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confession

Belgic Confession

BC · 1561 · 37 chapters, 40 paragraphs

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By
Guido de Brès
Dates
written 1561; first published 1561; adopted by the Synod of Emden, 1571; adopted by the Synod of Dort, 1619
Tradition
reformed
Also called
Belgic Confession of Faith; Confessio Belgica; Netherlands Confession; The Confession of Faith of the Reformed Dutch Church
Follows
The Constitution of the Reformed Dutch Church of North America, the Reformed Dutch Church’s English, “Revised in the National Synod held at Dordrecht, in the years, 1618, and 1619”, as in its Constitution, 1840 (Philadelphia) · the scan (PDF) , from archive.org
Transcribed
From the scanChecked against a copy at archive.org: all, word by word against the page images (pp. 40–60), and against two OCRs of them, archive.org’s and Tesseract’s, by Claude, for cco3, 2026-10-28
License
Public domain
Notes

Guido de Brès’s confession of 1561, in thirty-seven articles, written in French for the Reformed churches of the Low Countries, revised at the Synod of Dort in 1619, and confessed with the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort (dort1619) as the Three Forms of Unity. This is the English of the Reformed Dutch Church in America, “The Confession of Faith of the Reformed Dutch Church, Revised in the National Synod held at Dordrecht”, as printed in its Constitution (Philadelphia, 1840, pp. 40–60), the printing heidelberg follows. Each article is a chapter, with the printing’s title; article 1’s number is printed “Article I.”, the rest are numbered only. Articles 4, 9 and 18 are of two paragraphs, the rest of one. The printing sets the words of Scripture in italics and rarely says where they are from; the four references it prints are the segments’ proofs: in articles 2 and 37 they follow the words as a citation and are taken out of the text, and in article 9 they introduce the words they cite and stay in it. Its italics and small capitals (“Immanuel”, “very God”) are not kept, and its spacing before stops is not; its spelling, capitals and punctuation are, but where a letter or a stop is wanting or a stop is wrong, which confessions/belgic1561/EMENDATIONS.md lists with how the references were made proofs.

Download
belgic1561.json · 115 kB

Contents

  1. 1

    That there is one only God

    1.1

  2. 2

    By what means God is made known unto us

    2.1

  3. 3

    Of the written word of God

    3.1

  4. 4

    Canonical books of the Holy Scriptures

    4.14.2

  5. 5

    From whence do the Holy Scriptures derive their dignity and authority

    5.1

  6. 6

    The difference between the canonical and apocryphal books

    6.1

  7. 7

    The sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, to be the only rule of faith

    7.1

  8. 8

    That God is one in essence, yet nevertheless distinguished in three persons

    8.1

  9. 9

    The truth of the foregoing article of the trinity of persons in one God

    9.19.2

  10. 10

    That Jesus Christ is true and eternal God

    10.1

  11. 11

    That the Holy Ghost is true and eternal God

    11.1

  12. 12

    Of the Creation

    12.1

  13. 13

    Of Divine Providence

    13.1

  14. 14

    Of the creation and fall of Man, and his incapacity to perform what is truly good

    14.1

  15. 15

    Of original Sin

    15.1

  16. 16

    Of eternal Election

    16.1

  17. 17

    Of the recovery of fallen Man

    17.1

  18. 18

    Of the incarnation of Jesus Christ

    18.118.2

  19. 19

    Of the union and distinction of the two natures in the person of Christ

    19.1

  20. 20

    That God hath manifested his justice and mercy in Christ

    20.1

  21. 21

    Of the satisfaction of Christ, our only high priest, for us

    21.1

  22. 22

    Of our justification through faith in Jesus Christ

    22.1

  23. 23

    That our justification consists in the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness

    23.1

  24. 24

    Of man’s sanctification and good works

    24.1

  25. 25

    Of the abolishing of the Ceremonial Law

    25.1

  26. 26

    Of Christ’s intercession

    26.1

  27. 27

    Of the Catholic Christian Church

    27.1

  28. 28

    That every one is bound to join himself to the true Church

    28.1

  29. 29

    Of the marks of the true Church, and wherein she differs from the false Church

    29.1

  30. 30

    Concerning the government of, and offices in the Church

    30.1

  31. 31

    Of the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons

    31.1

  32. 32

    Of the order and discipline of the Church

    32.1

  33. 33

    Of the sacraments

    33.1

  34. 34

    Of holy baptism

    34.1

  35. 35

    Of the Holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ

    35.1

  36. 36

    Of Magistrates

    36.1

  37. 37

    Of the Last Judgment

    37.1