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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 *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 C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster Confession Of Faith Title Page
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and much of the West End of London, West End cultural centre including the entertainment precinct of West End theatre. The name () originated from the informal description of the abbey church and royal peculiar of St Peter's (Westminster Abbey), west of the City of London (until the English Reformation there was also an Eastminster abbey, on the other side of the City of London, in the East End of London). The abbey's origins date from between the 7th and 10th centuries, but it rose to national prominence when rebuilt by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. With the development of the old palace alongside the abbey, Westminster has been the home of Governance of England, Engla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster Confession Of Faith
The Westminster Confession of Faith, or simply the Westminster Confession, is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it became and remains the " subordinate standard" of doctrine in the Church of Scotland and has been influential within Presbyterian churches worldwide. In 1643, the English Parliament called upon "learned, godly and judicious Divines" to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. Their meetings, over a period of five years, produced the confession of faith, as well as a Larger Catechism and a Shorter Catechism. For more than three hundred years, various churches around the world have adopted the confession and the catechisms as their standards of doctrine, subordinate to the Bible. For the Church of Scotland and the various denominations which spring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reformed Baptists
Reformed Baptists, also called Particular Baptists, or Calvinist Baptists, are Baptists that hold to a Calvinism, Calvinist soteriology (salvation belief teached by John Calvin). The name "Reformed Baptist" dates from the latter part of the 20th century to denote Baptists who retained a Baptist ecclesiology, and reaffirmed Reformed biblical theology, such as Covenant theology. Calvinist Baptists adhere to varying degrees of Calvinism, Reformed theology, ranging from simply embracing the Calvinism#Five_Points_of_Calvinism, Five Points of Calvinism, to accepting the Baptist covenant theology; all Reformed Baptists reject the classical Reformed teaching on infant baptism, meaning that they reject infants as the proper subjects of baptism. The first Calvinist Baptist church was formed in the 1630s. Reformed Baptists have produced two major confessions of faith as summary of their beliefs: The ''1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, Second London Confession of Faith'' (1689) and the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonconformist (Protestantism)
Nonconformists are Protestant Christians who do not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England. Use of the term ''Nonconformist'' in England and Wales was precipitated by the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed opposition to reforms within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians ( English Presbyterians and Congregationalists), plus the Baptists, Brethren, Methodists, and Quakers. English Dissenters, such as the Puritans, who violated the Act of Uniformity 1558 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, dissent – were retrospectively labelled as Nonconformists. In Ireland, the comparable term until the Church of Ireland's disestablishment in 1869 was Dissenter (the term earlier used in England), commonly referring to Irish Presbyterians who dissented from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baptists
Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the Christian theology, doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God in Christianity, God), ''sola fide'' (salvation by faith alone), ''sola scriptura'' (the Bible is the sole infallible authority, as the rule of faith and practice) and Congregationalist polity, congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two Ordinance (Christianity), ordinances: Baptism, baptism and Eucharist, communion. Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today may differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship. Baptist mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saybrook Platform
The Saybrook Platform was a constitution for the Congregational church in Connecticut in the 18th century. Historical context Religious and civic leaders in Connecticut around 1700 were distressed by the colony-wide decline in personal religious piety and in church discipline. The colonial legislature took action by calling 12 ministers and four laymen to meet in Saybrook, Connecticut; eight were Yale trustees. Delegates were involved in the polity debates between Presbyterianism on the one hand, Congregationalism on the other, and the mediating position of Consociationalism. Content The Platform consists of three parts: a confession, the Heads of Agreement, and the Fifteen Articles. Confession In reference to doctrine, the assembly adopted the Savoy Declaration as amended by the Boston Synod of 1680. This put the Connecticut church in line with the Westminster tradition and the Massachusetts church. The Savoy originally appended its own platform on polity to the confessi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savoy Declaration
The Savoy Declaration is a Congregationalist confession of faith. Its full title is ''A Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised in the Congregational Churches in England.'' It was drawn up in October 1658 by English Independents and Congregationalists meeting at the Savoy Hospital, London. It consists of a preface, a confession, and a platform of discipline. The Savoy Assembly The Savoy Assembly met at the Savoy for eleven or twelve days from 12 October 1658. Representatives, mostly laymen, were present from more than one hundred independent churches. Thomas Goodwin, who was a Westminster divine and author of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and John Owen were the leaders in a committee of six divines appointed to draw up a confession. :s:Goodwin, Thomas (DNB00) The writers were influenced by the Cambridge Platform, which was the statement of church government produced by the Congregational churches in New England. The 1647 Westminster Confession of Fai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge Platform
The Cambridge Platform is a statement of congregational church government for the churches of colonial New England. It was written in 1648 in response to Presbyterian criticism and served as the religious constitution of Massachusetts until 1780. The platform's preface also endorsed the Westminster Confession. The document was shaped primarily by the Puritan ministers Richard Mather and John Cotton. Background The Puritans who settled colonial New England were Calvinists who believed in congregational church government and that the church should include only regenerated persons as full members. Because of this, they became known as Congregationalists and their churches became known as Congregational churches. In New England, Congregationalism was the established religion—Congregational churches were supported financially by taxation and, in Massachusetts, only Congregational church members could vote. In the 1640s, Congregationalism faced heighteined scrutiny from Engl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dedham Covenant
The Dedham Covenant was a covenant that governed the early settlement of Dedham, Massachusetts. It mandated that only those with similar, Puritan, community values could live in the town and set about a method for mediating disputes. It also required each resident to pay their fair share of taxes for the common good. Eventually 125 men would sign the covenant. Background In 1635 there were rumors in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that a war with the local Indians was impending and a fear arose that the few, small, coastal communities that existed were in danger of attack. This, in addition to the belief that the few towns that did exist were too close together, prompted the Massachusetts General Court to establish two new inland communities, Dedham and Concord. As Puritans, the first settlers came to Massachusetts in order to live and worship as they pleased. While they were subject to the General Court, they had wide latitude to establish a local government as they saw fit. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Covenant
A church covenant is a declaration, which some churches draw up and call their members to sign, in which their duties as church members towards God and their fellow believers are outlined. It is a fraternal agreement, freely endorsed, that establishes what are, according to the Holy Scriptures, the duties of a Christian and the responsibilities which each church member pledges themselves to honour. History The idea of a church covenant is an expression of the free-church ecclesiology and it issues from within the context of the English Puritanism, becoming afterwards one of the characteristic traits of the Baptist churches. In the 16th century, the Church in England, confronted with the teaching of the Bible under the impulse of continental Protestantism, engaged itself in a reformation which disconnected it from many persuasions, practices and traditions of Roman Catholicism. In particular, from the time of Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and subsequent marria ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was an Parliament of England, English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an Personal Rule, 11-year parliamentary absence. In September 1640, Charles I of England, King Charles I issued writs summoning a parliament to convene on 3 November 1640.This article uses the Julian calendar with the start of year adjusted to 1 January – for a more detailed explanation, see Old Style and New Style dates#Differences between the start of the year, old style and new style dates: differences between the start of the year. He intended it to pass financial bills, a step made necessary by the costs of the Bishops' Wars against Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland. The Long Parliament received its name from the fact that, by Act of Parliament, it stipulated it could be dissolved only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
