dyer and remained within the Romish Church. Marlette, the only girl, married a Protestant in Valenciennes and, with her husband, was deeply involved in Protestant affairs.
The city of Mons was on the border of France and the Lowlands, that part of the Lowlands which is now Belgium. Here Lutheranism had first come and had been eagerly studied by the citizens; but the Hugenots from France soon followed with the purer Reformation doctrines of John Calvin.
Guido, already in his teens, heard from others Reformation truths and could not help but listen to the stories of those who, already then, were being killed for the sake of the gospel. He was only 14 when the news reached him of Tyndale's cruel martyrdom. It may have been Tyndale's willingness to die for the sake of translating the Bible into the language of the people that led Guido to study the Scriptures. But it was through this study that God led him to true faith in Jesus Christ.
Guido decided, perhaps because of persecution in the Lowlands, to go to London and join a refugee Church in East London. East London was a haven for refugees from many different countries in Europe who were forced to flee because of persecution. And so in that part of London could also be found a Walloon congregation composed of French-speaking citizens of the Lowlands, to which Guido joined himself. The refugees had peace in England because of the benign rule of Edward VI who, though young, favored Protestantism. Here he studied for the ministry and listened to the powerful preaching of the great Reformers á Lasco and Martin Bucer.

Work In The Lowlands

But Guido's love was for his native land, and in 1552 at the age of 30, he returned -- as an evangelist and traveling preacher. From that moment on his life was in almost constant danger.
His first field of labor was the city of Lille, in which a large secret Protestant community had been established under the name, the Church of the Rose. From Lille he went to Ghent, where he published a tract entitled Le Báton de la foi ("The Staff of the Faith"), a stirring defense of the Reformed faith.
Guido enjoyed a brief interlude at this time. Traveling to Frankfurt in Germany, Guido met Calvin and was persuaded to come to Geneva. In the three years he spent in Geneva, Guido learned the Reformed faith more perfectly, mastered Greek and Hebrew under Beza and Calvin, and was more fully equipped for the gospel ministry. During this period (1559), he also married Catherine Ramon and with her had four or five children, the oldest named Israel, and the second, Sara.
While Guido was in Geneva, Charles V retired, weary and careworn, to a monastery in Spain, and his cruel son Philip II came to the throne. Philip was determined to stamp out all "heresy," especially in the Lowlands. While, therefore, up to this time persecution had been sporadic and relatively light, it now became more severe and bitter.
de Brès, after returning again to the Lowlands, was forced to travel in disguise and under the pseudonym of Jerome. Although the cities in southern Belgium and northern France (Lille, Antwerp, Mons) were the area of his labor, his headquarters was in Doornik where he ministered to the congregation which had chosen as its name, the Church of the Palm.
Here two former ministers had been burned at the stake for their faith; here the congregation knew de Brès only as "Jerome"; here the meetings of the congregation were always held in secret and at night, with small groups of not more than 12 attending at one time.
In spite of the problems which the congregation faced, de Brès organized the church with elders and deacons and faithfully administered the sacraments.
But even this situation did not remain, for a more radical group of the believers, under the leadership of Robert du Four, thought it cowardly and unfaithful to Christ to keep their faith secret. The group, several hundred strong, moved in public procession through the city singing Psalms in open defiance of the authorities. The next night, September 30, 1561, 500 Protestants gathered for the same purpose. The result was that Roman Catholic investigators were sent with orders to suppress Protestantism in the city.
Although Guido managed to hide until December and flee in safety, all the information of the secret congregation was discovered, Guido's true identity was found out, the people of the church were forced to flee or be killed, and Guido's rooms were ransacked and his papers (including letters from Calvin) were burned. Guido was hanged in effigy.
Guido concentrated his work for several years in northern France, perhaps some of the quietest years of his ministerial career. Although also in France persecution against the Hugenots raged, in Guido's area the church had peace. He worked in Amiens, Montdidier, Dieppe, and Sedan, building up the congregations and preaching faithfully the gospel.
But he could not refrain from making periodic trips into his own country, a "lion's den" of danger. He traveled three times to Doornik, his old congregation, once to Brussels to meet with William of Orange concerning matters of union between Calvinists and Lutherans, once to a secret Synod of the Reformed Churches held in Antwerp (the password for entry was "Vineyard") where de Brès' Confession was adopted as the official confession of the Reformed Churches.
In 1566 de Brès went to Valenciennes to become a preacher in the church there, a congregation which called itself the Church of the Eagle. While the Protestant faith grew so rapidly that the Roman Catholic authorities dared not interfere in the religion of God's people, certain radical elements once again stepped forward and created trouble. Stirring up large mobs, they went through all the cathedrals smashing, burning, destroying anything that in the least smelled like popery. Philip II, infuriated at this, sent troops to lay siege to the city, which surrendered on Palm Sunday, 1567. Although de Brès escaped with four companions, he was soon captured and imprisoned.

His Martyrdom and Importance

de Brès spent the first part of his captivity in a prison in Doornik, where he could receive visitors. Many of his visitors, however, were enemies who came to taunt him. But just as was the case with the apostle Paul (Philippians 1:12-14), Guido's imprisonment became an occasion for him to witness to the truth. When a princess, along with many young court ladies, came to mock, and the princess said in horror at Guido's heavy chains, "My God, Mr. de Brès, I don't see how you can eat, drink, or sleep that way. I think I would die of fear, if I were in your place," Guido responded: "My lady, the good cause for which I suffer and the good conscience God has given me make my bread sweeter and my sleep sounder than those of my persecutors." And, then, still responding to the princess, "It is guilt that makes a chain heavy. Innocence makes my chains light. I glory in them as my badges of honor."
Soon Guido was transferred to Valenciennes and thrown into a dark, cold, damp, rat-infested dungeon known as The Black Hole. In spite of the cold, the hunger, the horror of this hole, Guido wrote a tract on the Lord's Supper and letters to his friends, his aged mother, and his wife. A letter to his wife is an especially moving testimony of his faith.


Reproduced below is Guido de Brès' letter to his wife, dated April 12, 1567. He was hung on May 31, 1567.

"The grace and mercy of our good God and heavenly Father, and the love of His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, be with you, my dearly beloved.


Catherine Ramon, my dear and beloved wife and sister in our Lord Jesus Christ: your anguish and sadness disturbs somewhat my joy and the happiness of my heart, so I am writing this for the consolation of both of us, and especially for your consolation, since you have always loved me with an ardent affection, and because it pleases the Lord to separate us from each other. I feel your sorrow over this separation more keenly than mine. I pray you not to be troubled too much over this, for fear of offending God. You knew when you married me that you were taking a mortal husband, who was uncertain of life, and yet it has pleased God to permit us to live together for seven years, giving us five children. If the Lord had wished us to live together longer, he would have provided the way. But it did not please him to do this and may his will be done.

Now remember that I did not fall into the hands of my enemies by mere chance, but through the providence of my God who controls and governs all things, the least as well as the greatest. This is shown by the words of Christ, “Be not afraid. Your very hairs are numbered. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them shall fall to the ground without the will of your Father. Then fear nothing. You are more excellent than many sparrows.” These words of divine wisdom say that God knows the number of my hairs. How then can harm come to me without the command and providence of God? It could not happen, unless one should say that God is no longer God. This is why the Prophet says that there is no affliction in the city that the Lord has not willed.

Many saintly persons who were before us consoled themselves in their afflictions and tribulations with this doctrine. Joseph, having been sold by his brothers and taken into Egypt, says, “You did a wicked deed, but God has turned it to your good. God sent me into Egypt before you for your profit.” (Genesis 50). David also experienced this when Shimei cursed him. So too in the case of Job and many others.

And that is why the Evangelists write so carefully of the sufferings and of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, adding, “And this was done that that which was written of Him might be accomplished.” The same should be said of all the members of Christ.

It is very true that human reason rebels against this doctrine and resists it as much as possible and I have very strongly experienced this myself. When I was arrested, I would say to myself, “So many of us should not have traveled together. We were betrayed by this one or that one. We ought not to have been arrested.” With such thoughts I became overwhelmed, until my spirits were raised by meditation on the providence of God. Then my heart began to feel a great repose. I began then to say, “My God, you have caused me to be born in the time you have ordained. During all the time of my life you have kept me and preserved me from great dangers and you have delivered me from them all – and if at present my hour has come in which I will pass from this life to you, may your will be done. I cannot escape from your hands. And if I could, I would not, since it is happiness for me to conform to your will.” These thoughts made my heart cheerful again.

And I pray you, my dear and faithful companion, to join me in thanking God for what he has done. For he does nothing that is not just and very equitable, and you should believe that it is for my good and for my peace. You have seen and felt my labours, cross, persecutions, and afflictions which I have endured, and have even had a part in them when you accompanied me in my travels during the time of my exile. Now my God has extended his hand to receive me into his blessed kingdom. I shall see it before you and when it shall please the Lord, you will follow me. This separation is not for all time. The Lord will receive you also to join us together again in our head, Jesus Christ.

This is not the place of our habitation – that is in heaven. This is only the place of our journey. That is why we long for our true country, which is heaven. We desire to be received in the home of our Heavenly Father, to see our Brother, Head, and Saviour Jesus Christ, to see the noble company of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and many thousands of martyrs, into whose company I hope to be received when I have finished the course of my work which I received from my Lord Jesus Christ.

I pray you, my dearly beloved, to console yourself with meditation on these things. Consider the honour that God has done you, in giving you a husband who was not only a minister of the Son of God, but so esteemed of God that he allowed him to have the crown of martyrs. It is an honour the like of which God has never even given to the angels.

I am happy; my heart is light and it lacks nothing in my afflictions. I am so filled with the abundance of the richness of my God that I have enough for me and all those to whom I can speak. So I pray my God that he will continue his kindness to me, his prisoner. The One in whom I have trusted will do it, for I have found by experience that he will never leave those who have trusted in him. I would never have thought that God would have been so kind to such a poor creature as I. I feel the faithfulness of my Lord Jesus Christ.

I am practicing now what I have preached to others. And I must confess that when I preached I would speak about the things I am actually experiencing as a blind man speaks of colour. Since I was taken prisoner I have profited more and learned more than during all the rest of my life. I am in a very good school: the Holy Spirit inspires me continually and teaches me how to use the weapons in this combat. On the other side is Satan, the adversary of all children of God. He is like a boisterous, roaring lion. He constantly surrounds me and seeks to wound me. But he who has said, “Fear not, for I have overcome the world,” makes me victorious. And already I see that the Lord puts Satan under my feet and I feel the power of God perfected in my weakness.

Our Lord permits me on the one hand to feel my weakness and my smallness, that I am but a small vessel on the earth, very fragile, to the end that he would humble me, so that all the glory of the victory may be given to him. On the other hand, he fortifies me and consoles me in an unbelievable way. I have more comfort than the enemies of the gospel. I eat, drink and rest better than they do. I am held in a very strong prison, very bleak, obscure and dark. The prison is known by the obscure name “Brunain.” The air is poor and it stinks. On my feet and hands I have irons, big and heavy. They are a continual hell, hollowing my limbs up to my poor bones. The chief constable comes to look at my irons two or three times a day, fearing that I will escape. There are three guards of forty men before the door of the prison.

I have also the visits of Monsieur de Hamaide. He comes to see me, to console me, and to exhort me to patience, as he says. However, he comes after dinner, after he has wine in the head and a full stomach. You can imagine what these consolations are. He threatens me and says to me that if I would show any intention of escaping he would have me chained by the neck, the body and legs, so that I could not move a finger; and he says many other things in this order. But for all that, my God does not take away his promises, consoling my heart, giving me very much contentment.

Since such things have happened, my dear sister and faithful wife, I implore you to find comfort from the Lord in your afflictions and to place your troubles with him. He is the husband of believing widows and the father of poor orphans. He will never leave you – of that I can assure you. Conduct yourself as a Christian woman, faithful in the fear of God, as you always have been, honouring by your good life and conversation the doctrine of the Son of God, which your husband has preached.

As you have always loved me with great affection, I pray that you will continue this love toward our little children, instructing them in the knowledge of the true God and of his Son Jesus Christ. Be their father and their mother, and take care that they use honestly the little that God has given you. If God does you the favour to permit you to live in widowhood with our children after my death, that will be well. If you cannot, and the means are lacking, then go to some good man, faithful and fearing God. And when I can, I shall write to our friends to watch over you. I think that they will not let you want for anything. Take up your regular routine after the Lord has taken me. You have our daughter Sarah who will soon be grown. She will be your companion and help you in your troubles. She will console you in your tribulations and the Lord will always be with you. Greet our good friends in my name, and let them pray to God for me, that he may give me strength, speech, and the wisdom and ability to uphold the truth of the Son of God to the end and to the last breath of my life.

Farewell, Catherine, my dearly beloved. I pray my God that he will comfort you and give you contentment in his good will. I hope that God has given me the grace to write for your benefit, in such a way that you may be consoled in this poor world. Keep my letter for a remembrance of me. It is badly written, but it is what I am able to do, and not what I wish to do. Commend me to my good mother. I hope to write some consolation to her, if it pleases God. Greet also my good sister. May she take her affliction to God. Grace be with you.

At the prison, April 12, 1567.

Your faithful husband, Guy de Brès, minister of the Word of God at Valenciennes, and presently prisoner for the Son of God at the aforesaid place."
Sources: "A Reformation Martyr Comforts His Wife" by W.L. Bredenhof 
http://underdogtheology.blogspot.com/2011/05/love-letter-of-all-love-letters-guido.html


Guido was publicly hanged on May 31, 1567 at the age of 47. He was pushed off the ladder while comforting the crowd which had gathered and urging them to faithfulness to the Scriptures. His body was left hanging the rest of the day and buried in a shallow grave where dogs and wild animals dug it up and consumed it.
Guido de Brès is the author of our Confession of Faith, although he was assisted by Adrien de Saravia (professor of theology in Leyden), H. Modetus (chaplain of William of Orange), and G. Wingen. It was written in the vain hope that it would persuade the cruel Philip II to see that the views of the Calvinists were truly biblical and to stop persecution against them. Roman Catholics had lumped the Calvinists with the radical and wild-eyed Anabaptists who rejected the authority of magistrates, and the Confession sets the Reformed faith over against Anabaptism.
The Confession was thrown over the wall in Doornik and ultimately did reach the king but it served only to arouse Philip to greater fury against the saints of God.
In a letter which was added to the Confession, Guido and his co-workers protested being called rebels. They solemnly averred that though they number over 100,000 and were cruelly oppressed by "excommunications, imprisonments, banishments, racks, and tortures, and other numberless oppressions which they had undergone," they obeyed their government in all things lawful, and that "having the fear of God before their eyes, and being terrified by the threatening of Christ, who had declared in the Gospel that he would deny them before God the Father, in case they denied him before men, they therefore offered their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to the fire."
From this spilled blood God caused to emerge a confession of faith which has held a special place in the hearts of Reformed believers. It is as if, knowing that the confession was written in blood, the saints receive it as a sacred trust, precious and vibrating yet with the faith of their fathers.
Our fathers both knew what they believed and were faithful to it, even to death. We have received, by the Spirit of truth, the glorious fruit which God worked through them. It is entrusted to our care that we may be faithful to it and teach it to our children.
We ought earnestly to pray that we may know as they did the faith, and that we may be faithful to it as they were, for persecution shall soon also be our lot.

http://www.prca.org/books/portraits/debres.htm