Lesson 6
Reformed Confessions in the 16th and 17th Centuries
   (Print) (Debate platform)

1. Introduction
2. On the Nature of Reformed Confessions
3. Confessions from the area of the German-Swiss Reformation
4. Confessions from the Calvinist Reformation
5. Confessions from German Regions
6. Confessions from West and North Europe
7. Confessions from East and South Europe
8. Confessional Formation from the 18th to the 20th Century

2. On the Nature of Reformed Confessions

The Reformed understanding of “confession” is characterised in several different ways.

1. To be emphasised in the first place is regional and temporal particularity. Unlike in Lutheranism there is no confession in the Reformed churches which is valid for all churches. In Germany the Heidelberg Catechism is the authoritative confession; in the Netherlands the Confessio Belgica, the Heidelberg Catechism and within limits the Canons of Dordrecht; in Anglo-Saxon countries the Westminster Confession; in Hungary among other things the Erlauthal Confession; and in the USA the Reformed churches do not all have the same confessions – and this list could be effortlessly lengthened. The confessions do not constitute a uniting bond within the Reformed-confessional family. Nevertheless, they do connect some churches with one another and they have a validity that extends over regional boundaries. Besides the regional restrictions, it must also be said that not every Reformed confession has remained valid for all time after its emergence. Rather there are confessions which have had their time, for example the Canons of Dordrecht from the year 1648 or the Scottish Confession. They were valid for a time and could nevertheless lose their meaning again. The diversity of confessions is characteristic of Reformed Protestantism. The various collections of Reformed confessional texts that emerged are thus to be understand more as documentation than as setting a standard. In the time of the Reformation, furthermore, there were no attempts to formulate such a standard model, nor did there arise later with any real seriousness a wider consensus that this would be possible or necessary. To be sure, there have always been collections of the confessional texts. In the year 1903 the Reformed theological professor from Erlangen, E.F.K. Müller, made a large edition. And in 2002 the first volume of an estimated five-volume edition of Reformed confessional texts appeared.
    
2. To this must be added a second factor: the nature of the Reformed confessional statements as in principle surpassable, or put differently, the proviso that a better insight into the Holy Scriptures is always possible. Exemplary in this respect is the foreword of the Confessio Helvetica Posterior from the year 1566: “Above all, however, we testify that on request we are always fully prepared to explicate our interpretations more fully both in general and in particular, and finally to give in, not without thanks, to those who from the word God are able to put us right, and to obey in the Lord, to whom be praise and glory.” Similarly the Confessio Scotica of 1560: “If any man will note in this our confession any article or sentence repugning to God’s holy word, that it would please him of his gentleness, and for Christian charity’s sake, to admonish us of the same in writing; and we, of our honour and fidelity, do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God (that is, from his holy scriptures), or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss.” The composers of the confessions profess explicitly that their confession is revisable, bound to their limited insight, and in principle changeable. They are thus explicit about their own contextuality and limitedness. Without this reservation a confession would be wrongly understood, because it could then be understood as elevation. There is a fundamental difference between the perception of the composer and thus the text of the confession on the one hand, and the Holy Scriptures on the other hand.
    
3. Besides these factors which emphasise particularity, there is a third aspect which stands consciously in tension with them: universality. For the confession does not only intend to express its own relative perception, which it does indeed do, as has just been shown. Rather, insofar as this particularity is accepted, a further claim reaching beyond this limitedness is made simultaneously: the claim of universal truth, and that means truth which does not only concern the church. In the words of the already mentioned Confessio Scotica: “And therefore, by the assistance of the mighty Spirit of the same our Lord Jesus, we firmly purpose to abide to the end, in the confession of this our faith, as by articles follows.” This claim sounds just as clear as the previously named relativisation. It is thereby expressed that the confessions are not private confessions – they claim to name the one quintessential truth, not only the truth for the regional or particular church in question. The confession thus expresses universality and catholicity insofar as it expresses the truth of the whole one Church. The confession speaks universally in the awareness of its own particularity.