The Westminster Confession of Faith is a classic statement of Christian theology. It was drafted over some three years of debate by more than a hundred ministers and theologians of the Westminster Assembly in England, and completed in December 1646. It remains one of the most influential confessions of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, widely admired for its clarity, depth, precision and comprehensiveness.
The Canons of Dort, formally "The Decision of the Synod of Dort on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands" and also known as the Five Articles against the Remonstrants, set out the doctrine adopted by the Synod of Dort in 1618–1619. Although it was a national synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, the gathering was genuinely international: sixty-two delegates from across the Netherlands were joined by twenty-seven delegates from eight other countries.
The Belgic Confession, the confession of faith of the Dutch Reformed churches, was written in 1561 and is sometimes called the Walloon Confession. Its author, Guido de Brès, wrote it in defence of the persecuted Reformed churches of the Low Countries. It was translated from French into Dutch in 1562, approved by a synod at Antwerp in 1566, and adopted by the Synod of Dort in 1618–1619. Together with the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort it forms the doctrinal basis of the Dutch Reformed tradition, and it is still a confessional standard for Reformed churches in North America today.