A Confession of Faith is a statement of doctrine very similar to a creed, but usually longer and polemical, as well as didactic. Doctrine, from Latin doctrina, (compare doctor), means a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system. ... A creed is a statement of belief—usually religious belief—or faith. ...

Confessions of Faith are in the main, though not exclusively, associated with Protestantism. The 16th and 17th centuries produced many, including: Protestantism is a movement within Christianity, representing a split from within the Roman Catholic Church during the mid-to-late Renaissance in Europe —a period known as the Protestant Reformation. ...

• the Sixty-seven Articles of the Swiss reformers, drawn up by Zwingli in 1523;
• the Schleitheim Confession[1] of the Anabaptist Swiss Brethren drawn up in 1527 - (this confession was neither Catholic nor Protestant);
• the Augsburg Confession of 1530, the work of Luther and Melanchthon, which marked the breach with Rome;
• the Tetrapolitan Confession of the German Reformed Church, 1530;
• the Gallican Confession, 1559;
• the Scots Confession, drawn up by John Knox in 1560;
• the Belgic Confession[2] drawn up by Guido de Brès[3] in 1561;
• the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England in 1562;
• the Irish Articles in 1615;
• and the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647.

This last, the work of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, has by its force of language, logical statement, comprehensiveness, and dependence on Scripture, commended itself to the Presbyterian Churches of all English-speaking peoples, and is the most widely recognised Protestant statement of doctrine; it has as yet been modified only by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which adopted a Declaratory Statement regarding certain of its doctrines in 1879, and by the Free Church of Scotland, which adopted a similar statement in 1890. Zwinglis Successor Zwinglis successor, Heinrich Bullinger, was elected on December 9, 1531, to be the pastor of the Great Minster at Zürich, a position which he held to the end of his life (1575). ... Events April - Battle of Villalar - Forces loyal to Emperor Charles V defeat the Comuneros, a league of urban bourgeois rebelling against Charles in Spain. ... The Schleitheim Confession was a declaration of Swiss Anabaptist belief, endorsed unanimously by a meeting of Swiss Anabaptists in 1527 in Schleitheim (Switzerland). ... Anabaptists (Greek ana+baptizo re-baptizers, German: Wiedertäufer) are Christians of the so-called radical wing of the Protestant Reformation. ... Events January 5 - Felix Manz, co-founder of the Swiss Anabaptists, was drowned in the Limmat River in Zürich by the Zürich Reformed state church. ... The Augsburg Confession, in Latin Confessio Augustana, is the central document of the Lutheran reformation, which was a reaction against the Roman Catholic Church. ... Events June 25 - Augsburg confession presented to Charles V of Holy Roman Empire. ... For other people named Martin Luther see: Martin Luther (disambiguation), or here for Martin Luther King, Jr. ... Philipp Melanchthon (February 16, 1497 - April 19, 1560) was a German theologian and writer of the Protestant Reformation and an associate of Martin Luther. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,823,807 almost 4,000,000 1... The Scots Confession was written in 1560 by six leaders of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, coincidentally all named John. The Confession was the first Book of Faith for the Protestant Scottish Kirk. ... John Knox (1505, 1513 or 1514 – 1572) was a Scottish religious reformer who played the lead part in reforming the Church in Scotland in a Presbyterian manner. ... The Confession of Faith, popularly known as the Belgic Confession, following the seventeenth-century Latin designation Confessio Belgica. ... // Events The Edict of Orleans suspends the persecution of the Huguenots. ... The Thirty-Nine Articles are the defining statements of Anglican doctrine. ... The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... The Westminster Confession of Faith is the chief doctrinal product of the Protestant Westminster Assembly. ... Many religions and spiritual movements hold certain written texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. ... Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed churches family of denominations of Christian Protestantism based on the teachings of John Calvin which traces its institutional roots to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. ... The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland (1847-1900) was a Scottish Presbyterian denomination. ... This article concerns the Free Church of Scotland 1843-1900, for the Free Church of Scotland existing from 1900 to the present day see Free Church of Scotland (post 1900). ...

See also

• the Savoy Declaration[4] of 1658 which was a modification of the Westminster Confession to suit Congregational polity;
• the Baptist Confession of 1689 which had much in common with the Westminster Confession, but differed from it on a number of distinctions held important by the English Calvinistic Baptists.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia. Events January 13 - Edward Sexby, who had plotted against Oliver Cromwell, dies in Tower of London February 6 - Swedish troops of Charles X Gustav of Sweden cross The Great Belt (Storebælt) in Denmark over frozen sea May 1 - Publication of Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus by... Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation indepedently and autonomously runs its own affairs. ... The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith was written by Calvinistic Baptists in England to give a formal expression of the Reformed and Protestant Christian faith with an obvious Baptist perspective. ... Events Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir, allowing the full use of slaves in the French colonies. ... In an unadorned church, the 17th century congregation stands to hear the sermon. ... Baptist churches are part of a Christian movement often regarded as an Evangelical, Protestant denomination. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Nuttall Encyclopaedia is an early 20th century encyclopedia, edited by Rev. ...