Such formularies, from the circumstance of their collecting into one instrument, several articles, of religious belief, are generally known on the Continent, by the appellation of SYMBOLIC BOOKS.
I. The symbolic books, received by ALL TRINITARIAN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES,--are,
II. The symbolic books, received by the ROMAN CATHOLIC Church,--are,
2. Among these,--_the Council of Trent_,--as immediately applying to the controversies between the Catholic and Protestant Churches, is particularly regarded;
4. _The Catechism of the Council of Trent_.
III. The symbolic books of the GREEK CHURCH,--are,
1. _The Confession, of her true and sincere faith_, which, on the taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet II, in 1453, Gennadius, its patriarch, presented to the conqueror;
2. _The Orthodox Confession, of the Catholic and Apostolic Greek Church_, published in 1642, by Mogilow, the Metropolitan of Kiow.
IV. The symbolic books of the LUTHERAN CHURCHES, are
2. _The Apology of the Confession of Augsburgh_;
4. _And_, (in the opinion of some Lutheran Churches),--_The Form of Concord_;
5. _The Saxon, Wirtenburgian, Suabian, Pomeranian, Mansfeldian, Antwerpensian, and Copenhagen Confessions_, possess, in particular places, the authority of Symbolic books:--the two first are particularly respected.
V. The symbolic books of the REFORMED CHURCHES. The reformed Church, in the largest extent of that expression, comprises all the religious communities, which have separated from the Church of Rome. In this sense, it is often used by English writers: but, having, soon after the Reformation, been used by the French Protestants to describe their church, which was Calvinistic, it became, insensibly, the appellation of all Calvinistic churches on the Continent. The principal symbolic books of these churches,--are,
1. _The Confession of the Helvetian Churches_;
2. _The Tetrapolitan Confession_,--signed by the four cities of Strasburgh, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau;
VI. The symbolic books of the WALDENSES,--are,
VII. The symbolic books of the _Bohemians_,--are,
1. _The Confession of faith of the Calixtines and Taborites_, signed at the Synod of Cuttenburgh in 1541;
2. _The Confession of the faith of the Bohemians_,--inserted in the "Harmony of Confessions," published at Cambridge in 1680.