ABSTRACT
The movement of protestant Orthodoxy, of which John Owen was a leading figure, is defined by Richard Muller as “the codification and institutionalization of the Reformation … consisting in the confessional character of its theology and piety … in continuity and also discontinuity with strands in the religious past, all with elements of response and adaptation to the changing political, social, and intellectual contexts of protestantism.”1 in other words, a right understanding of the unity and diversity of the early generations of the Reformed tradition significantly rests upon a right understanding of their use of confessions and intentions for confessionalization.2 Muller argues that between the standard Reformation and Orthodox confessions there emerges an understood essential Reformed
confessional identity. Nevertheless, each confessional attempt clearly had its own distinctiveness: its own perceived need, assembly, doctrinal emphases, polemical aims, politico-ecclesiastical relationship, and intended use and boundaries.3 Thus, however doctrinally similar the early Reformed confessions might be, the truth remains that, many times over, a new confession was written or a current one revised. To better understand why, more investigation of individual confessions and their respective contexts is needed.
