The Story of the Belgic Confession and Its Author

Birth and Early Life of Guido de Bres

Guido (Guy) de Bres, was born in Mons (County of Hainaut; today in southwestern Belgium)
in 1522 to John de Bres, an itinerant blue painter, and his wife, a devout Roman Catholic
until the end of her life. Guido was one of five children:

John, the oldest son, became a blue painter, like his father; he never had the courage to
break with the Church in Rome, although he did help his brother Christophe escape the
Inquisition.

Christophe, the second son, sold glassware as a cover to distribute the Bible and banned
books of the Reformation. He traveled to many places in Europe and worked with the
printers in Paris and Lyons. Often in danger of losing his life, and hiding under assumed
names, this faithful carrier of the Word escaped capture and worked faithfully to spread the
Reformation all his life.

Jerome, a third brother, was also a blue painter and another faithful Catholic.

Mailette, the only girl in the family, married a woolen merchant named Daniel de la Deuze
and both were active in the Protestant group at Valenciennes, the city were Guido served his
last pastorate and was martyred.

Guido went to school in Mons and then was apprenticed to a glass painter. The city of Mons
was known for its artists, especially those who decorated cloth and glass. A stained-glass
artist was highly regarded, and young Guido worked hard to learn this skill. But while he
worked, his mind often meditated on the teachings of the Reformation, stories of Protestants
burned or beheaded in nearby villages. He was fourteen when the great Bible translator,
William Tyndale of England, was strangled and burned to death near Antwerp. Tyndale had
sought refuge in Belgium from persecution in his own land, but the Lowlands had given him
no safety either.

Guido was a very devout Roman Catholic until he converted to the Protestant faith in his
teenage years (18-25). He laid his hands on a Bible of his own and read it privately along with
the writings of Luther and other protestants, which made their way to Mons through
Antwerp. He now became a heretic, liable to death by burning, if he made known his newly
found faith. Later he converted to Calvinism, through the teachings of the fleeing Huguenots
from France and eventually studied under John Calvin at the academy of Geneva.

Career of Guido de Bres

On September 22, 1540 a proclamation banned a large number of books: by Erasmus in Latin,
Melanchthon, Eobanus Hessus and others, as well as the New Testament, the Gospels, the
Epistles, and the Prophetical books of the Bible in French and Flemish. These books were
deemed heretical by the Roman Catholic church authorities.

In 1543 books were burned in the marketplace of Lille: La Doctrines des Enfants (a Lutheran
catechism), also Lamentations of Jesus Christ, La Sant Ortraison, and a book by a Flemish
priest entitled: Letters Institution 2.

In 1548, while Guido was still in Mons, he forged a friendship with an English couple: Mr.
Nicholas and his wife. Mr. Nicholas, and his friend and their wives were caught by the
authorities and charged with subversion of the Roman Catholic faith. They were imprisoned
together with a number of Protestants from that area.

England (1548-1552)

Guido then fled to England, during the reign of the young ten-year old boy, Edward VI.
Edward was surrounded by advisers who leaned to the Reformed faith as taught by Calvin.
On November 1547 the English parliament had decided to allow the two elements used in
communion to be enjoyed by all people. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was
urging Reformation leaders to come to England. Protestant refugees began making their way
to England, including two Belgians who founded the first French-speaking church in
England.

Guido probably kept company with a number of refugees from continental Europe:
Tremellius, Valerand Poullain, Martin Bucer, John a Lasco, Ian Utenhove, Marten de Klyne
(Marten Micron or Micronius), Wouter Deelen, Francois Perucel de la Riviere and others
(more than 15,000 refugees were in England at that time. The largest group of refugees came
from the Low Countries.

While in England, Guido attended the church of John a Lasco, a Polish nobleman with
Zwinglian tendencies, and in 1551 he also became familiar with a Lasco's London confession.
John a Lasco served as superintendent to a number of foreign congregations including the
Dutch. For four years, de Bres had the privilege of studying under these men and watching
them work toward the reform of the churches.

Guido left England in 1552 before Mary, Queen of England, came to the throne. He decided
to return home in hopes of taking the Reformation to his own people. He had heard that
Charles V was smoothing the way to transfer the kingdom over to his son, Philip II.
Lille (Lowlands) - 1552-1556

Back in the Lowlands, de Bres became a traveling preacher sometimes going by the name
Augustine of Mons. He made his headquarters in the city of Lille, about forty miles
northwest of Mons. The group of Christians in Lille met secretly in homes. They called
themselves The Church of the Rose, which included many who were martyred. De Bres was
a very diligent pastor and also found time to study and write. His first book was published
the year that Philip became king, The Staff of the Christian Faith [written to layout the
principles of the Reformed faith and to attach the errors of the Catholic church], contained
sixteen chapters and was translated into several languages. It was dedicated to the faithful
people in The Church of the Rose, containing the words on the preface Put on the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day . . . . Guido's brother,
Christophe, may have had it published in Lyons.

The evil days did come to The Church of the Rose. Philip II made it his life mission to utterly
crush the Protestant heretics, even if that meant his losing control of the Lowlands. When
warned by his advisers, he responded, Better not to reign at all than to reign over heretics.

One day in March of 1556, the blacksmith Robert Oguier was dragged off to prison with his
wife an two grown sons for holding secret meetings of the Church of the Rose in his home.
After a mock trial, the father and one son, Baldwin, were tied to stakes in the market place of
Lille. As the flames leaped up around them they could be heard comforting one another in
the Lord. The next day, Joanna, the mother, and the other son, Martin had written to the
faithful ones, I pray you not to forget the holy doctrine of the Gospel which you have
received from our brother Guido. The letter was smuggled out, the faithful had been
cheered by it, but non wished to suffer the fate of the blacksmith's family. Plainly it was time
to flee for their lives.

Germany 1556-

Guido gathered his people together and headed to the city of Frankfurt in Germany. Here
three refugee churches were already established. Traveling in separate little groups, de Bres
and some of his people escaped, most likely by way of Antwerp. By May they were in
Frankfurt, where there was a Flemish church to which the people of Lille came with joy.

There was also an English refugee church Bloody Mary had followed the boy king Edward
on the throne of England and the famous John Knox was its temporary pastor. And there
was a French refugee church there and the people were having many problems. In
September of 1556, John Calvin came up from Geneva to see if he could settle the problems in
the French church. And there de Bres met the great reformer whose writings he had read and
followed.
Geneva

Perhaps Calvin invited de Bres to come to Switzerland, or perhaps de Bres had intended to
continue his studying there anyway. He wanted to study Greek and Hebrew to prepare
himself better to be a pastor. For two years de Bres was at the Protestant Academy in
Lausanne studying Greek under Theodore Beza, who became Calvin's successor in Geneva.
When Beza went to Geneva to help Calvin, de Bres went too. He stayed a year in this
Reformation city and on Sundays he went to the vaulted Church of Saint Pierre to hear Calvin
preach. On weekdays he went across the street to the smaller auditorium where the public
lectures on theology were given. After three years of study, de Bres became restless for active
ministry again and boarded a river boat on the Rhine headed for Doornik (Tournai), fifteen
miles east of Lille.

Low Countries (1559)

Now fully committed to the Reformed faith, Guido served as the resident minister in Tournai
from 1559 to 1561. Here the secret Protestant church was known as The Church of the Palm
and de Bres became its minister. He was thirty-seven years old and in many ways his life of
hiding and fleeing had been a lonely one.

He became attracted to a dark-eyed young woman in the group that gathered to worship.
But did a hunted minister have the right to marry? De Bres confessed his love to Catharine
Ramon and told her he could offer her only a life of uncertainty. It was enough, she
answered, to love each other and to know their lives were in God's good hands. Someitme in
1559, Guido de Bres and Catharine Ramon were married. The next year a son was born to
them and they named him Israel.

If was during their first year of marriage that de Bres began to outline a confession of faith for
which the church of centuries to come would remember him and give thanks.

In 1561 he authored the Belgic confession, heavily influenced by Calvin's French confession,
1559 and the Institutes of the Christian Religion, both which were written to justify the claims of
orthodoxy for the Reformed church in France.

De Bres wrote his confession (1561) for the Spanish government to show that the Calvinist
weren't a radical Anabaptist sectarian movement. The confession was printed by Jean
Crespin in Geneva. On the night of November 01, 1561, de Bres threw a wax sealed package
(containing a copy of the confession printed in French and an unsigned letter written by
hand) over the castle wall of Tournai, where Margaret of Parma, governor of the Netherlands
stayed, to bring the confession to the attention of the Spanish government.
Death May 31, 1567 (45 years old)

In 1565, Guido was arrested for his Calvinist beliefs. He was tried before the Spanish
Inquisition, received the death penalty, and was hanged at Valenciennes. He died a martyr's
death in front of a large crowd after making a final statement of his beliefs. He was pushed
off the scaffold by the hangman while addressing the crowd. Twelve days before his death he
wrote a still-circulating letter to his wife showing his trust in God.