Statement of Faith

I. The Scriptures

The Scrip­tures of the Old and New Tes­ta­ment were giv­en by inspi­ra­tion of God, and are the only suf­fi­cient, cer­tain and author­i­ta­tive rule of all sav­ing knowl­edge, faith and obedience.

II. God

There is but one God, the Mak­er, Pre­serv­er and Ruler of all things, hav­ing in and of him­self, all per­fec­tions, and being infi­nite in them all; and to Him all crea­tures owe the high­est love, rev­er­ence and obedience.

III. The Trinity

God is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spir­it each with dis­tinct per­son­al attrib­ut­es, but with­out divi­sion of nature, essence or being.

IV. Providence

God from eter­ni­ty, decrees or per­mits all things that come to pass, and per­pet­u­al­ly upholds, directs and gov­erns all crea­tures and all events; yet so as not to destroy the free will and respon­si­bil­i­ty of intel­li­gent creatures.

V. Election

Elec­tion is God’s eter­nal choice of some per­sons unto ever­last­ing life — not because of fore­seen mer­it in them, but of his mere mer­cy in Christ — in con­se­quence of which choice they are called, jus­ti­fied and glorified.

VI. The Fall of Man

God orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed man in His own image, and free from sin; but, through the temp­ta­tion of Satan, he trans­gressed the com­mand of God, and fell from his orig­i­nal holi­ness and right­eous­ness; where­by his pos­ter­i­ty inher­it a nature cor­rupt and whol­ly opposed to God and His law, are under con­dem­na­tion, and as soon as they are capa­ble of moral action, become actu­al transgressors.

VII. The Mediator

Jesus Christ, the only begot­ten Son of God, is the divine­ly appoint­ed medi­a­tor between God and man. Hav­ing tak­en upon Him­self human nature, yet with­out sin, He per­fect­ly ful­filled the Law, suf­fered and died upon the cross for the sal­va­tion of sin­ners. He was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascend­ed to His Father, at whose hand He ever liveth to make inter­ces­sion for His peo­ple. He is the only Medi­a­tor, the Prophet, Priest and King of the Church, and Sov­er­eign of the Universe.

VIII. Regeneration

Regen­er­a­tion is a change of heart, wrought by the Holy Spir­it, who quick­eneth the dead in tres­pass­es and sins enlight­en­ing their minds spir­i­tu­al­ly and sav­ing­ly to under­stand the Word of God, and renew­ing their whole nature, so that they love and prac­tice holi­ness. It is a work of God’s free and spe­cial grace alone.

IX. Repentance

Repen­tance is an evan­gel­i­cal grace, where­in a per­son being, by the Holy Spir­it, made sen­si­ble of the man­i­fold evil of his sin, hum­bleth him­self for it, with god­ly sor­row, detes­ta­tion of it, and self-abhor­rence, with a pur­pose and endeav­or to walk before God so as to please Him in all things.

X. Faith

Sav­ing faith is the belief, on God’s author­i­ty, of what­so­ev­er is revealed in His Word con­cern­ing Christ; accept­ing and rest­ing upon Him alone for jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and eter­nal life. It is wrought in the heart by the Holy Spir­it, and is accom­pa­nied by all oth­er sav­ing graces, and leads to a life of holiness.

XI. Justification

Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is God’s gra­cious and full acquit­tal of sin­ners, who believe in Christ, from all sin, through the sat­is­fac­tion that Christ has made; not for any­thing wrought in them or done by them; but on account of the obe­di­ence and sat­is­fac­tion of Christ, they receiv­ing and rest­ing on Him and His right­eous­ness by faith.

XII. Sanctification

Those who have been regen­er­at­ed are also sanc­ti­fied, by God’s word and Spir­it dwelling in them. This sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion is pro­gres­sive through the sup­ply of Divine strength, which all saints seek to obtain, press­ing after a heav­en­ly life in cor­dial obe­di­ence to all Christ’s commands.

XIII. Perseverance of the Saints

Those whom God hath accept­ed in the Beloved, and sanc­ti­fied by His Spir­it, will nev­er total­ly nor final­ly fall away from the state of grace, but shall cer­tain­ly per­se­vere to the end; and though they may fall, through neglect and temp­ta­tion, into sin, where­by they grieve the Spir­it, impair their graces and com­forts, bring reproach on the Church, and tem­po­ral judg­ments on them­selves, yet they shall be renewed again unto repen­tance, and be kept by the pow­er of God through faith unto salvation.

XIV. The Church

The Lord Jesus is the Head of the Church, which is com­posed of all his true dis­ci­ples, and in Him is invest­ed supreme­ly all pow­er for its gov­ern­ment. Accord­ing to his com­mand­ment, Chris­tians are to asso­ciate them­selves into par­tic­u­lar soci­eties or church­es; and to each of these church­es he hath giv­en need­ful author­i­ty for admin­is­ter­ing that order, dis­ci­pline and wor­ship which he hath appoint­ed. The reg­u­lar offi­cers of a Church are Bish­ops, or Elders, and Deacons.

XV. Baptism

Bap­tism is an ordi­nance of the Lord Jesus, oblig­a­tory upon every believ­er, where­in he is immersed in water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spir­it, as a sign of his fel­low­ship with the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Christ, of remis­sion of sins, and of his giv­ing him­self up to God, to live and walk in new­ness of life. It is pre­req­ui­site to church fel­low­ship, and to par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Lord’s Supper. 

XVI. The Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Sup­per is an ordi­nance of Jesus Christ, to be admin­is­tered with the ele­ments of bread and wine, and to be observed by his church­es till the end of the world. It is in no sense a sac­ri­fice, but is designed to com­mem­o­rate his death, to con­firm the faith and oth­er graces of Chris­tians, and to be a bond, pledge and renew­al of their com­mu­nion with him, and of their church fellowship.

XVII. The Lord’s Day

The Lord’s Day is a Chris­t­ian insti­tu­tion for reg­u­lar obser­vance, and should be employed in exer­cis­es of wor­ship and spir­i­tu­al devo­tion, both pub­lic and pri­vate, rest­ing from world­ly employ­ments and amuse­ments, works of neces­si­ty and mer­cy only excepted.

XVIII. Liberty of Conscience

God alone is Lord of the con­science; and He hath left it free from the doc­trines and com­mand­ments of men, which are in any­thing con­trary to His word, or not con­tained in it. Civ­il mag­is­trates being ordained of God, sub­jec­tion in all law­ful thing com­mand­ed by them ought to be yield­ed by us in the Lord, not only for wrath, but also for con­science sake.

XIX. The Resurrection

The bod­ies of men after death return to dust, but their spir­its return imme­di­ate­ly to God — the right­eous to rest with Him; the wicked to be reserved under dark­ness to the judg­ment. At the last day, the bod­ies of all the dead, both just and unjust, will be raised.

XX. The Judgment

God hath appoint­ed a day, where­in he will judge the world by Jesus Christ, when every one shall receive accord­ing to his deeds; the wicked shall go into ever­last­ing pun­ish­ment; the right­eous, into ever­last­ing life.