Reformed confessions of faith


The reformed confessions of faith are the confessional documents of various Reformed churches. These express the doctrinal views of the churches adopting the confession. Confessions play a crucial part in the theological identity of reformed churches, either as standards to which ministers must subscribe, or more generally as accurate descriptions of their faith. Most confessions date to the 16th and 17th century.
Catechisms, canons, theses and other such documents may not be confessions per se, yet these still serve as symbols of the reformed faith.

Confessions

Confessions state that church's beliefs in a full, while not exhaustive, way.

Continental Reformed

Presbyterian

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.
Local congregational churches are historically formed around covenants, often unique to that church, another kind of confession.

Baptist

Baptist confessions, like the Congregationalists, are statements of agreement rather than enforceable rules. They "have never been held as tests of orthodoxy, as of any authoritative or binding force; they merely reflect the existing harmony of views and the scriptural interpretations of the churches assenting to them."
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.

Anglican

Anglican churches are not confessional in the same strict sense as in Lutheran churches. Anglican doctrine is most defined by Lex orandi, lex credendi.

Methodist

Catechisms

Catechisms are teaching tools in the church, usually in a question and answer format.

Continental

Presbyterian

Congregationalist

Baptist

Anglican

Constitutions, ordinals, and platforms of church order

These documents relate to the ecclesiastical polity of the church.

Continental

Presbyterian

Congregationalist

Occasional documents

These documents are less general in scope than a usual confession. They may confess that church's response to a theological controversy or seek to find common ground between discrete churches.