Reformed confessions of faith

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

• Confession of the East Friesland Preachers (1528)
• Tetrapolitan Confession (1530)
• Synodical Declaration of Bern (1532)
• First Confession of Basel (1534)
• First Helvetic Confession/Second Confession of Basel (1536)
• Geneva Confession (1536)
• Altered Augsburg Confession (1540)
• Confession of the English Congregation at Geneva (1556)
• Guanabara Confession of Faith (1558)
  • Authored by Huguenots in South America
• French Confession of Faith (1559)
• Confession of the Christian Faith (1559)
• Belgic Confession (1561)
• Second Helvetic Confession (1562)
• Erlauthal Confession (1562)
• Hungarian Confession (1562)
• Confession of Nassau (1578)
• Bremen Consensus (1595)
• Sigismund Confession (1614)
• Theological Declaration of Barmen (1934)
• Belhar Confession (1986)
  • First adopted in South Africa and since adopted by many mainline Reformed churches.

Presbyterian

• Scots Confession (1560)
• 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.

• Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)
  • Though not produced by congregationalists, the Synod of Cambridge (1648) adopted the WCF without revision, only referring to their own Cambridge Platform regarding church government (ch. XXV., XXX., and XXXI)
• Savoy Declaration (1658)
  • Adopted in America as the Saybrook (1708)
• The Declaration of 1833
• Declaration of Faith (1865)

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.

• First London Baptist Confession (1644)
• The Confession of Somerset (1656)
• Second London Baptist Confession (1689)
  • Adopted in America as the Philadelphia Confession (1742)
• New Hampshire Confession (1833 or 1844)
• Baptist Affirmation of Faith 1966

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 ("the law of praying [is] the law of believing").

• Forty-two Articles (1553)
• Thirty-Nine Articles (1562/63)
• Irish Articles of Religion (1615)

Methodist

• Calvinistic Methodist Confession of Faith (1823)