Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Almsgiving is treated as a duty of the whole congregation and was made an office of the church, the deacon's, rather than left to private charity.
One of the Christian feast days the Church Order of Dort required the congregations to keep, alongside the Nativity, the Resurrection and Pentecost.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Baptism is by pouring or sprinkling, and the Confession states plainly that dipping is not necessary.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, and the Confession teaches that its efficacy is not tied to the moment it is administered.
The church stands in the presbyterial camp. Ministers, elders and deacons govern together in the consistory, the consistories in a classis and the classes in synod, which is how the Synod of Dort could sit in the church's own name. No bishop stands above the assembly.
This church ended its separate existence in an act of reunion. In 2004 it joined with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, whose founders had left it in the quarrels of 1834 and 1886, and with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, to form the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Solemn fastings are named in the Westminster Confession as a part of religious worship, kept on particular occasions rather than by a fixed calendar.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. The Reformed burial was deliberately plain, and the Westminster Directory directed that the body be interred without ceremony, which is a reaction against the medieval rite rather than an absence of one.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Ordination is to the offices of minister, elder and deacon, by a body of ministers rather than by a bishop, and it is not a sacrament.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. The infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptised, and the Confession calls it a great sin to contemn or neglect the ordinance.
The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that God grants and credits to the believer the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ, as if the believer had never sinned, received by a believing heart alone. The Belgic Confession says the same in its article on justification.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Marriage is not a sacrament, and the Confession treats it under the law of God rather than under the ordinances of the church.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. The Christian Sabbath is kept with a rigour found nowhere else in Christianity: the whole day set apart, ordinary works, words and thoughts about worldly employments and recreations laid aside. This is the plainest Reformed distinctive in practice.
The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that human nature is so corrupted that we are wholly incapable of doing any good and inclined to all evil unless regenerated by the Spirit of God. The canons of Dort make that total inability the ground on which the doctrine of election stands.
The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that the justice of God requires the punishment of sin, and that Christ, true God and a true and righteous man, bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race, so that the debt is paid rather than overlooked.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. Prayer is treated as the chief exercise of faith, and the Heidelberg Catechism makes it the whole of its third part, on thankfulness.
The Synod of Dort sat under this church's authority between 1618 and 1619, so its canons are the church's own answer, not a borrowed one. Election is unconditional, resting on God's good pleasure and not on foreseen faith, and the canons state reprobation as a decree too, while insisting that God is in no way the author of sin. The five heads answer the Remonstrants point by point.
The Dutch church order is the continental form of presbyterial and synodical government, running from consistory through classis and particular synod to general synod. The name Presbyterian belongs to the English-speaking branch of the same order; the substance is shared.
The Heidelberg Catechism reads the second commandment as forbidding any worship of God in any other way than he has commanded in his word, and the Belgic Confession rejects human inventions introduced into the worship of God. This is what gave the Dutch churches their plain interiors and a long argument over what may lawfully be added to worship.
The Belgic Confession holds that faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with Christ and in all his benefits, and that it does not justify by any worth of its own but because Christ is our righteousness. Works follow as fruits and add nothing to the ground.
The Belgic Confession gives its early articles to scripture, holding the canonical books sufficient for the whole doctrine of salvation and setting them above councils, custom and antiquity, so that no writing of men however holy may be compared to them.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. The breaking of the bread is emphasised as a sign in itself, and the Reformed rite made the minister break the bread in the sight of the people.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards.
The Heidelberg Catechism explains the name Christian by the believer's share in the anointing of Christ as prophet, priest and king, so that every member confesses his name, presents himself a living sacrifice and reigns with him. Ordained ministry is a matter of call and order, not a separate spiritual estate.
Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards. The words of institution are read as a warrant for the action, and the Reformed rite makes the reading of them a separate declaratory act.
Why this is disputed. Reformed Protestant traditions such as the Dutch Reformed Church generally accept the underlying Christological point the title protects, that the child Mary bore was truly God the Son from conception, while holding the title itself, and any Marian devotion built upon it, with far more reserve than the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox or Roman Catholic traditions, for whom Theotokos remains central to devotion, liturgy and iconography rather than a technical safeguard mostly left unspoken.