Abstract:
This article examins the background, history and development of Reformed
confessions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but especially
the Swiss and French confessions which influenced the Belgic Confession
of Faith, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Articles of Dordt.
The premise is that if we really want to understand and interpret confessions,
they must be read against their historical, theological and political
background. At the same time confessions cannot be properly understood
in isolation from their present context, that is, being confessions of
the church. Confessions are not only historical documents, but of immense
importance to the church which must confess its faith in the present.
