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Principles of Religion

1. The scriptures of the Old Testament, as received by the Jews, and the books of the New Testament, as received by the Primitive Christians from the Evangelists and Apostles, Congregations churches believe to be divinely inspired and of supreme authority. These writings, in the languages in which they were originally composed, are to be consulted, by aids of sound criticism, as a final appeal in all controversies; but the common version they are considered adequate to the ordinary purposes of Christian instruction and edification.



2. They believe in one God, essentially wise, holy, just and good; eternal, infinite, and immutable in all natural and moral perfections; the Creator, Supporter and Governor of all beings and of all things.



3. They believe that God is revealed in the Scriptures, as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that to each are attributable the same Divine properties and perfections. The doctrine of the Divine existence, as above stated, they cordially believe, without attempting to fully explain.



4. They believe that man was created after the Divine image, sinless, and in His kind, perfect.



5. They believe that the first man disobeyed the Divine command, fell from his state of innocence and purity, and involved all his posterity in the consequences of that fall.



6. They believe, therefore all mankind are born in sin, and that a fatal inclination to moral evil, utterly incurable by human means, is inherent in every descendant of Adam.



7. They believe that God, having before the foundation of the world, designed to redeem fallen man, made disclosures of His mercy, which were the grounds of faith and hope from the earliest age.



8. They believe that God revealed more fully to Abraham the covenant of His grace, and having promised that from his descendants should arise the Deliverer and Redeemer of mankind, set that patriarch and his posterity apart, as a race specially favoured and separated to his service: A peculiar church, formed and carefully preserved, under the Divine sanction and government, until the birth of the promised Messiah.



9. They believe, in the fullness of time, the Son of God was manifested in the flesh, being born of the virgin Mary, but conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit; and that the Lord Jesus Christ was both the Son of man, and the Son of God; partaking fully and truly of human nature, though without sin, equal with the Father, and “the express image of His person.”



10. They believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, revealed either personally in His own ministry, or by the Holy Spirit in the ministry of His Apostles, the whole mind of God, for our salvation; by His obedience to the Divine law while He lived, and by His suffering and death, He meritoriously “obtained eternal redemption for us;” having thereby vindicated and illustrated Divine justice, “magnified the law,” and “brought in everlasting righteousness.”



11. They believe that after His death and resurrection, He ascended up into Heaven, where as the mediator, He “ever lives” to rule over all, and to “make intercession for them that come to God by Him.”



12. They believe that the Holy Spirit is given, in consequence of Christ’s mediation, to quicken and renew the hearts of men; and that His influence is indispensably necessary to bring a sinner to true repentance, to produce saving faith, to regenerate the heart, and to perfect our sanctification.



13. They believe that we are justified through faith in Christ, as “The Lord Our Righteousness;” and “not by works of the law.”



14. They believe all who will be saved were the object of God’s eternal and electing love, and were given by an act of Divine sovereignty to the Son of God; which in no way interferes with system of means, nor with the grounds of human responsibility; being wholly unrevealed as to its objects, and not of a rule of human duty.



15. They believe that the scriptures teach a final perseverance of all true believers to a state of eternal blessedness, which they are appointed to obtain through constant faith in Christ, and uniform obedience to His commands.



16. They believe that a holy life will be the necessary effect of a true faith, and that good works are the certain fruits of a vital union to Christ.



17. They believe that the sanctification of true Christians, or their growth in the grace of the Spirit and readiness for Heaven, is gradually carried on through the whole period during which it pleases God to continue them in the present life; at death, their souls, perfectly freed from all remains of evil, are immediately received into the presence of Christ.



18. They believe in perpetual obligation of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper the former to be administered to all converts to Christianity and their children, by the application of water to the subject, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost;” and the later to be celebrated by Christian Churches as a token of faith in the Saviour, and of brotherly love.



19. They believe that Christ will finally come to judge the whole human race, according to their works; that the bodies of the dead will be raised again; as the supreme judge, He will divide the righteous from the wicked, will receive the righteous into ‘life everlasting’ , but send away the wicked into ‘everlasting punishment’.



20. They believe that Jesus Christ directed His followers to live together in Christian fellowship, and to maintain the communion of saints; and that for this purpose, they are jointly to observe all Divine ordinances, and maintain that Church order and discipline which is either expressly enjoined by inspired institution, or sanctioned by the undoubted example of the apostle and of apostolic Churches.