Confessions state that church's beliefs in a full, while not exhaustive, way.
Continental Reformed • Confession of the East Friesland Preachers (1528) • First Confession of Basel (1534) • Confession of the English Congregation at Geneva (1556) • Authored by
Huguenots in South America •
French Confession of Faith (1559) • Confession of the Christian Faith (1559) •
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) •
Confession of Faith Ratification Act (1690) •
Confession of 1967 •
Brief Statement of Faith (1991)
Congregationalist The presbyterians'
Westminster was formed by
an assembly of ministers called by
parliament for use in the
established churches of England and Scotland. For congregationalists, this was not the case. The difference in application of the congregationalists' primary confession
, Savoy, is that it was written as a declaration of consensus, and as such it was not treated as morally binding upon church officers like
Westminster for presbyterians (called
subscriptionism). Local congregational churches are historically formed around
covenants (e.g. the
Dedham Covenant), often unique to that church, another kind of confession. •
Savoy Declaration (1658) • Adopted in America as the
Saybrook (1708) Only confessional Particular Baptists regard themselves to be "Reformed", since orthodox and historic Reformed theology is inherently paedobaptistic. Part of the Baptist movement finds its origin in the
nonconformist movement in England, observing Calvinistic theology with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Baptists subscribing to Calvinist soteriology are called
Particular Baptists or Reformed Baptist. There are further subdivisions of Particular Baptists, such as
Regular and
Primitive. Baptist churches, like the Congregationalists with whom they share views of polity, compose
church covenants for the local congregation. • The Confession of Somerset (1656) • Adopted in America as the
Philadelphia Confession (1742)
Anglican doctrine is most defined by
Lex orandi, lex credendi ("the law of praying [is] the law of believing"). •
Forty-two Articles (1553) •
Thirty-Nine Articles (1562/63)
Methodist • Calvinistic Methodist Confession of Faith (1823) == Catechisms ==