THE CONFESSION OF FAITH

CHAPTER XXVII
OF THE CHURCH

The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect , that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.

II. The visible church, which is also catholic and universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; the house and family of God, through which men are ordinarily saved and union with which is essential to their best growth and service.

III. Unto this catholic visible church, Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and does by His own presence and Spirit, according to His promise, make them effectual thereunto.

IV. This catholic church has been sometimes more, sometimes less, visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.

V. The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error: and some have so degenerated as to become apparently no churches of Christ. Nevertheless, there shall always be a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.

VI. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church, and the claim of any man to be the Vicar of Christ and the head of the Church, is without warrant in fact or in Scripture, even anti-Christian, a usurpation dishonoring to the Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER XXVIII
OF THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

All saints being united to Jesus Christ their head, by His Spirit and by faith, have fellowship with Him in His graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

II. Saints by their profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities. Which communion, as God offers opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.

III. This communion which the saints have with Christ, does not make them in any wise partakers of the substance of His Godhead, or to be equal with Christ in any respect: either of which to affirm, is impious and blasphemous. Nor does their communion one with another as saints, take away or infringe the title or property which each man has in his goods and possessions.

CHAPTER XXIX
OF THE SACRAMENTS

Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the atonement, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and His benefits, and to confirm our interest in Him: as also to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church, and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to his word.

II. There is in every sacrament a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified; whence it comes to pass that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.

III. The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments, rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them; neither does the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that does administer it, but upon the work of the Spirit, and the word of the institution, which contains, together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers.

IV. There are only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the gospel, that is to say, baptism and the supper of the Lord.

CHAPTER XXX
OF BAPTISM

Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in His church until the end of the world.

II. The outward element to be used in this sacrament is water, wherewith the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by a minister of the gospel, lawfully called thereunto.

III. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism may be administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person.

IV. Although it is a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.

CHAPTER XXXI
OF THE LORD'S SUPPER

Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein He was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of His body and blood, called the Lord's Supper, to be observed in His church unto the end of the world; for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of Himself in His death, the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in Him, their further engagement in and all duties which they owe unto Him; and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with Him, and with each other, as members of His body.

II. In this sacrament Christ is not offered up to His Father, nor any real sacrifice made at all for remission of sins of the quick or dead, but a commemoration of that one offering up of Himself, by Himself, upon the cross, once for all, and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God for the same; so that the so-called sacrifice of the mass is most contradictory to Christ's one sacrifice, the only propitiation for all the sins of the elect.

III. The Lord Jesus has, in His ordinance, appointed His ministers to declare His word of institution to the people, to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby set them apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation.

IV. Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone; as likewise the denial of the cup to the people; worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use, are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.

V. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to Him crucified, as that truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ; albeit, in substance and nature, they still remain truly, and only, bread and wine, as they were before.

VI. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine, into the substance of Christ's body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant, not to scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason; overthrowing the nature of the sacrament; and has been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions, yea of gross idolatries.

VII. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

VIII. Although ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament, yet they receive not the thing signified thereby; but by their unworthy coming thereunto are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and bring judgement on themselves.

CHAPTER XXXII
OF CHURCH CENSURES

The Lord Jesus, as king and head of His church, has therein appointed a government, in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.

II. To these officers are committed, power respectively, to shut the church against the impenitent, both by the word and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel, and by absolution of censures, as occasion shall require.

III. Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren; for deterring of others from like offenses; for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump; for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel; and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church, if they should suffer His Church, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.

IV. For the better attaining of these ends, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition, suspension from attendance of church meetings for a season, and by termination of membership in the church, according to the nature of the crime, and demerit of the person.

CHAPTER XXXIII
OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH

There is a time soon to come when Satan shall be bound in the bottomless pit for a thousand years and Christ (Messiah, Anointed King) shall sit upon David's Throne, in the Promised Land, surrounded by the Children of Israel, reigning over the world with a rod of iron, unresisted, for a thousand years. This in fulfillment of a multiplicity of covenants, promises and prophecies; both Old and New testaments; as was understood by the Children of Israel with whom the covenants were made and to whom the promises were given; and as was understood by all of the earliest church fathers, whose teaching was received directly from the Apostolic Church, attested to in their writing.

CHAPTER XXXIV
OF THE STATE OF MAN AFTER DEATH, AND OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD

The bodies of men, after death return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep), having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies; and the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment day.

II. All the dead shall be raised up with the self-same bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls for ever.

III. At the rapture, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: the bodies of the just shall be raised by His Spirit, unto honor, and be made conformable to His own glorious body.

IV. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised in the judgment of the lost, to dishonor and exemplary punishment.

CHAPTER XXXV
OF THE JUDGMENT OF THE LOST AND THE SAVED

God has appointed a day, wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged: but likewise all persons, not found in Christ, will give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds. God's justice shall be seen in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. Both to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity: the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.

Notwithstanding there shall first come a day in which the saved shall appear before Christ, to give an account of their deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil. The end of God's appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of His mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing which shall come the presence of the Lord.

God will have men to be always watchful, and be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.