An Analysis of Guy de Brès’ Le baston (1559–1565), Chapter 10: Baptism

Abstract The chapter on baptism that Guy de Brès added to the fourth edition of Le baston de la foy chrestienne in 1559 is a good illustration of how the work was evolving from a polemical anthology of patristic and biblical quotations to more of a dogmatic compendium. The new chapter also exhibits a number of structural and theological parallels with de Brès’ Belgic Confession of 1561. In its treatment of baptism in relation to original sin and salvation, baptism as a means of grace, and infant baptism, the chapter indicates at the very least that some of the concepts, themes, and theological reasoning that appeared in the Belgic Confession in 1561 were already present, sometimes in fairly developed form, in Le baston two years earlier.