The Church

Q. What are these articles?

A. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended to heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

Q. Why the next words: "and sits at the right hand of God"?

A. Christ ascended to heaven, there to show that he is head of his church, the one through whom the Father governs all things.

Q. What do you believe concerning "the holy catholic church"?

A. I believe that the Son of God through his Spirit and Word, out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life and united in true faith. And of this community I am and always will be a living member.

Q. What do you understand by "the communion of saints"?

A. First, that believers one and all, as members of Christ the Lord, have communion with him and share in all his treasures and gifts. Second, that each member should consider it a duty to use these gifts readily and joyfully for the service and enrichment of the other members.

Q. Should infants also be baptized?

A. Yes. Infants as well as adults are included in God's covenant and people, and they, no less than adults, are promised deliverance from sin through Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit who works faith. Therefore, by baptism, the sign of the covenant, they too should be incorporated into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, which was replaced in the New Testament by baptism.

Q. What does it mean to eat the crucified body of Christ and to drink his poured-out blood?

A. It means to accept with a believing heart the entire suffering and death of Christ and in this way to receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But it means more. Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us, we are united more and more to Christ's blessed body. And so, although he is in heaven and we are on earth, we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. And we forever live on and are governed by one Spirit, as the members of our body are by one soul.

Q. Where does Christ promise to nourish and refresh believers with his body and blood as surely as they eat this broken bread and drink this cup?

A. In the institution of the Lord's Supper: "The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." This promise is repeated by Paul in these words: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread."

Q. Should those be admitted to the Lord's Supper who show by what they profess and how they live that they are unbelieving and ungodly?

A. No, that would dishonor God's covenant and bring down God's wrath upon the entire congregation. Therefore, according to the instruction of Christ and his apostles, the Christian church is duty-bound to exclude such people, by the official use of the keys of the kingdom, until they reform their lives.

Q. How is the kingdom of heaven closed and opened by Christian discipline?

A. According to the command of Christ: Those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives, and who, after repeated personal and loving admonitions, refuse to abandon their errors and evil ways, and who, after being reported to the church, that is, to those ordained by the church for that purpose, fail to respond also to the church's admonitions— such persons the church excludes from the Christian community by withholding the sacraments from them, and God also excludes them from the kingdom of Christ. Such persons, when promising and demonstrating genuine reform, are received again as members of Christ and of his church.

Q. What does the second petition mean?

A. "Your kingdom come" means: Rule us by your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you. Preserve and increase your church. Destroy the devil's work; destroy every force which revolts against you and every conspiracy against your holy Word. Do all this until your kingdom fully comes, when you will be all in all.

We receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical, for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith. And we believe without a doubt all things contained in them—not so much because the church receives and approves them as such but above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from God, and also because they prove themselves to be from God. For even the blind themselves are able to see that the things predicted in them do happen.

We believe and confess One single catholic or universal church—a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by his blood, and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit. This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King who cannot be without subjects. And this holy church is preserved by God against the rage of the whole world, even though for a time it may appear very small in the eyes of men—as though it were snuffed out. For example, during the very dangerous time of Ahab the Lord preserved for himself seven thousand men who did not bend their knees to Baal.

And so this holy church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or certain persons. But it is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world, though still joined and united in heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith.

We believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved and there is no salvation apart from it, no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, regardless of his status or condition. But all people are obliged to join and unite with it, keeping the unity of the church by submitting to its instruction and discipline, by bending their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ, and by serving to build up one another, according to the gifts God has given them as members of each other in the same body.

And to preserve this unity more effectively, it is the duty of all believers, according to God's Word, to separate themselves from those who do not belong to the church, in order to join this assembly wherever God has established it, even if civil authorities and royal decrees forbid and death and physical punishment result. And so, all who withdraw from the church or do not join it act contrary to God's ordinance.

We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully, by the Word of God, what is the true church—for all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of "the church." We are not speaking here of the company of hypocrites who are mixed among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of it, even though they are physically there. But we are speaking of distinguishing the body and fellowship of the true church from all sects that call themselves "the church."

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church—and no one ought to be separated from it.

As for those who are of the church, we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians: namely by faith, and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness, once they have received the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ. They love the true God and their neighbors, without turning to the right or left, and they crucify the flesh and its works. Though great weakness remains in them, they fight against it by the Spirit all the days of their lives, appealing constantly to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus, in whom they have forgiveness of their sins, through faith in him.

As for the false church, it assigns more authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God; it does not want to subject itself to the yoke of Christ; it does not administer the sacraments as Christ commanded in his Word; it rather adds to them or subtracts from them as it pleases; it bases itself on men, more than on Jesus Christ; it persecutes those who live holy lives according to the Word of God and who rebuke it for its faults, greed, and idolatry. These two churches are easy to recognize and thus to distinguish from each other.

We believe that this true church ought to be governed according to the spiritual order that our Lord has taught us in his Word. There should be ministers or pastors to preach the Word of God and administer the sacraments. There should also be elders and deacons, along with the pastors, to make up the council of the church. By this means true religion is preserved; true doctrine is able to take its course; and evil men are corrected spiritually and held in check, so that also the poor and all the afflicted may be helped and comforted according to their need. By this means everything will be done well and in good order in the church, when such men are elected who are faithful and are chosen according to the rule that Paul gave to Timothy.

We believe that ministers of the Word of God, elders, and deacons ought to be chosen to their offices by a legitimate election of the church, with prayer in the name of the Lord, and in good order, as the Word of God teaches. So everyone must be careful not to push himself forward improperly, but he must wait for God's call, so that he may be assured of his calling and be certain and sure that he is chosen by the Lord.

As for the ministers of the Word, they all have the same power and authority, no matter where they may be, since they are all servants of Jesus Christ, the only universal bishop, and the only head of the church. Moreover, to keep God's holy order from being violated or despised, we say that everyone ought, as much as possible, to hold the ministers of the Word and elders of the church in special esteem, because of the work they do, and be at peace with them, without grumbling, quarreling, or fighting.

We also believe that although it is useful and good for those who govern the churches to establish and set up a certain order among themselves for maintaining the body of the church, they ought always to guard against deviating from what Christ, our only Master, has ordained for us.

Therefore we reject all human innovations and all laws imposed on us, in our worship of God, which bind and force our consciences in any way. So we accept only what is proper to maintain harmony and unity and to keep all in obedience to God. To that end excommunication, with all it involves, according to the Word of God, is required.

We believe and confess that our Savior Jesus Christ has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper to nourish and sustain those who are already born again and ingrafted into his family: his church.

Now those who are born again have two lives in them. The one is physical and temporal—they have it from the moment of their first birth, and it is common to all. The other is spiritual and heavenly, and is given them in their second birth; it comes through the Word of the gospel in the communion of the body of Christ; and this life is common to God's elect only. Thus, to support the physical and earthly life God has prescribed for us an appropriate earthly and material bread, which is as common to all as life itself also is. But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers he has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten—that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith.

To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls.

Now it is certain that Jesus Christ did not prescribe his sacraments for us in vain, since he works in us all he represents by these holy signs, although the manner in which he does it goes beyond our understanding and is incomprehensible to us, just as the operation of God's Spirit is hidden and incomprehensible. Yet we do not go wrong when we say that what is eaten is Christ's own natural body and what is drunk is his own blood—but the manner in which we eat it is not by the mouth but by the Spirit, through faith. In that way Jesus Christ remains always seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven—but he never refrains on that account to communicate himself to us through faith. This banquet is a spiritual table at which Christ communicates himself to us with all his benefits. At that table he makes us enjoy himself as much as the merits of his suffering and death, as he nourishes, strengthens, and comforts our poor, desolate souls by the eating of his flesh, and relieves and renews them by the drinking of his blood.

Moreover, though the sacraments and the thing signified are joined together, not all receive both of them. The wicked person certainly takes the sacrament, to his condemnation, but does not receive the truth of the sacrament, just as Judas and Simon the Sorcerer both indeed received the sacrament, but not Christ, who was signified by it. He is communicated only to believers.

Finally, with humility and reverence we receive the holy sacrament in the gathering of God's people, as we engage together, with thanksgiving, in a holy remembrance of the death of Christ our Savior, and as we thus confess our faith and Christian religion. Therefore no one should come to this table without examining himself carefully, lest "by eating this bread and drinking this cup he eat and drink to his own judgment." In short, by the use of this holy sacrament we are moved to a fervent love of God and our neighbors.

Therefore we reject as desecrations of the sacraments all the muddled ideas and damnable inventions that men have added and mixed in with them. And we say that we should be content with the procedure that Christ and the apostles have taught us and speak of these things as they have spoken of them.

Just as, by God's wise plan, this teaching concerning divine election has been proclaimed through the prophets, Christ himself, and the apostles, in Old and New Testament times, and has subsequently been committed to writing in the Holy Scriptures, so also today in God's church, for which it was specifically intended, this teaching must be set forth—with a spirit of discretion, in a godly and holy manner, at the appropriate time and place, without inquisitive searching into the ways of the Most High. This must be done for the glory of God's most holy name, and for the lively comfort of his people.

This plan, arising out of God's eternal love for his chosen ones, from the beginning of the world to the present time has been powerfully carried out and will also be carried out in the future, the gates of hell seeking vainly to prevail against it. As a result the chosen are gathered into one, all in their own time, and there is always a church of believers founded on Christ's blood, a church which steadfastly loves, persistently worships, and—here and in all eternity—praises him as her Savior who laid down his life for her on the cross, as a bridegroom for his bride.

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

Error I.

Who teach that God the Father appointed his Son to death on the cross without a fixed and definite plan to save anyone by name, so that the necessity, usefulness, and worth of what Christ's death obtained could have stood intact and altogether perfect, complete and whole, even if the redemption that was obtained had never in actual fact been applied to any individual.

For this assertion is an insult to the wisdom of God the Father and to the merit of Jesus Christ, and it is contrary to Scripture. For the Savior speaks as follows: "I lay down my life for the sheep, and I know them" (John 10:15, 27). And Isaiah the prophet says concerning the Savior: "When he shall make himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, and the will of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand" (Isa. 53:10). Finally, this undermines the article of the creed in which we confess what we believe concerning the church.

Error II.

Who teach that the purpose of Christ's death was not to establish in actual fact a new covenant of grace by his blood, but only to acquire for the Father the mere right to enter once more into a covenant with men, whether of grace or of works.

For this conflicts with Scripture, which teaches that Christ "has become the guarantee and mediator" of a better—that is, "a new"—"covenant" (Heb. 7:22; 9:15), and that "a will is in force only when someone has died" (Heb. 9:17).

Error III.

Who teach that Christ, by the satisfaction which he gave, did not certainly merit for anyone salvation itself and the faith by which this satisfaction of Christ is effectively applied to salvation, but only acquired for the Father the authority or plenary will to relate in a new way with men and to impose such new conditions as he chose, and that the satisfying of these conditions depends on the free choice of man; consequently, that it was possible that either all or none would fulfill them.

For they have too low an opinion of the death of Christ, do not at all acknowledge the foremost fruit or benefit which it brings forth, and summon back from hell the Pelagian error.

Error IV.

Who teach that what is involved in the new covenant of grace which God the Father made with men through the intervening of Christ's death is not that we are justified before God and saved through faith, insofar as it accepts Christ's merit, but rather that God, having withdrawn his demand for perfect obedience to the law, counts faith itself, and the imperfect obedience of faith, as perfect obedience to the law, and graciously looks upon this as worthy of the reward of eternal life.

For they contradict Scripture: "They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ, whom God presented as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood" (Rom. 3:24–25). And along with the ungodly Socinus, they introduce a new and foreign justification of man before God, against the consensus of the whole church.

Error V.

Who teach that all people have been received into the state of reconciliation and into the grace of the covenant, so that no one on account of original sin is liable to condemnation, or is to be condemned, but that all are free from the guilt of this sin.

For this opinion conflicts with Scripture which asserts that we are by nature children of wrath.

Error VI.

Who make use of the distinction between obtaining and applying in order to instill in the unwary and inexperienced the opinion that God, as far as he is concerned, wished to bestow equally upon all people the benefits which are gained by Christ's death; but that the distinction by which some rather than others come to share in the forgiveness of sins and eternal life depends on their own free choice (which applies itself to the grace offered indiscriminately) but does not depend on the unique gift of mercy which effectively works in them, so that they, rather than others, apply that grace to themselves.

For, while pretending to set forth this distinction in an acceptable sense, they attempt to give the people the deadly poison of Pelagianism.

Error VII.

Who teach that Christ neither could die, nor had to die, nor did die for those whom God so dearly loved and chose to eternal life, since such people do not need the death of Christ.

For they contradict the apostle, who says: "Christ loved me and gave himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20), and likewise: "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died," that is, for them (Rom. 8:33–34). They also contradict the Savior, who asserts: "I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:15), and "My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:12–13).

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

Error I.

Who teach that, properly speaking, it cannot be said that original sin in itself is enough to condemn the whole human race or to warrant temporal and eternal punishments.

For they contradict the apostle when he says: "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death passed on to all men because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12); also: "The guilt followed one sin and brought condemnation" (Rom. 5:16); likewise: "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23).

Error II.

Who teach that the spiritual gifts or the good dispositions and virtues such as goodness, holiness, and righteousness could not have resided in man's will when he was first created, and therefore could not have been separated from the will at the fall.

For this conflicts with the apostle's description of the image of God in Ephesians 4:24, where he portrays the image in terms of righteousness and holiness, which definitely reside in the will.

Error III.

Who teach that in spiritual death the spiritual gifts have not been separated from man's will, since the will in itself has never been corrupted but only hindered by the darkness of the mind and the unruliness of the emotions, and since the will is able to exercise its innate free capacity once these hindrances are removed, which is to say, it is able of itself to will or choose whatever good is set before it—or else not to will or choose it.

This is a novel idea and an error and has the effect of elevating the power of free choice, contrary to the words of Jeremiah the prophet: "The heart itself is deceitful above all things and wicked" (Jer. 17:9); and of the words of the apostle: "All of us also lived among them [the sons of disobedience] at one time in the passions of our flesh, following the will of our flesh and thoughts" (Eph. 2:3).

Error IV.

Who teach that unregenerate man is not strictly or totally dead in his sins or deprived of all capacity for spiritual good but is able to hunger and thirst for righteousness or life and to offer the sacrifice of a broken and contrite spirit which is pleasing to God.

For these views are opposed to the plain testimonies of Scripture: "You were dead in your transgressions and sins" (Eph. 2:1, 5); "The imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil all the time" (Gen. 6:5; 8:21). Besides, to hunger and thirst for deliverance from misery and for life, and to offer God the sacrifice of a broken spirit is characteristic only of the regenerate and of those called blessed (Ps. 51:17; Matt. 5:6).

Error V.

Who teach that corrupt and natural man can make such good use of common grace (by which they mean the light of nature) or of the gifts remaining after the fall that he is able thereby gradually to obtain a greater grace—evangelical or saving grace—as well as salvation itself; and that in this way God, for his part, shows himself ready to reveal Christ to all people, since he provides to all, to a sufficient extent and in an effective manner, the means necessary for the revealing of Christ, for faith, and for repentance.

For Scripture, not to mention the experience of all ages, testifies that this is false: "He makes known his words to Jacob, his statutes and his laws to Israel; he has done this for no other nation, and they do not know his laws" (Ps. 147:19–20); "In the past God let all nations go their own way" (Acts 14:16); "They [Paul and his companions] were kept by the Holy Spirit from speaking God's word in Asia"; and "When they had come to Mysia, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit would not allow them to" (Acts 16:6–7).

Error VI.

Who teach that in the true conversion of man new qualities, dispositions, or gifts cannot be infused or poured into his will by God, and indeed that the faith [or believing] by which we first come to conversion and from which we receive the name "believers" is not a quality or gift infused by God, but only an act of man, and that it cannot be called a gift except in respect to the power of attaining faith.

For these views contradict the Holy Scriptures, which testify that God does infuse or pour into our hearts the new qualities of faith, obedience, and the experiencing of his love: "I will put my law in their minds, and write it on their hearts" (Jer. 31:33); "I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring" (Isa. 44:3); "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us" (Rom. 5:5). They also conflict with the continuous practice of the church, which prays with the prophet: "Convert me, Lord, and I shall be converted" (Jer. 31:18).

Error VII.

Who teach that the grace by which we are converted to God is nothing but a gentle persuasion, or (as others explain it) that the way of God's acting in man's conversion that is most noble and suited to human nature is that which happens by persuasion, and that nothing prevents this grace of moral suasion even by itself from making natural men spiritual; indeed, that God does not produce the assent of the will except in this manner of moral suasion, and that the effectiveness of God's work by which it surpasses the work of Satan consists in the fact that God promises eternal benefits while Satan promises temporal ones.

For this teaching is entirely Pelagian and contrary to the whole of Scripture, which recognizes besides this persuasion also another, far more effective and divine way in which the Holy Spirit acts in man's conversion. As Ezekiel 36:26 puts it: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; and I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. . . ."

Error VIII.

Who teach that God in regenerating man does not bring to bear that power of his omnipotence whereby he may powerfully and unfailingly bend man's will to faith and conversion, but that even when God has accomplished all the works of grace which he uses for man's conversion, man nevertheless can, and in actual fact often does, so resist God and the Spirit in their intent and will to regenerate him, that man completely thwarts his own rebirth; and, indeed, that it remains in his own power whether or not to be reborn.

For this does away with all effective functioning of God's grace in our conversion and subjects the activity of Almighty God to the will of man; it is contrary to the apostles, who teach that "we believe by virtue of the effective working of God's mighty strength" (Eph. 1:19), and that "God fulfills the undeserved good will of his kindness and the work of faith in us with power" (2 Thess. 1:11), and likewise that "his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3).

Error IX.

Who teach that grace and free choice are concurrent partial causes which cooperate to initiate conversion, and that grace does not precede—in the order of causality—the effective influence of the will; that is to say, that God does not effectively help man's will to come to conversion before man's will itself motivates and determines itself.

For the early church already condemned this doctrine long ago in the Pelagians, on the basis of the words of the apostle: "It does not depend on man's willing or running but on God's mercy" (Rom. 9:16); also: "Who makes you different from anyone else?" and "What do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7); likewise: "It is God who works in you to will and act according to his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

Concerning this preservation of those chosen to salvation and concerning the perseverance of true believers in faith, believers themselves can and do become assured in accordance with the measure of their faith, by which they firmly believe that they are and always will remain true and living members of the church, and that they have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.

2. Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament, which are these:

Of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Of the New Testament: The Gospels according to Matthew Mark Luke John The Acts of the Apostles Paul's Epistles to the Romans Corinthians I Corinthians II Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians Thessalonians I Thessalonians II to Timothy I to Timothy II to Titus to Philemon The Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle of James The first and second Epistles of Peter The first, second, and third Epistles of John The Epistle of Jude The Revelation of John.

3. The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.

4. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

5. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

7. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

8. The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal unto them. But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner; and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope.

9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

10. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.

1. The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.

2. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.

3. They who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

4. And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And, for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation), or to the power of godliness; or, such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ hath established in the church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against, by the censures of the church.

1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates, to be, under him, over the people, for his own glory, and the public good: and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evildoers.

2. It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate, when called thereunto: in the managing whereof, as they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth; so, for that end, they may lawfully, now under the new testament, wage war, upon just and necessary occasion.

3. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.

4. It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience' sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates' just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less hath the pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretense whatsoever.

1. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband, at the same time.

2. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with legitimate issue, and of the church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.

3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord. And therefore such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, papists, or other idolaters: neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies.

4. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden by the Word. Nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife.

5. Adultery or fornication committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce: and, after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.

6. Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage: yet, nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the church, or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage: wherein, a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the persons concerned in it not left to their own wills, and discretion, in their own case.

1. 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.

2. The visible church, which is also catholic or 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; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

3. Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath 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 doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.

4. This catholic church hath 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.

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

6. There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof.

1. All saints, that are 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.

2. Saints by profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in 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 offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.

3. This communion which the saints have with Christ, doth 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 doth their communion one with another, as saints, take away, or infringe the title or propriety which each man hath in his goods and possessions.

1. 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 the covenant of grace, 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.

2. 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.

3. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person.

4. Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized.

5. Although it be 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.

6. The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in his appointed time.

7. The sacrament of baptism is but once to be administered unto any person.

1. 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 to 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 mystical body.

2. 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 only 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 popish sacrifice of the Mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christ's one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of his elect.

3. The Lord Jesus hath, in this 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 to 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.

4. Private Masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone; as likewise, the denial of the cup to the people, worshiping 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.

5. 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.

6. 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; overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, and hath been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions; yea, of gross idolatries.

7. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then 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.

8. 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, to their own damnation. Wherefore, all ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table; and cannot, without great sin against Christ, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereunto.

1. The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of his church, hath therein appointed a government, in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.

2. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed; by virtue whereof, they have power, respectively, to retain, and remit sins; to shut that kingdom 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 from censures, as occasion shall require.

3. Church censures are necessary, for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren, for deterring of others from the 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 covenant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.

4. For the better attaining of these ends, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition; suspension from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper for a season; and by excommunication from the church; according to the nature of the crime, and demerit of the person.

1. For the better government, and further edification of the church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils: and it belongeth to the overseers and other rulers of the particular churches, by virtue of their office, and the power which Christ hath given them for edification and not for destruction, to appoint such assemblies; and to convene together in them, as often as they shall judge it expedient for the good of the church.

2. It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in his Word.

3. All synods or councils, since the apostles' times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both.

4. Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

Q. To whom is baptism to be administered?

A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized.

Q. Why was our Mediator called Christ?

A. Our Mediator was called Christ, because he was anointed with the Holy Ghost above measure; and so set apart, and fully furnished with all authority and ability, to execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king of his church, in the estate both of his humiliation and exaltation.

Q. How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?

A. Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in his revealing to the church, in all ages, by his Spirit and Word, in divers ways of administration, the whole will of God, in all things concerning their edification and salvation.

Q. How was Christ exalted in his resurrection?

A. Christ was exalted in his resurrection, in that, not having seen corruption in death, (of which it was not possible for him to be held,) and having the very same body in which he suffered, with the essential properties thereof, (but without mortality, and other common infirmities belonging to this life,) really united to his soul, he rose again from the dead the third day by his own power; whereby he declared himself to be the Son of God, to have satisfied divine justice, to have vanquished death, and him that had the power of it, and to be Lord of quick and dead: all which he did as a public person, the head of his church, for their justification, quickening in grace, support against enemies, and to assure them of their resurrection from the dead at the last day.

Q. How is Christ exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God?

A. Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fullness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth; and doth gather and defend his church, and subdue their enemies; furnisheth his ministers and people with gifts and graces, and maketh intercession for them.

Q. Can they who have never heard the gospel, and so know not Jesus Christ, nor believe in him, be saved by their living according to the light of nature?

A. They who, having never heard the gospel, know not Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, or the laws of that religion which they profess; neither is there salvation in any other, but in Christ alone, who is the Savior only of his body the church.

Q. Are all they saved who hear the gospel, and live in the church?

A. All that hear the gospel, and live in the visible church, are not saved; but they only who are true members of the church invisible.

Q. What is the visible church?

A. The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.

Q. What are the special privileges of the visible church?

A. The visible church hath the privilege of being under God's special care and government; of being protected and preserved in all ages, notwithstanding the opposition of all enemies; and of enjoying the communion of saints, the ordinary means of salvation, and offers of grace by Christ to all the members of it in the ministry of the gospel, testifying, that whosoever believes in him shall be saved, and excluding none that will come unto him.

Q. What is the invisible church?

A. The invisible church is the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ the head.

Q. What special benefits do the members of the invisible church enjoy by Christ?

A. The members of the invisible church by Christ enjoy union and communion with him in grace and glory.

Q. What is the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?

A. The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him.

Q. What is the communion in glory which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?

A. The communion in glory which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is in this life, immediately after death, and at last perfected at the resurrection and day of judgment.

Q. What is the communion in glory with Christ which the members of the invisible church enjoy in this life?

A. The members of the invisible church have communicated to them in this life the firstfruits of glory with Christ, as they are members of him their head, and so in him are interested in that glory which he is fully possessed of; and, as an earnest thereof, enjoy the sense of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, and hope of glory; as, on the contrary, sense of God's revenging wrath, horror of conscience, and a fearful expectation of judgment, are to the wicked the beginning of their torments which they shall endure after death.

Q. What is the communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death?

A. The communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death, is, in that their souls are then made perfect in holiness, and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls. Whereas the souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, till the resurrection and judgment of the great day.

Q. What shall be done to the righteous at the day of judgment?

A. At the day of judgment, the righteous, being caught up to Christ in the clouds, shall be set on his right hand, and there openly acknowledged and acquitted, shall join with him in the judging of reprobate angels and men, and shall be received into heaven, where they shall be fully and forever freed from all sin and misery; filled with inconceivable joys, made perfectly holy and happy both in body and soul, in the company of innumerable saints and holy angels, but especially in the immediate vision and fruition of God the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, to all eternity. And this is the perfect and full communion, which the members of the invisible church shall enjoy with Christ in glory, at the resurrection and day of judgment.

Q. What are the duties required in the second commandment?

A. The duties required in the second commandment are, the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath instituted in his Word; particularly prayer and thanksgiving in the name of Christ; the reading, preaching, and hearing of the Word; the administration and receiving of the sacraments; church government and discipline; the ministry and maintenance thereof; religious fasting; swearing by the name of God, and vowing unto him: as also the disapproving, detesting, opposing all false worship; and, according to each one's place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.

Q. What are those aggravations that make some sins more heinous than others?

A. Sins receive their aggravations, 1. From the persons offending: if they be of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others. 2. From the parties offended: if immediately against God, his attributes, and worship; against Christ, and his grace; the Holy Spirit, his witness, and workings; against superiors, men of eminency, and such as we stand especially related and engaged unto; against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them, or any other, and the common good of all or many. 3. From the nature and quality of the offense: if it be against the express letter of the law, break many commandments, contain in it many sins: if not only conceived in the heart, but breaks forth in words and actions, scandalize others, and admit of no reparation: if against means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, conviction of conscience, public or private admonition, censures of the church, civil punishments; and our prayers, purposes, promises, vows, covenants, and engagements to God or men: if done deliberately, willfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance, or relapsing after repentance. 4. From circumstances of time and place: if on the Lord's Day, or other times of divine worship; or immediately before or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages: if in public, or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.

Q. What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?

A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to his church the benefits of his mediation, are all his ordinances; especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.

Q. Is the Word of God to be read by all?

A. Although all are not to be permitted to read the Word publicly to the congregation, yet all sorts of people are bound to read it apart by themselves, and with their families: to which end, the Holy Scriptures are to be translated out of the original into vulgar languages.

Q. What is a sacrament?

A. A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ in his church, to signify, seal, and exhibit unto those that are within the covenant of grace, the benefits of his mediation; to strengthen and increase their faith, and all other graces; to oblige them to obedience; to testify and cherish their love and communion one with another; and to distinguish them from those that are without.

Q. How many sacraments hath Christ instituted in his church under the new testament?

A. Under the new testament Christ hath instituted in his church only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Q. What is baptism?

A. Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, wherein Christ hath ordained the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, to be a sign and seal of ingrafting into himself, of remission of sins by his blood, and regeneration by his Spirit; of adoption, and resurrection unto everlasting life; and whereby the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible church, and enter into an open and professed engagement to be wholly and only the Lord's.

Q. Unto whom is baptism to be administered?

A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, and so strangers from the covenant of promise, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him, but infants descending from parents, either both, or but one of them, professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, are in that respect within the covenant, and to be baptized.

Q. May any who profess the faith, and desire to come to the Lord's Supper, be kept from it?

A. Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous, notwithstanding their profession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord's Supper, may and ought to be kept from that sacrament, by the power which Christ hath left in his church, until they receive instruction, and manifest their reformation.

Q. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper agree?

A. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper agree, in that the author of both is God; the spiritual part of both is Christ and his benefits; both are seals of the same covenant, are to be dispensed by ministers of the gospel, and by none other; and to be continued in the church of Christ until his second coming.

Q. For whom are we to pray?

A. We are to pray for the whole church of Christ upon earth; for magistrates, and ministers; for ourselves, our brethren, yea, our enemies; and for all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter; but not for the dead, nor for those that are known to have sinned the sin unto death.

Q. For what things are we to pray?

A. We are to pray for all things tending to the glory of God, the welfare of the church, our own or others' good; but not for anything that is unlawful.

Q. What do we pray for in the second petition?

A. In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come,) acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate: that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up of those that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of his second coming, and our reigning with him forever: and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends.

We most constantly believe that God preserved, instructed, multiplied, honored, adorned (Ezek. 16), and from death called to life His kirk in all ages from Adam till the coming of Christ Jesus in the flesh. For Abraham, He called from his father's country (Gen. 12), him He instructed, his seed He multiplied (Ex. 1–2, 13), the same He marvelously preserved and more marvelously delivered from the bondage and tyranny of Pharaoh. To them He gave His laws (Ex. 20), constitutions, and ceremonies. Them He possessed in the land of Canaan (Josh. 1–3, etc.): to them, after judges and after Saul, He gave David to be king (1 Sam. 16), to whom He made promise that of the fruit of his loins should one sit forever upon His regal seat. To this same people, from time to time, He sent prophets to reduce them to the right way of their God (2 Kings 17), from which oftentimes they declined by idolatry (2 Kings 7, 24–25). And albeit that for their stubborn contempt of justice, He was compelled to give them into the hands of their enemies, as before was threatened by the mouth of Moses (Deut. 29), in so much that the holy city was destroyed, the temple burnt with fire, and the whole land left desolate the space of 70 years (Jer. 39; Ezra 1; Hag. 1–2; Zech. 3), yet of mercy did He lead them again to Jerusalem. Where the city and temple were rebuilt and they against all temptations and assaults of Satan did abide, till the Messiah came according to the promise.

As we believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, so we must constantly believe that from the beginning there has been, now is and to the end of the world will be (Matt. 28), a kirk, that is to say, one company and multitude of men chosen of God (Eph. 1), who rightly worship and embrace Him by true faith in Christ Jesus, who is the only head of the same kirk, which also is the body and spouse of Christ Jesus (Col. 1; Eph. 5). Which kirk is catholic, that is universal, because it contains the elect of all ages, all realms, nations, and tongues (Rev. 7) be they of the Jews or be they of the Gentiles; who have communion and society with God the Father and with His Son Christ Jesus, through the sanctification of His Holy Spirit, and, therefore, is it called the communion (not of profane persons) but of saints, who as citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (Eph. 2) have the fruition of the most inestimable benefits, to wit, of one God, one Lord Jesus, one faith, and of one baptism, out of which kirk there is neither life nor eternal felicity. And, therefore, we utterly abhor the blasphemy of those that affirm that men, who live according to equity and justice, will be saved whatsoever religion they have professed. For as without Christ Jesus there is neither life nor salvation, so will none be participant thereof, but such as the Father has given unto His Son Christ Jesus (John 5–6), and those in time come unto Him, avow His doctrine and believe in Him (we comprehend the children with the faithful parents). This kirk is invisible, known only to God who alone knows it, whom He has chosen, and comprehends as well (as is said) the elect that be departed (commonly called the kirk triumphant) as those that yet live and fight against sin and Satan as will live hereafter.

The elect departed are in peace and rest from their labors (Rev. 14), not that they will sleep and come to any certain oblivion (as some fanatics do affirm), but they are delivered from all fear, all torment, and all temptation to which we and all God's elect are subject in this life (Rev. 7), and, therefore, do bear the name of the kirk militant. As contrariwise the reprobate and unfaithful departed have anguish, torment, and pain that cannot be expressed. So that neither are the one nor the other in such sleep that they feel not joy or torment as the parable of Christ in the sixteenth of Luke, His words to the thief and these words of the souls crying under the altar, "O Lord thou that are righteous and just, how long will thou not revenge our blood upon those that dwell on the earth?" doth plainly testify.

Because that Satan from the beginning has labored to deck his pestilent synagogue with the title of the kirk of God and has inflamed the hearts of cruel murderers to persecute, trouble and molest the true kirk and members thereof, as Cain did Abel, Ishmael Isaac, Esau Jacob (Gen. 4, 21, 27), and the whole priesthood of the Jews, Christ Jesus Himself and His apostles after Him (Matt. 23; John 11; Acts 3), it is one thing most requisite that the true kirk be discerned from the filthy synagogue by clear and perfect notes, lest we being deceived receive and embrace to our own condemnation the one for the other. The notes, signs, and assured tokens by which the immaculate spouse of Christ Jesus is known from that horrible harlot, the kirk malignant, we affirm are neither antiquity, title usurped, lineal descent, place appointed, nor multitude of men approving any error. For Cain in age and title was preferred to Abel and Seth. Jerusalem had prerogative above all places of the earth, where also were the priests lineally descended from Aaron, and a greater multitude followed the scribes and Pharisees and priests than unfeignedly believed and approved Christ Jesus and His doctrine. And yet as we suppose no man (of whole judgment) will grant that any of the forenamed were the kirk of God. The notes, therefore, of the true kirk of God, we believe, confess and avow to be first, the true preaching of the Word of God, in which God has revealed Himself to us (John 1, 10) as the writings of the prophets and apostles do declare. Secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus must be annexed unto the Word and promises of God to seal and confirm the same in our hearts. Last, ecclesiastical discipline (Rom. 4), uprightly ministered as God's Word prescribes whereby vice is reproved and virtue nourished (1 Cor. 5). Wheresoever then these former notes are seen and of any time continue (be the number never so few, about two or three), there without all doubt is the true kirk of Christ, who according to His promise is in the midst of them: not that universal (of which we have before spoken) but particular, such as was in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and other places (Acts 16, 18, etc.; 1 Cor. 1; Acts 20) in which the ministry was planted by Paul and were of himself named the kirks of God. And such kirks we the inhabitants of the realm of Scotland, professors of Christ Jesus, confess ourselves to have in our cities, towns, and places reformed. For the doctrine taught in our kirks is contained in the written Word of God, to wit, in the books of the New and Old Testaments. In those books we mean which of the ancient have been reputed canonical in the which we affirm that all things necessary to be believed for the salvation of mankind is sufficiently expressed (John 21), the interpretation whereof we confess neither appertains to private nor public persons, neither yet to any kirk for any preeminence or prerogative personal or local which one has above another, but appertains to the Spirit of God by which also the Scripture was written.

When controversy then happens, for the right understanding of any place or sentence of Scripture or for the reformation of any abuse within the kirk of God, we ought not so much to look at what men before us have said or done, as unto that which the Holy Ghost uniformly speaks within the body of the Scriptures, and unto that which Christ Jesus Himself did and commanded to be done (1 Cor. 11). For this is a thing universally granted, that the Spirit of God (which is the spirit of unity) is in nothing contrary unto Himself. If then the interpretation, determination or sentence of any doctor, kirk or council, repugnant to the plain Word of God written in any other place of Scripture, it is a thing most certain that there is not the true understanding and meaning of the Holy Ghost, supposing that councils, realms, and nations have approved and received the same. For we dare not receive nor admit any interpretation which is directly repugnant to any principal point of our faith, to any other plain text of Scripture or yet unto the rule of charity.

As we believe and confess the Scriptures of God sufficient to instruct and make the man of God perfect (2 Tim. 3), so do we affirm and avow the authority of the same to be of God and neither to depend on men nor angels. We affirm, therefore, that such as allege the Scripture to have no authority but that which it receives from the kirk, to be blasphemous against God and injurious to the true kirk which always hears and obeys the voice of her own spouse and pastor (John 10), but takes not upon her to be mistress over the same.

As we do not rashly damn that which godly men assembled together in general councils lawfully gathered have propounded unto us, so without just examination dare we not receive whatsoever is forced upon men under the name of general councils. For plain it is that as they were men so have some of them manifestly erred and that in matters of great weight and importance. So far then as the council proves the determination and commandment that it gives by the plain Word of God, so far do we reverence and embrace the same. But if men under the name of a council pretend to forge unto us new articles of our faith or to make constitutions repugnant to the Word of God, then utterly we must refuse the same as the doctrine of devils which draw our souls from the voice of our only God to follow the doctrines and constitutions of men (1 Tim. 4). The cause then why general councils convened was neither to make any perpetual law (which God before had not made) neither yet to forge new articles of our belief, neither to give the Word of God authority, much less to make that to be His Word or yet the true interpretation of the same which was not before by His holy will expressed in His Word. But the cause of councils (we mean of such as merit the name of councils) was partly for confutation of heresies and for giving public confession of their faith to the posterity following which both they did by the authority of God's written Word and not by any opinion or prerogative that they could not err by reason of their general assembly. And this we judge to have been the chief cause of general councils. The other was for good policy and order to be constituted and observed in the kirk, in which (as in the house of God) it becomes all things to be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14). Not that we think that one policy and one order in ceremonies can be appointed for all ages, times, and places: for as ceremonies (such as man has devised) are but temporal so may and ought they to be changed when they rather foster superstition than that they edify the kirk using the same.

That sacraments be rightly ministered, we judge two things requisite: the one, that they be ministered by lawful ministers whom we affirm to be only they that are appointed to the preaching of the Word or unto whose mouths God has put some sermon of exhortation, they being men lawfully chosen thereto by some kirk. The other, that they be ministered in such elements and in such sort as God has appointed. Else we affirm that they cease to be right sacraments of Christ Jesus. And therefore it is that we flee the society with the papistical kirk in participation of their sacraments. First, because their ministers are not ministers of Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 6); (yes, which is more horrible) they suffer women, whom the Holy Ghost will not suffer, to teach in the congregation [and] to baptize. And secondly, because they have so adulterated both the one sacrament and the other with their own inventions that no part of Christ's action abides in the original purity. For oil, salt, spittle, and such like in baptism are but men's inventions, adoration, veneration, bearing through streets and towns and keeping of bread in boxes or buists [small boxes] are profanation of Christ's sacraments and no use of the same. For Christ Jesus said, "Take and eat. Do ye this in remembrance of me" (Matt. 26, etc.). By which words and charge He sanctified bread and wine to be the sacrament of His body and blood to the end that the one should be eaten and that all should drink of the other; and not that they should be kept to be worshipped and honored as God, as the papists have done heretofore, who also have committed sacrilege, stealing from the people the one part of the sacrament, to wit, the blessed cup. Moreover that the sacraments are rightly used, it is requisite that the end and cause why the sacraments were instituted be understood and observed, as well of the minister as the receivers. For if the opinion be changed in the receiver, the right use ceases which is most evident by the rejection of the sacrifices as also if the teacher plainly teaches false doctrine (Isa. 1), which were odious and abominable unto God (albeit they were His own ordinance) because that wicked men used them to one other end than God had ordained. The same affirm we of the sacraments (Jer. 7; Isa. 66) in the papistical kirk in which we affirm the whole action of the Lord Jesus to be adulterated, as well in the external form as in the end and opinion. What Christ Jesus did and commanded to be done is evident by three evangelists (Matt. 26) and by St. Paul (1 Cor. 11, etc.). What the priest does at his altar we need not rehearse. The end and cause of Christ's institution and why the selfsame should be used is expressed in these words: "Do ye this in remembrance of Me. As often as ever ye will eat of this bread and drink of this cup, ye will show forth (that is, extol, preach, magnify, and praise) the Lord's death till He come." But to what end and in what opinion the priests say their Masses, let the words of the same, their own doctors and writings witness. To wit, that they as mediators betwixt Christ and His kirk do offer unto God the Father a sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of the quick and the dead. Which doctrine as blasphemous to Christ Jesus and making derogation to the sufficiency of His only sacrifice once offered for purgation of all those that will be sanctified, we utterly abhor, detest, and renounce.

Albeit that the Word of God truly preached, the sacraments rightly ministered and discipline executed according to the Word of God, be the certain and infallible signs of the true kirk, yet do we not so mean that every particular person joined with such a company is an elect member of Christ Jesus. For we acknowledge and confess that darnel, cockle, and chaff may be sown, grow and in great abundance lie in the midst of the wheat (Matt. 3, 13), that is, the reprobate may be joined in the society of the elect and may externally use with them the benefits of the Word and sacraments; but such being but temporal professors in mouth, but not in heart, do fall back and continue not to the end. And, therefore, have they no fruit of Christ's death, resurrection, nor ascension; but such as whose heart unfeignedly believe (Rom. 10) and whose mouth boldly confess the Lord Jesus (as before we have said) will most assuredly receive these gifts first in this life, remission of sins, and that by only faith in Christ's blood (John 3; Rom. 3–5, 8), in so much that albeit sin remains and continually abides in these our mortal bodies, yet is it not imputed unto us, but is remitted and covered with Christ's justice. Secondarily, in the general judgment there will be given to every man and woman resurrection of the flesh (Isa. 66; Dan. 12; 1 Cor. 15; Job 19); for the sea will give up her dead, the earth those that therein be enclosed: yes, our eternal God will stretch out His hand upon the dust and the dead will arise incorruptible and that in the substance of the selfsame flesh that every man now bears, to receive according to their works, glory, or punishment (Rom. 2). For such as now dealt in vanity, cruelty, filthiness, superstition, or idolatry will be adjudged to that fire inextinguishable in which they will be committed for ever (Rev. 20–21), as well in their own bodies as in their souls which now they give to serve the devil in all abomination. But such as continue in well doing to the end, boldly professing the Lord Jesus, who constantly believe that they will receive glory, honor, and immortality to reign forever in life everlasting with Christ Jesus, to whose glorified body all His elect will be made like (1 John 5), when He will appear again to judgment and will render up the kingdom to God His Father, who then will be and ever will remain all in all things (1 Cor. 15), God blessed forever. To whom with the Son and with the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, now and ever.

Finis

Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be confounded, let them flee from Thy presence that hate Thy godly name. Give Thy servants strength to speak Thy word in boldness, and let all nations attain to Thy true knowledge. So be it.

We believe and confess the canonical Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles of both Testaments to be the very true Word of God, and to have sufficient authority of themselves, not of men. For God Himself spoke to the fathers, prophets, apostles, and speaks yet unto us by the Holy Scriptures.

And in this Holy Scripture, the universal church of Christ has all things fully expounded, whatsoever belong both to a saving faith, and also to the framing of a life acceptable to God: in which respect it is expressly commanded of God that nothing be either put to or taken from the same (Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:18–19).

We judge, therefore, that from these Scriptures is to be taken true wisdom and godliness, the reformation and government of churches; as also instruction in all duties of piety: and to be short, the confirmation of opinions, and the confutation of errors, with all exhortations; according to that of the apostle: "All Scripture inspired of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof" (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Again, "These things I write unto thee," says the apostle to Timothy, "that thou mayest know how it behoveth thee to be conversant in the house of God" (1 Tim. 3:14–15). Again, the self-same apostle to the Thessalonians: "When," says he, "ye received the word from us, ye received not the word of men, but, as it was indeed, the Word of God" (1 Thess. 2:13). For the Lord Himself has said in the gospel, "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of my Father speaketh in you" (Matt. 10:20); therefore, "he that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke 10:16).

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers and received of the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be feigned nor to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word of God which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; who although he may be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God abides true and good.

Neither do we think that, therefore, the outward preaching is to be thought as fruitless because the instruction in true religion depends on the inward illumination of the Spirit; or because it is written, "No man shall teach his neighbor; for all men shall know Me" (Jer. 31:34) and "He that watereth or he that planteth is nothing but God who giveth the increase" (1 Cor. 3:7). For albeit, "No man can come to Christ unless he is drawn by the Heavenly Father" (John 6:44) and is inwardly lightened by the Holy Ghost, yet we know undoubtedly that it is the will of God that His Word should be preached even outwardly. God could indeed by His Holy Spirit or by the ministry of an angel without the ministry of St. Peter have taught Cornelius in the Acts; but nevertheless, He refers him to Peter of whom the angel speaking says, "He shall tell thee what thou must do" (Acts 10:6).

For he that illumines inwardly by giving men the Holy Ghost, the self-same, by way of commandment, said unto His disciples. "Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). And so Paul preached the Word outwardly to Lydia, a purple-seller among the Philippians: but the Lord inwardly opened the woman's heart (Acts 16:14). And the same Paul, upon an elegant gradation, fitly placed in the tenth chapter to the Romans, at last infers, "Therefore, faith is by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:14–17). We know in the meantime that God can illumine whom and when He will, even without the external ministry, which is a thing pertaining to His power: but we speak of the usual way of instructing men, delivered unto us of God, both in commandment and examples.

We, therefore, detest all the heresies of Artemon, the Manichees, the Valentinians, of Cerdon, and the Marcionites, who denied that the Scriptures proceeded from the Holy Ghost; or else received not, or polished and corrupted some of them.

And yet we do not deny that certain books of the Old Testament were of the ancient authors called apocryphal; and of others, ecclesiastical; to wit, such as they would have to be read in the churches, but not alleged to avouch or confirm the authority of faith by them. As also, Augustine in his De Civitate Dei (Book 18, chapter 38) makes mention that "in the books of the Kings, the names and books of certain prophets are reckoned," but he adds that "they are not in the Canon;" and that "those books which we have, suffice unto godliness."

The apostle Peter has said that "The Holy Scriptures are not of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20); therefore, we do not allow all expositions. Whereupon, we do not acknowledge that which they call the meaning of the Church of Rome for the true and natural interpretation of the Scriptures; which the defenders of the Roman Church strive to force all men simply to receive: but we acknowledge that interpretation of Scriptures to be authentic and proper, which being taken from the Scriptures themselves (that is, from the phrase of that tongue in which they were written, they being also weighed according to the circumstances, and expounded according to the proportion of places, either of like or of unlike, also of more and plainer) accords with the rule of faith and charity, and makes notably for God's glory and man's salvation.

Wherefore we do not condemn the holy treatises of the fathers, agreeing with the Scriptures; from whom, notwithstanding, we do modestly dissent, as they are deprehended to set down things merely strange, or altogether contrary to the same. Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not have their writings matched with the canonical Scriptures; but bid us allow of them so far forth as they either agree with them, or disagree, and bid us take those things that agree, and leave those that disagree.

And according to this order we do account of the decrees or canons of councils. Wherefore we suffer not ourselves in controversies about religion or matters of faith, to be pressed with the bare testimonies of fathers, or decrees of councils; much less with received customs, or with the multitude of men being of one judgment, or with prescription of long time. Therefore, in controversies of religion, or matters of faith, we cannot admit any other judge than God Himself, pronouncing by the Holy Scriptures, what is true, what is false, what is to be followed, or what to be avoided. So we do not rest but in the judgments of spiritual men, drawn from the Word of God. Certainly Jeremiah and other prophets vehemently condemned the assemblies of priests, gathered against the law of God: and diligently forewarned us that we should not hear the fathers, or tread in their path, who, walking in their own inventions swerved from the law of God (Ezek. 20:18).

Likewise we reject human traditions which, although they are set out with goodly titles, as though they were divine and apostolic, delivered to the church by the lively voice of the apostles, and as it were, by the hands of apostolic men by means of bishops succeeding in their places yet being compared with the Scriptures, disagree with them and by that disagreement betray themselves in no wise to be apostolic. For as the apostles did not disagree among themselves in doctrine, so the apostles' scholars did not set forth things contrary to the apostles. Nay, it is blasphemous to avow that the apostles by lively voice delivered things contrary to their writings. Paul affirms expressly that he "taught the same things in all churches" (1 Cor. 4:17). And again, "We," says he, "write no other things unto you, than which ye read, or also acknowledge" (2 Cor. 1:13). Also, in another place, he witnesses that he and His disciples, to wit apostolic men, "walked in the same way, and jointly by the same Spirit did all things" (2 Cor. 12:18). The Jews also, in time past, had their traditions of elders; but these traditions were severely confuted by the Lord, showing that the keeping of them hinders God's law, and that "God is in vain worshipped of such" (Matt. 15:9; Mark 7:6–7).

And because God is an invisible Spirit, and an incomprehensible essence, He cannot, therefore, by any art or image be expressed. For which cause we fear not, with the Scripture, to term the images of God mere lies. We do, therefore, reject not only the idols of the Gentiles, but also the images of Christians. For although Christ took upon Him man's nature, yet He did not, therefore, take it that He might set forth a pattern for carvers and painters. He denied that He came "to destroy the Law and the prophets" (Matt. 5:17), but images are forbidden in the Law and the prophets. He denied that His bodily presence would any way profit the church (Deut. 4:15; Isa. 40:18). He promises that "He would by His Spirit be present with us for ever" (John 16:7; 2 Cor. 5:5); who would then believe that the shadow or picture of His body in any way benefits the godly? And seeing that He abides in us by His Spirit, "We are therefore the temples of God" (1 Cor. 3:16), but "what agreement hath the temple of God with images?" (2 Cor. 6:16). And seeing that the blessed spirits and saints in heaven, while they lived here abhorred all worship done unto themselves (Acts 14:15; Rev. 14:7; 19:10; 22:8–9) and spoke against images, who can think it likely that the saints in heaven and the angels are delighted with their own images, to whom men bow their knees, uncover their heads and give such other like honor?

But that men might be instructed in religion, and put in mind of heavenly things and of their own salvation, the Lord commanded "preach the gospel" (Mark 16:15), not to paint and instruct the laity by pictures: He also instituted sacraments, but nowhere did He appoint images. Furthermore, in every place, in whatever way we turn our eyes, we see the lively and true creatures of God, which if they are marked, as is meet, they much more effectually move the beholder than all the images; or vain, unmovable, rotten, and dead pictures of men whatsoever; of which the prophet spoke truly, "They have eyes, and see not" (Ps. 115:5).

Therefore, we approve the judgment of Lactantius, an ancient writer, who says, "Undoubtedly there is no religion, wheresoever there is a picture." And we affirm that the blessed bishop Epiphanius did well, who, finding on the church doors a veil, that had painted on it the picture as it might be of Christ or of some saint or other, he cut and took it away; for, contrary to the authority of the Scriptures, he had seen the picture of a man hanging in the church of Christ: and, therefore, he charged that from thenceforth no such veils, which were contrary to our religion, should be hung up in the church of Christ, but that rather such scruple should be taken away which was unworthy the church of Christ and all faithful people. Moreover we approve this sentence of St. Augustine, "Let not the worship of men's works be a religion unto us. For the workmen themselves that make such things are better; whom yet we ought not to worship" (De Vera Religion, Chap. 55).

God has from the beginning freely, and of His mere grace, without any respect of men, predestinated or elected the saints, whom He will save in Christ, according to the saying of the apostle, "And He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4); and again, "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given unto us, through Jesus Christ, before the world was, but is now made manifest by the appearance of our Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 1:9–10).

Therefore, though not for any merit of ours, yet not without a means, but in Christ, and for Christ, did God choose us; and they who are now engrafted into Christ by faith, the same also were elected. But such as are without Christ were rejected, according to that saying of the apostle, "Prove yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (2 Cor. 13:5).

To conclude, the saints are chosen in Christ by God unto a sure end, which end the apostle declares, when he says, "He hath chosen us in Him, that we should be holy and without blame before Him through love; who hath predestinated as to be adopted through Jesus Christ unto Himself, for the praise of His glorious grace" (Eph. 1:4–6).

And although God knows who are His, and now and then mention is made of the small number of the elect, yet we must hope well of all and not rashly judge any man to be a reprobate: for Paul says to the Philippians, "I thank my God for you all" (now he speaks of the whole church of the Philippians) "that ye are come into the fellowship of the gospel; and I am persuaded, that He that hath begun this work in you, will perform it, as it becometh me to judge of you all" (Phil. 1:3–7).

And when the Lord was asked whether there were few that should be saved, He does not answer and tell them that few or more should be saved or damned; but rather He exhorts every man to "strive to enter in at the strait gate" (Luke 13:24), as if He should say, It is not for you to rashly inquire of these matters, but rather to endeavor that you may enter into heaven by the straight way.

Wherefore we do not allow of the wicked speeches of some who say, Few are chosen, and seeing I know not whether I am in the number of those few, I will not defraud my nature of her desires. Others there are which say, If I am predestinated and chosen of God, nothing can hinder me from salvation, which is already certainly appointed for me, whatever I do at any time; but if I am in the number of the reprobate, no faith or repentance will help me, seeing the decree of God cannot be changed: therefore, all teachings and admonitions are to no purpose. Now against these men the saying of the apostle makes much, "The servants of God must be apt to teach, instructing them that are contrary minded, proving if God at any time will give them repentance, that they may come to amendment out of the snare of the devil, which are taken of him at his pleasure" (2 Tim. 2:24–26). Beside, Augustine also teaches that "Both the grace of free election and predestination, and also wholesome admonitions and doctrines, are to be preached" (Lib. De Bono Perseverantiae. Chap. 14).

We, therefore, condemn those who seek other than in Christ, whether they are chosen from all eternity, and what God has decreed of them before all beginning. For men must hear the gospel preached and believe it. If you believe and are in Christ, you may undoubtedly reckon that you are elected. For the Father has revealed unto us in Christ His eternal sentence of predestination, as we even now showed out of the apostle in 2 Timothy 1:9–10. This is, therefore, above all to be taught and well weighed, what great love of the Father towards us in Christ is revealed. We must hear what the Lord daily preaches unto us in His gospel, how He calls and says, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you" (Matt. 11:28). And, "So God loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son for it, that all which believe in Him should not perish but have life everlasting" (John 3:16). Also, "It is not the will of the Father, that any of these little ones should perish" (Matt. 18:14). Let Christ, therefore, be our looking glass, in whom we may behold our predestination. We shall have a most evident and sure testimony that we are written in the book of life, if we communicate with Christ; and He is ours and we His by a true faith.

Let this comfort us in the temptation touching predestination, than which there is none more dangerous: that the promises of God are general to the faithful, in that He says, "Ask, and ye shall receive; every one that asketh, receiveth" (Luke 11:9–10); and to conclude, in that we pray, with all the church of God, "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matt. 6:9); and for that in baptism we are ingrafted into the body of Christ and are fed in His church, oftentimes with His flesh and blood unto everlasting life. Thereby being strengthened, we are commanded to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" according to that precept of Paul in Philippians 2:12.

Moreover, we believe and teach that the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, was from all eternity predestinated and foreordained of the Father to be the Savior of the world. And we believe that He was begotten, not only then, when He took flesh of the virgin Mary, nor yet a little before the foundations of the world were laid, but before all eternity; and that of the Father, after an unspeakable manner. For Isaiah says, "Who can tell His generation?" (53:8). And Micah says, "Whose egress hath been from everlasting" (5:2). And John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word" (1:1). Therefore, the Son is co-equal and consubstantial with the Father, as touching His divinity: true God, not by name only, or by adoption, or by special favor, but in substance and nature (Phil. 2:6). Even as the apostle says elsewhere, "This is the true God, and life everlasting" (1 John 5:20). Paul also says, "He hath made His Son the heir of all things, by whom also He made the world: the same is the brightness of His glory, and the engraved form of His person, bearing up all things by His mighty word" (Heb. 1:2–3). "Likewise in the gospel the Lord Himself says, "Father, glorify thou Me with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17:5). Also elsewhere it is written in the gospel, "The Jews sought how to kill Jesus, because He said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God" (John 5:18).

We, therefore, abhor the blasphemous doctrine of Arius, and all the Arians, uttered against the Son of God; and especially the blasphemies of Michael Servetus the Spaniard, and of his accomplices, which Satan by them has, as it were, drawn out of hell, and most boldly and impiously spread abroad throughout the world against the Son of God.

We teach also and believe that the eternal Son of the eternal God was made the Son of man, of the seed of Abraham and David (Matt. 1:1–25), not by the means of any man, as Ebion affirmed; but that He was most purely conceived by the Holy Ghost, and was born of Mary, who was always a virgin, even as the history of the gospel declares. And Paul says, "He took in no sort the angels, but the seed of Abraham" (Heb. 2:16). And John the apostle says, "He that believeth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God" (1 John 4:3). The flesh of Christ, therefore, was neither flesh in show only, nor yet flesh brought from heaven, as Valentinus and Marcion dreamed.

Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ did not have a soul without sense and reason, as Apollinaris thought; nor flesh without a soul, as Eunomius taught: but a soul with its reason and flesh with its senses, by which senses He felt true grief in the time of His passion, even as He Himself witnessed when He said, "My soul is heavy even to death" (Matt. 26:38) and "My soul is troubled" (John 12:27).

We acknowledge, therefore, that there are in one and the same Jesus Christ our Lord two natures, the divine and the human nature; and we say that these two are so conjoined or united that they are not swallowed up, confounded, or mingled together, but rather united or joined together in one person, the properties of each nature being safe and remaining still: so that we worship one Christ our Lord, and not two; I say, one true God and man; as touching His divine nature of the same substance with the Father, and as touching His human nature of the same substance with us and "like unto us in all things, sin only excepted" (Heb. 4:15).

As, therefore, we detest the heresy of Nestorius, which makes two Christs of one, and dissolves the union of the person; so do we curse the madness of Eutyches and of the Monothelites or Monophysites who overthrow the propriety of the human nature.

Therefore, we do not teach that the divine nature in Christ suffered or that Christ according to His human nature is yet in the world, and so in every place. For we do neither think nor teach that the body of Christ ceased to be a true body after His glorification, or that it was deified, and so deified that it put off its properties, as touching body and soul, and became altogether a divine nature and began to be one substance alone: and, therefore, we do not allow or receive the unwitty subtleties, and the intricate, obscure, and inconstant disputations of Schwenkfeld and such other vain janglers about this matter; neither are we Schwenkfeldians.

Moreover, we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ did truly suffer and die for us in the flesh as Peter says (1 Peter 4:1). We abhor the most horrible madness of the Jacobites and all the Turks, which abandon the passion of our Lord. Yet we deny not but that "the Lord of glory (according to the saying of Paul) was crucified for us" (1 Cor. 2:8). For we reverently and religiously receive and use the communication of expressions drawn from Scripture, and used of all antiquity in expounding and reconciling places of Scripture which at first sight seem to disagree one from another.

We believe and teach that the same Lord Jesus Christ, in that true flesh in which He was crucified and died, rose again from the dead; and that He did not rise up another flesh instead of that which was buried, nor took a spirit instead of flesh, but retained a true body: therefore, while His disciples thought that they saw the spirit of their Lord Christ, He showed them His hands and feet, which were marked with the prints of the nails and wounds, saying, "Behold my hands and my feet, for I am He indeed: handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39).

We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the same flesh, did ascend above all the visible heavens into the very highest heaven, that is to say, the seat of God and of the blessed spirits, unto the right hand of God the Father. Which, although it signifies an equal participation of glory and majesty, yet it is also taken for a certain place of which the Lord, speaking in the gospel, says that "He will go and prepare a place for His" (John 14:2). Also the apostle Peter says, "The heavens must contain Christ, until the time of restoring of all things" (Acts 3:21). And out of heaven the same Christ will return unto judgment, even then, when wickedness shall chiefly reign in the world, and when Antichrist, having corrupted true religion, shall fill all things with superstition and impiety, and shall most cruelly destroy the church with fire and bloodshed. Now Christ shall return to redeem His, and to abolish Antichrist by His coming and to judge the quick and the dead (Acts 17:31). For the dead shall arise and "those which shall be found alive in that day" (which is unknown unto all creatures) "shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51–52). And all the faithful shall be taken up to meet Christ in the air (1 Thess. 4:17) that thenceforth they may enter with Him into heaven, there to live forever (2 Tim. 2:11), but the unbelievers, or ungodly, shall descend with the devils into hell, there to burn forever, and never to be delivered out of torments (Matt. 25:41).

We, therefore, condemn all those which deny the true resurrection of the flesh, and those which think amiss of the glorified bodies; as did John of Jerusalem, against whom Jerome wrote. We also condemn those which have thought that both the devils and all the wicked shall at length be saved and have an end of their torments: for the Lord Himself has absolutely set it down that, "Their fire is never quenched, and their worm never dieth" (Mark 9:44). Moreover we condemn the Jewish dreams that before the day of judgment there shall be a golden world in the earth; and that the godly shall possess the kingdoms of the world, their wicked enemies being trodden under foot: for the evangelical truth, Matthew 24 and 25, and Luke 21, and the apostolic doctrine in the second epistle to the Thessalonians 2, and in the second epistle to Timothy 3 and 4, are found to teach far otherwise.

Furthermore, by His passion or death, and by all those things which He did and suffered for our sakes from the time of His coming in the flesh, our Lord reconciled His heavenly Father unto all the faithful (Rom. 5:10), purged their sin (Heb. 1:3), spoiled death, broke asunder condemnation and hell, and by His resurrection from the dead, brought again and restored life and immortality (2 Tim. 1:10). For He is our righteousness, life, and resurrection (John 6:44); and, to be short, He is the fullness and perfection, the salvation and most abundant sufficiency of all the faithful. For the apostle says, "So it pleaseth the Father that all fullness should dwell in Him" (Col. 1:19); and "In Him ye are complete" (Col. 2:10).

For we teach and believe that this Jesus Christ our Lord is the only and eternal Savior of mankind, yes, and of the whole world; in whom are saved by faith all that ever were saved before the Law, under the Law, and in the time of the gospel, and so many as shall yet be saved to the end of the world. For the Lord Himself in the gospel says, "He that entereth not in by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, he is a thief and a robber" (John 10:1). "I am the door of the sheep" (v. 7). And also in another place of the same gospel He says, "Abraham saw my day, and rejoiced" (John 8:56). And the apostle Peter says, "Neither is there salvation in any other, but in Christ; for among men there is given no other name under heaven whereby they might be saved" (Acts 4:12). We believe, therefore, that through the grace of our Lord Christ we shall be saved, even as our fathers were. For Paul says that "All our fathers did eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:3–4). And, therefore, we read that John said that "Christ was that Lamb which was slain from the beginning of the world" (Rev. 13:8) and that John the Baptist witnesses that "Christ is that Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world" (John 1:29). Wherefore we do plainly and openly profess and preach that Jesus Christ the only Redeemer and Savior of the world, the King and High Priest, the true and looked for Messiah, that holy and blessed one (I say) whom all the shadows of the Law, and the prophecies of the prophets, did prefigure and promise; and that God supplied and sent Him unto us so that now we are not to look for any other. And now there remains nothing but that we all should give all glory to Him, believe in Him, and rest in Him only, condemning and rejecting all other aids of our life. For they are fallen from the grace of God, and make Christ of no value unto themselves, whosoever they be that seek salvation in any other things besides Christ alone (Gal. 5:4).

And to speak many things in few words, with a sincere heart we believe, and with liberty of speech we freely profess, whatsoever things are defined out of the Holy Scriptures, and comprehended in the creeds, and in the decrees of those four first and most excellent Councils held at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, together with blessed Athanasius' Creed, and all other creeds like to these, touching the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; and we condemn all things contrary to the same. And thus do we retain the Christian, sound, and catholic faith, whole and inviolable, knowing that nothing is contained in the foresaid creeds which is not agreeable to the Word of God, and makes wholly for the sincere declaration of the faith.

We teach that the will of God is set down unto us in the Law of God; to wit, what He would have us to do or not to do, what is good and just, or what is evil and unjust. We, therefore, confess that "The law is good and holy" (Rom. 7:12) and that this Law is by the finger of God, either "written in the hearts of men" (Rom. 2:15) and so is called the law of nature, or engraven in the two tables of stone and more largely expounded in the books of Moses (Ex. 20:1–17; Deut. 5:6–21). For plainness' sake, we divide it into the moral law, which is contained in the commandments, or the two tables expounded in the books of Moses; into the ceremonial, which appoints ceremonies and the worship of God; and into the judicial law, which is occupied about political and domestic affairs.

We believe that the whole will of God, and all necessary precepts for every part of this life, are fully delivered in this Law. For otherwise the Lord would not have forbidden that "any thing should be either added to or taken away from this law" (Deut. 4:2; 12:32); neither would He have commanded us to go straight forward in this and "not to decline out of the way, either to the right hand or to the left" (Josh. 1:7).

We teach that this Law was not given to men that we should be justified by keeping it; but that by the knowledge thereof we might rather acknowledge our infirmity, sin, and condemnation; and so despairing of our own strength, might turn unto Christ by faith. For the apostle says plainly, "The law worketh wrath" (Rom. 4:15) and "By the law cometh the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20) and "If there had been a law given, which could have justified and given us life, surely righteousness should have been by the law: but the scripture (to wit, of the law) hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ should be given to them which believe" (Gal. 3:21–22). "Therefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (v. 24).

For neither could there ever, nor at this day can any flesh satisfy the law of God, and fulfill it, by reason of the weakness in our flesh, which remains and sticks fast in us, even to our last breath. For the apostle says again, "That which the law could not perform, inasmuch as it was weak through the flesh, that did God perform, sending His own Son in similitude of flesh subject to sin" (Rom. 8:3). Therefore, Christ is the perfecting of the Law, and our fulfilling of it (Rom. 10:4); who as He took away the curse of the Law, when He was made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13) so He communicates unto us by faith His fulfilling thereof, and His righteousness and obedience are imputed unto us.

The law of God, therefore, is thus far abrogated; that is, it does not henceforth condemn neither work wrath in us. "For we are under grace, and not under the law" (Rom. 6:14). Moreover, Christ did fulfill all the figures of the Law. Wherefore, the shadow ceased, when the body came; so that, in Christ, we have now all truth and fullness. Yet we do not therefore disdain or reject the Law. We remember the words of the Lord saying, "I came not to destroy the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them" (Matt. 5:17). We know that in the Law are described unto us the kinds of virtues and vices. We know that the Scripture of the Law if it is expounded by the gospel is very profitable to the church, and that, therefore, the reading of it is not to be banished out of the church. For although the countenance of Moses was covered with a veil, yet the apostle affirms that the veil is taken away and abolished by Christ (2 Cor. 3:14). We condemn all things which the old or new heretics have taught against the Law of God.

The gospel has the doctrine of repentance joined with it: for so said the Lord in the gospel, "In my name must repentance and remission of sins be preached among all nations" (Luke 24:47). By repentance we understand the change of the mind in a sinful man, stirred up by the preaching of the gospel through the Holy Spirit and received by a true faith; by which a sinful man acknowledges his natural corruption and all his sins, convinced of them by the Word of God, and is heartily grieved for them, and not only bewails and freely confesses them before God with shame, but also loathes and abhors them with indignation, thinking seriously of present amendment and of a continual concern for innocence and virtue, wherein to exercise himself in a holy manner all the rest of his life.

And surely this is true repentance, namely, an unfeigned turning unto God and to all goodness, and a serious return from the devil and from all evil. Now we expressly say that this repentance is the mere gift of God, and not the work of our own strength. For the apostle wishes the faithful minister diligently to "instruct those which withstand the truth, if so be at any time the Lord may give them repentance, that they may acknowledge the truth" (2 Tim. 2:25). Also, the sinful woman in the gospel, which washed Christ's feet with her tears; and Peter, which bitterly wept and bewailed his denial of his Master; manifestly show what mind the penitent man should have, to wit, very earnestly lamenting his sins committed. Moreover, the prodigal son, and the publican in the gospel, that are compared with the Pharisee, set forth unto us a most fit pattern of confessing our sins to God. The prodigal son said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and against thee: I am not worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants" (Luke 15:18–19). The publican also, not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven, but knocking his breast, cried, "God, be merciful unto me a sinner" (Luke 18:13). And we doubt not but the Lord received them to mercy. For John the apostle says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purge us from all iniquity. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us" (1 John 1:9–10).

We believe that this sincere confession which is made to God alone, either privately between God and the sinner, or openly in the church, where that general confession of sins is rehearsed, is sufficient, and that it is not necessary for the obtaining of remission of sins that any man should confess his sins unto the priest, whispering them into his ears, that, the priest laying his hands on his head, he might receive absolution; because we find no commandment nor example thereof in the Holy Scripture. David protests and says, "I made my fault known to thee, and my unrighteousness did I not hide from thee. I said, I will confess my wickedness to the Lord against myself, and thou hast forgiven the heinousness of my sin" (Ps. 32:5). Yes, and the Lord teaching us to pray, and also to confess our sins, said, "So shall ye pray; Our Father, which art in heaven, forgive us our debts, even as we forgive our debtors" (Matt. 6:9, 12). It is requisite, therefore that we should confess our sins unto God, and be reconciled with our neighbor, if we have offended him. And the apostle James speaking generally of confession says, "Confess each of you your sins one to another" (James 5:16). If any man, being overwhelmed with the burden of his sins and troublesome temptations, will privately ask counsel, instruction, or comfort, either of a minister of the church, or of any other brother that is learned in the law of God, we do not dislike it. Also we fully allow that general and public confession, which is wont to be rehearsed in the church, and in holy meetings (whereof we spoke before) being, as it is, agreeable with the Scripture.

Concerning the keys of the kingdom of heaven which the Lord committed to His apostles, they prate many strange things: and of these keys they make swords, spears, scepters, and crowns, and full power over mighty kingdoms, yes, and over men's souls and bodies. But we, judging uprightly according to the Word of God, say that all ministers, truly called, have and exercise the keys or the use of them, when they preach the gospel, that is to say, when they teach, exhort, reprove, and keep in order the people committed to their charge. For so do they open the kingdom of God to the obedient, and shut it against the disobedient. These keys did the Lord promise to the apostles in Matthew 16:19; and delivered them in John 20:23, Mark 16:15–16 and Luke 24:47 when He sent forth His disciples, and commanded them to preach the gospel in all the world, and to remit sins.

The apostle in the epistle to the Corinthians says that the Lord "gave to His ministers the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:18). And what this was, he straightway makes plain and says, "The word or doctrine of reconciliation" (v. 19). And yet more plainly expounding his words, he adds that the ministers of Christ, as it were, "go an embassage in Christ's name, as if God Himself should by His ministers exhort the people to be reconciled to God" (v. 20); to wit, by faithful obedience. They use the keys, therefore, when they persuade to faith and repentance. Thus do they reconcile men to God; thus they forgive sins; thus they open the kingdom of heaven, and bring in believers; much differing herein from those of whom the Lord spoke in the gospel, "Woe unto you lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye have not entered in yourselves, and those that would have entered ye forbade" (Luke 11:52).

Rightly, therefore, and effectually do ministers absolve, when they preach the gospel of Christ, and thereby remission of sins; which is promised to every one that believes, even as every one is baptized; and testify of it that it particularly appertains to all. Neither do we imagine that this absolution is made any whit more effectual for that which is mumbled into some priest's ear, or upon some man's head particularly; yet we judge that men must be taught diligently to seek remission of sins in the blood of Christ, and that everyone is to be put in mind that forgiveness of sins belongs unto Him.

But how diligent and careful every penitent man ought to be in the endeavor of a new life, and in slaying the old man, and raising up the new man, the examples in the gospel teach us. For the Lord says to him whom He had healed of the palsy, "Behold thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee" (John 5:14). Likewise to the adulterous woman which was delivered, He said, "Go thy way, and sin no more" (John 8:11). By which words He did not mean that any man could be free from sin, while he lived in this flesh; but He commends unto diligence and an earnest care, that we (I say) should endeavor by all means, and beg of God by prayer, that we may not fall again into sins, out of which we are risen after a manner, and that we may not be overcome of the flesh, the world, or the devil. Zacchaeus, the publican, being received into favor by the Lord, cries out in the gospel, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken from any man any thing by fraud, I restore him fourfold" (Luke 19:8). After the same manner, we preach that restitution and mercy, yes, and giving of alms, are necessary for them which truly repent. And generally out of the apostle's words, we exhort men, saying, "Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it through the lusts thereof. Neither give ye your members, as weapons of unrighteousness, to sin; but give yourselves unto God, as they that are alive from the dead; and give your members, as weapons of righteousness, unto God" (Rom. 6:12–13).

Wherefore, we condemn all the ungodly speeches of certain ones who abuse the preaching of the gospel and say, "To return unto God is very easy, for Christ has purged all our sins: forgiveness of sins is easily obtained: what, therefore, will it hurt to sin?" And, "We need not take any great care for repentance," etc. Notwithstanding, we always teach that an entrance unto God is open for all sinners, and that this God forgives all the sins of the faithful, only that one sin excepted which is committed against the Holy Ghost (Mark 3:28–29). And, therefore, we condemn the old and new Novatians and Catharists, and especially we condemn the pope's lucrative doctrine of penance; and against his simony, and simonaical indulgences, we use that sentence of Simon Peter, "Thy money perish with thee, because thou thoughtest that the gift of God might be bought with money. Thou hast no part or fellowship in this matter, for thy heart is not upright before God" (Acts 8:20–21).

We also disapprove of those who think that they themselves by their own satisfactions can make recompense for their sins committed. For we teach that Christ alone, by His death and passion, is the satisfaction, propitiation, and purging of all sins (Isa. 53:4). Nevertheless, we cease not to urge, as was before said, the mortification of the flesh; and yet we add further that it must not be proudly thrust upon God for a satisfaction for our sins (1 Cor. 8:8), but must humbly, as it becomes the sons of God, be performed as a new obedience to show thankful minds for the deliverance and full satisfaction obtained by the death and satisfaction of the Son of God."

Forasmuch as God from the beginning would have men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4), therefore, it is necessary that there always should have been, and should be at this day, and to the end of the world, a church: that is, a company of the faithful, called and gathered out of the world; that is, a company (I say) of all saints, that is, of them who do truly know, and rightly worship and serve, the true God, in Jesus Christ the Savior by the Word and the Holy Spirit, and who by faith are partakers of all those good graces which are freely offered through Christ. These all are citizens of one and the same city living under one Lord, under the same laws, and in the same fellowship of all good things: for so the apostle calls them "fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19), terming the faithful upon the earth saints (1 Cor. 6:11) who are sanctified by the blood of the Son of God. Of these is that article of our Creed wholly to be understood: "I believe the catholic church, the communion of saints."

And seeing that there is always but "one God, and one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ" (1 Tim. 2:5); also, one shepherd of the whole flock, one head of this body, and to conclude one Spirit, one salvation, one faith, one testament or covenant, it follows necessarily that there is but one church: which we, therefore, call catholic because it is universal, spread abroad through all the parts and quarters of the world, and reaches unto all times, and is not limited within the compass either of time or place. Here, therefore, we must condemn the Donatists who pinned up the church within the corners of Africa; neither do we allow of the Roman clergy, who vaunt that the Church of Rome alone is in a manner catholic.

The church is divided by some into divers parts or sorts: not that it is rent and divided from itself, but rather distinguished in respect of the diversity of the members that are in it. One part thereof they make to be the church militant, the other the church triumphant. The militant wars still on the earth and fights against the flesh, the world, the prince of the world, the devil, against sin, and against death. The other, being already set at liberty, is now in heaven and triumphs over all those things overcome, and continually rejoices before the Lord. Yet these two churches have notwithstanding a communion and fellowship among themselves.

Moreover, the church militant upon the earth has evermore had in it many particular churches, which must all notwithstanding be referred to the unity of the catholic church. This militant church was otherwise ordered and governed before the Law, among the patriarchs; otherwise under Moses, by the Law; and otherwise of Christ, by the gospel. There are but two sorts of people for the most part mentioned, to wit, the Israelites and the Gentiles; or they which, of the Jews and Gentiles, were gathered to make a church. There are also two testaments, the old and the new. Yet both these sorts of people have had, and still have, one fellowship, one salvation, in one and the same Messiah; in whom, as members of one body, they are all joined together under one head, and by one faith are all partakers of one and the same spiritual meat and drink. Yet here we do acknowledge a diversity of times, and a diversity in the pledges and signs of Christ promised and exhibited; and that now the ceremonies being abolished, the light shines unto us more clearly, our gifts and graces are more abundant and our liberty is more full and ample.

This holy church of God is called "the house of the living God" (2 Cor. 6:16), "builded of living and spiritual stones" (1 Peter 2:5) "founded upon a rock" (Matt. 16:18) "that cannot be removed" (Heb. 12:28) "upon a foundation, besides which none can be laid" (1 Cor. 3:11). Whereupon it is called "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15) that does not err, so long as it relies upon the rock Christ, and upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles. And no marvel if it does err, as often as it forsakes Him who alone is the truth. This church is also called "a virgin" (2 Cor. 11:2) and "the spouse of Christ" (Song 4:8) and "his only beloved" (Song 5:16). For the apostle says, "I have joined you unto one husband, that I might present you a chaste virgin unto Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2). The church is called "a flock of sheep under one shepherd" even Christ (Ezek. 34:22–23 and John 10:16) also, "the body of Christ" (Col. 1:24) because the faithful are the lively members of Christ, having Him for their head.

It is the head which has the preeminence in the body, and from whence the whole body receives life; by whose spirit it is governed in all things, of whom also it receives increase that it may grow up. Also there is but one head of the body which has agreement with the body; and, therefore, the church cannot have any other head beside Christ. For as the church is a spiritual body, so must it have a spiritual head like unto itself. Neither can it be governed by any other spirit than by the Spirit of Christ. Wherefore Paul says, "And He is the head of His body the church, who is the beginning, the first born of the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Col. 1:18). And in another place, "Christ (he says) is the head of the church, and the same is the Savior of His body" (Eph. 5:23). And again, "Who is the head of the church, which is His body, even the fullness of Him, which filleth all in all things" (Eph. 1:22–23). Again, "Let us in all things grow up into Him which is the head, that is Christ; by whom all the body being knit together, receiveth increase" (Eph. 4:15–16). And, therefore, we do not allow of the doctrine of the Roman prelates, who would make the pope the general pastor and supreme head of the church of Christ militant here on earth, and the very vicar of Christ, who has (as they say) all fullness of power and sovereign authority in the church. For we hold and teach, that Christ our Lord is, and remains still the only universal pastor, and highest bishop, before God His Father; and that in the church He performs all the duties of a pastor or bishop, even to the world's end: and, therefore, does not stand in need of any other to supply His place. For he is said to have a substitute, who is absent: but Christ is present in His church, and is the head that gives life thereunto. He did straitly forbid His apostles and their successors all superiority or dominion in the church. They, therefore, that by gainsaying set themselves against so manifest a truth and bring another kind of government into the church; see not that they are to be counted in the number of them of whom the apostles of Christ prophesied as Peter (2 Peter 2:1) and Paul (Acts 20:29; 2 Cor. 11:13; 2 Thess. 2:8–9) and in many other places.

Now by taking away the Roman head, we do not bring any confusion or disorder into the church. For we teach that the government of the church which the apostles set down, is sufficient to keep the church in due order; which, from the beginning, while as yet it wanted such a Roman head as is now pretended to keep it in order, was not disordered or full of confusion. The Roman head indeed maintains his tyranny and corruption which have been brought into the church: but in the meantime he hinders, resists, and, with all the might he can make, cuts off the right and lawful reformation of the church.

They object to us that there have been great strifes and dissensions in our churches, since they did sever themselves from the Church of Rome; and that, therefore, they cannot be true churches. As though there were never in the Church of Rome any sects, any contentions and quarrels; and that in matters of religion, maintained not so much in the schools as in the holy chairs, even in the audience of the people. We know that the apostle said, "God is not the author of dissension, but of peace" (1 Cor. 14:33); and, "Seeing there is amongst you emulation and contention, are ye not carnal?" (1 Cor. 3:3–4). Yet may we not deny but that God was in that church planted by the apostle, and that the apostolic church was a true church, howsoever there were strifes and dissensions in it. The apostle Paul reprehended Peter, an apostle (Gal. 2:11), and Barnabas fell at variance with Paul (Acts 15:39). Great contention arose in the church of Antioch, between them that preached one and the same Christ, as Luke records in the Acts of the Apostles (15:2). And there have at all times been great contentions in the church, and the most excellent doctors of the church have about no small matters differed in opinion: yet so as in the meantime the church ceased not to be the church for all these contentions. For thus it pleases God to use the dissensions that arise in the church to the glory of His name, to the setting forth of the truth, and to the end that such as are not approved might be manifest (1 Cor. 11:19).

Now, as we acknowledge no other head of the church than Christ, so we do not acknowledge every church to be the true church which vaunts herself so to be: but we teach that to be the true church indeed in which the marks and tokens of the true church are to be found. First and chiefly, the lawful or sincere preaching of the Word of God, as it is left unto us in the writings of the prophets and apostles, which all seem to lead us unto Christ, who in the gospel has said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life. A stranger they do not hear, but flee from him, because they know not his voice" (John 10:5, 27–28). And they that are such in the church of God have all but one faith and one Spirit; and, therefore, they worship but one God: and Him alone they serve in spirit and in truth, loving Him with all their hearts and with all their strength, praying unto Him alone through Jesus Christ the only mediator and intercessor; and they seek not life or justice but only in Christ, and by faith in Him: because they acknowledge Christ the only head and foundation of His church, and, being surely founded on Him, daily repair themselves by repentance and with patience bear the cross laid upon them; and besides, by unfeigned love joining themselves to all the members of Christ, they declare themselves to be the disciples of Christ, by continuing in the bond of peace and holy unity. They do withal communicate in the sacraments ordained by Christ and delivered to us by His apostles, using them in no other manner than as they received them from the Lord Himself. That saying of the apostle Paul is well known to all, "I received from the Lord that which I delivered unto you" (1 Cor. 11:23). For which cause we condemn all such churches as strangers from the true church of Christ, who are not such as we have heard they ought to be; howsoever, in the meantime, they brag of the succession of bishops, of unity, and of antiquity. Moreover we have in charge from the apostles of Christ "to shun idolatry" (1 Cor. 10:14; 1 John 5:21) and "to come out of Babylon, and to have no fellowship with her, unless we mean to be partakers with her of all God's plagues laid upon her" (Rev. 18:4; 2 Cor. 6:17).

But as for communicating with the true church of Christ, we so highly esteem of it, that we say plainly that none can live before God which do not communicate with the true church of God, but separate themselves from the same. For as without the ark of Noah there was no escaping when the world perished in the flood; even so do we believe that without Christ, who in the church offers Himself to be enjoyed of the elect, there can be no certain salvation: and, therefore, we teach that such as would be saved must not separate themselves from the true church of Christ.

But yet we do not so strictly shut up the church within those marks before mentioned, as thereby to exclude all those out of the church which either do not communicate in the sacraments (not willingly, nor upon contempt, but who, being constrained by necessity, against their will abstain from them, or else do want them); or in whom faith sometimes fails, though not quite decay, nor altogether die: or in whom some slips and errors of infirmity may be found. For we know that God had some friends in the world that were not of the commonwealth of Israel. We know what befell the people of God in the captivity of Babylon, where they wanted their sacrifices seventy years. We know what happened to St. Peter, who denied his Master, and what is wont daily to fall out among the faithful and chosen of God, which go astray and are full of infirmities. We know moreover what manner of churches the churches at Galatia and Corinth were in the apostles' times: in which the apostle Paul condemns divers great and heinous crimes; yet he calls them the holy churches of Christ (1 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:2).

Yes, and it falls out sometimes that God in His just judgment suffers the truth of His Word and the catholic faith and His own true worship to be so obscured and defaced, that the church seems almost quite razed out, and not so much as a face of a church remains; as we see fell out in the days of Elijah (1 Kings 19:10, 14) and at other times. And yet, in the meantime, the Lord has in this world, even in this darkness, His true worshippers, and those not a few, but even seven thousand (v. 18) and more (Rev. 7:4). For the apostle cries, "The foundation of the Lord standeth sure, and hath this seal, The Lord knoweth who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). Whereupon the church of God may be termed invisible: not that the men whereof it consists are invisible; but because, being hidden from our sight, and known only unto God, it cannot be discerned by the judgment of man.

Again not all that are reckoned in the number of the church are saints, and lively and true members of the church. For there are many hypocrites which outwardly hear the Word of God and publicly receive the sacraments, and seem to pray unto God alone through Christ, to confess Christ to be their only righteousness, and to worship God, and to exercise the duties of charity to the brethren, and for a while through patience to endure in troubles and calamities. And yet they are altogether destitute of the inward illumination of the Spirit of God, of faith and sincerity of heart, and of perseverance or continuance to the end. And these men are for the most part at the length laid open what they are. For the apostle John says, "They went out from among us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would have tarried with us" (1 John 2:19). Yet these men, while they pretend religion, are accounted to be in the church, however indeed they are not of the church. Even as traitors in a commonwealth, before they are detected are counted in the number of good citizens; and as the cockle and darnel and chaff are found among the wheat; and as tumors and swellings are in a perfect body, when they are rather diseases and deformities than true members of the body. And, therefore, the church is very well compared to a dragnet which draws up fish of all sorts, and to a field wherein is found both darnel and good corn (Matt. 13:25–26). We are to have a special regard that we judge not rashly before the time, nor go about to exclude and cast off or cut away those whom the Lord would not have excluded nor cut off, or whom, without some damage to the church, we cannot separate from it. Again, we must be very vigilant lest the godly falling fast asleep, the wicked grow stronger and do some mischief to the church.

Furthermore we teach, that it is carefully to be marked wherein especially the truth and unity of the church consists, lest we either rashly breed or nourish schisms in the church. It consists not in outward rites and ceremonies, but rather in the truth and unity of the catholic faith. This catholic faith is not taught us by the ordinances or laws of men, but by the Holy Scriptures, a compendious and short sum whereof is the Apostles' Creed. And, therefore, we read in the ancient writers that there were manifold diversities of ceremonies, but that those were always free; neither did any man think that the unity of the church was thereby broken or dissolved. We say then that the true unity of the church consists in several points of doctrine: in the true and uniform preaching of the gospel, and in such rites as the Lord Himself has expressly set down; and here we urge that saying of the apostle very earnestly, "As many of us, therefore, as are perfect, let us be thus minded. If any man think otherwise, the Lord shall reveal the same unto him. And yet in that whereunto we have attained, let us follow one direction, and all of us be like affected one towards another" (Phil. 3:15–16).

God has always used His ministers, for the gathering or erecting of a church to Himself, and for the governing and preservation of the same; and still He does and always will use them, so long as the church remains on the earth. Therefore, the first beginning, institution, and office of the ministers, is a most ancient ordinance of God Himself, not a new device appointed by men. It is true that God can by His power, without any means, take unto Himself a church from among men, but He had rather deal with men by the ministry of men. Therefore, ministers are to be considered not as ministers by themselves alone, but as the ministers of God, even such as by whose means God works the salvation of mankind.

For which cause we give counsel to beware that we do not so attribute the things that appertain to our conversion and instruction unto the secret virtue of the Holy Ghost, that we frustrate the ecclesiastical ministry. For it behooves us always to have in mind the words of the apostle, "How shall they believe in Him, of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Therefore, faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:14, 17). And that also which the Lord says in the gospel, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that receiveth those that I shall send receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him who sent Me" (John 13:20). Likewise what a man of Macedonia, appearing in a vision to Paul, being then in Asia, said unto him: "Come into Macedonia, and help us" (Acts 16:9). And in another place the same apostle says, "We together are God's laborers; and ye are His husbandry, and His building" (1 Cor. 3:9).

Yet, on the other side, we must take heed that we do not attribute too much to the ministers and ministry, herein remembering also the words of our Lord in the gospel, "No man cometh to Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him" (John 6:44); and the words of the apostle, "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos; but the ministers by whom ye believed; and as the Lord gave unto every one? Therefore, neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase" (1 Cor. 3:5, 7). Therefore, let us believe that God teaches us by His Word outwardly through His ministers, and inwardly moves and persuades the hearts of His elect unto belief by His Holy Spirit: and that, therefore, we ought to render all the glory of this whole benefit unto God. But we have spoken of this matter in the first chapter of our declaration.

God has used for His ministers even from the beginning of the world, the best and most eminent men in the world (for divers of them were but simple for worldly wisdom or philosophy; yet surely in true divinity they were most excellent), namely, the patriarchs, to whom He spoke very often by His angels. For the patriarchs were the prophets or teachers of their age whom God for this purpose would have to live many years, that they might be as it were fathers and lights of the world. After them followed Moses, together with the prophets, that were most famous throughout the whole world. Then, after all these, our heavenly Father sent His only-begotten Son, the most absolute and perfect teacher of the world; in whom is hidden the wisdom of God, and from Him derived unto us by that most holy, perfect, and pure of all doctrine. For He chose unto Himself disciples whom He made apostles, and they going out into the whole world gathered together churches in all places by the preaching of the gospel. And afterward they ordained pastors and teachers in all churches by the commandment of Christ, who by such as succeeded them have taught and governed the church unto this day. Therefore, as God gave unto His ancient people the patriarchs, together with Moses and the prophets, so also to His people under the new covenant He has sent His only-begotten Son, and, with Him, the apostles and teachers of the church.

Furthermore, the ministers of the new covenant are termed by divers names; for they are called apostles, prophets, evangelists, bishops, elders, pastors, and teachers (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11). The apostles remained in no certain place, but gathered together divers churches throughout the whole world: which churches when they were once established, there ceased to be any more apostles, and in their places were particular pastors appointed in every church. The prophets in old time did foresee and foretell things to come; and besides did interpret the Scriptures: and such are found some among us at this day. They were called evangelists, which were the authors of the history of the gospel, and were also preachers of the gospel of Christ; as the apostle Paul gives in charge unto Timothy "to fulfill the work of an evangelist" (2 Tim. 4:5). Bishops are the overseers and the watchmen of the church, which distribute food and other necessities to the church. The elders are the ancients, and as it were the senators and fathers of the church, governing it with wholesome counsel. The pastors both keep the Lord's flock and also provide things necessary for it. The teachers do instruct, and teach the true faith and godliness.

Therefore, the church ministers that now are may be called bishops, elders, pastors, and teachers. But in process of time there were many more names of ministers brought into the church. For some were created patriarchs, others archbishops, others suffragans: also metropolitans, archdeacons, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, choristers, porters, and I know not what a rabble besides; cardinals, provosts, and priors; abbots, greater and lesser; orders, higher and lower. But touching all these, we little heed what they have been in time past, or what they are now; it is sufficient for us that, so much as concerns ministers, we have the doctrine of the apostles.

We, therefore, knowing certainly that monks and the orders or sects of them are instituted neither of Christ nor of His apostles, teach that they are so far from being profitable, that they are pernicious and hurtful unto the church of God. For although in former times they were somewhat tolerable (when they lived solitarily, getting their livings with their own hands, and were burdensome to none, but did in all places obey their pastors, even as laymen), yet what kind of men they are now, all the world sees and perceives. They pretend I know not what vows; but they lead a life altogether disagreeing with their vows: so that the very best of them may justly be numbered among those of whom the apostle speaks; "We hear say that there be some among you which walk inordinately, and work not at all, but are busy bodies" (2 Thess. 3:11). Therefore, we have no such in our churches: and besides we teach that they should not be allowed in the churches of Christ.

Furthermore, no man ought to usurp the honor of the ecclesiastical ministry; that is to say, greedily to pluck it to himself by bribes or any evil shifts or of his own accord. But let the ministers of the church be called and chosen by a lawful and ecclesiastical election and vocation: that is to say, let them be chosen religiously of the church, or of those which are appointed thereunto by the church, and that in due order, without any tumult, seditions, or contention. But we must have an eye to this, that not every one that will should be elected, but such men as are fit and have sufficient learning, especially in the Scriptures, and godly eloquence and wise simplicity; to conclude, such men as are of good report for a moderation and honesty of life, according to that apostolic rule, which St. Paul gives in the first epistle to Timothy (3:2–7) and to Titus (1:7–9).

And those which are chosen, let them be ordained of the elders with public prayer and laying on of hands. We here, therefore, condemn all those which run of their own accord, being neither chosen, sent, nor ordained. We do also utterly disallow unfit ministers, and such as are not furnished with gifts requisite for a pastor. In the meantime, we are not ignorant that the innocent simplicity of certain pastors in the primitive church did sometimes more profit the church, than the manifold, exquisite, and nice learning of some others that were over-lofty and high minded. And for this cause we also at this day do not reject the honest simplicity of certain men who yet are not destitute of all knowledge and learning.

The apostles of Christ do term all those which believe in Christ priests, but not in regard of their ministry, but because all the faithful, being made kings and priests, may through Christ, offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6). The ministry, then, and the priesthood are things far different one from the other. For the priesthood, as we said even now, is common to all Christians; so is not the ministry. And we have not taken away the ministry of the church because we have thrust the popish priesthood out of the church of Christ. For surely in the new covenant of Christ, there is no longer any such priesthood, as was in the ancient church of the Jews; which had an external anointing, holy garments, and very many ceremonies which were figures and types of Christ: who by His coming fulfilled and abolished them (Heb. 9:10–11). And He Himself remains the only priest forever: and we do not communicate the name of priest to any of the ministers, lest we should detract any thing from Christ. For the Lord Himself has not appointed in the church any priests of the New Testament who, having received authority from the suffragan, may offer up the host every day, that is, the very flesh and the very blood of our Savior, for the quick and the dead; but ministers, which may teach and administer the sacraments.

Paul declares plainly and shortly what we are to think of the ministers of the New Testament, or of the church of Christ, and what we must attribute unto them; "Let a man," says he, "thus account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). So that the apostle's mind is that we should esteem ministers, as ministers. Now the apostle calls them υπηρετας, as it were, "under-rowers," which have an eye only to their pilot; that is to say, men that live not unto themselves, nor according to their own will, but for others; to wit, their masters, at whose beck and commandment they ought to be. For the minister of the church is commanded wholly, and in all parts of his duty not to please himself, but to execute that only which he has received in commandment from his Lord. And in this same place, it is expressly declared who is our master, even Christ; to whom the ministers are in subjection in all the functions of their ministry.

And to the end that he might the more fully declare their ministry, he adds further that the ministers of the church are "stewards, and dispensers of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). Now the mysteries of God, Paul in many places and especially in Eph. 3:4, calls "the gospel of Christ." And the sacraments of Christ are also called mysteries by the ancient writers. Therefore, for this purpose are the ministers called, namely to preach the gospel of Christ unto the faithful, and to administer the sacraments. We read also in another place in the gospel of "the faithful and wise servant" that "his Lord set him over his family, to give food unto it in due season" (Luke 12:42). Again, in another place of the gospel, a man goes into a strange country, and, leaving his house, gives unto his servants authority therein, commits to them his substance, and appoints every man his work (Matt. 25:14).

This is now a fit place to speak somewhat also of the power and office of the ministers of the church. And concerning their power some have disputed over busily, and would bring all things, even the very greatest, under their jurisdiction; and that against the commandment of God who forbade unto His disciples all dominion, and highly commended humility (Luke 22:26; Matt. 18:3). Indeed there is one kind of power, which is a mere and absolute power, called the power of right. According to this power, all things in the whole world are subject unto Christ, who is Lord of all: even as He Himself witnesses saying, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18); and again, "I am the first, and the last, and behold I live forever, and I have the keys of hell and of death" (Rev. 1:17–18); also "He hath the key of David, which openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth" (Rev. 3:7).

This power the Lord reserves to Himself and does not transfer it to any other, that He might sit idly by and look on His ministers while they wrought. For Isaiah says, "I will put the key of the house of David upon His shoulder" (Isa. 22:22); and again, "Whose government shall be upon His shoulders" (Isa. 9:6). For He does not lay the government on other men's shoulders, but still keeps and uses His own power, thereby governing all things.

Furthermore, there is another power—that of office; or ministerial power, limited by Him, who has full and absolute power and authority. And this is more like a service than a dominion. For we see that a master gives unto the steward of his house authority and power over his house, and for that cause delivers to him his keys that he may admit or exclude such as his master will have admitted or excluded. According to this power the minister does, by his office, that which the Lord has commanded him to do: and the Lord ratifies and confirms that which he does, and will have the deeds of His ministers acknowledged and esteemed as His own deeds. Unto which end are those speeches in the gospel: "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou bindest, or loosest in earth, shall be bound, or loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19). Again "Whose sins soever ye remit, they shall be remitted: and whose sins soever ye retain, they shall be retained" (John 20:23). But if the minister deals not in all things as his Lord has commanded him, but passes the limits and bounds of faith, then the Lord makes void that which he does. Wherefore the ecclesiastical power of the ministers of the church is that function whereby they do indeed govern the church of God; but yet so do all things in the church, as He has prescribed in His Word: which thing being so done, the faithful esteem them as done of the Lord Himself. But touching the keys, we have spoken somewhat before.

Now the power or function that is given to the ministers of the church is the same and alike in all. Certainly, in the beginning, the bishops or elders did, with a common consent and labor, govern the church; no man lifted up himself above another, none usurped greater power or authority over his fellow bishops. For they remembered the words of the Lord, "He which will be the chiefest among you, let him be your servant" (Luke 22:26); they kept in themselves by humility, and did mutually aid one another in the government and preservation of the church.

Notwithstanding, for order's sake, some one of the ministers called the assembly together, propounded unto the assembly the matters to be consulted, gathered together the voices or sentences of the rest, and, to be brief, as much as lay in him, provided that there might arise no confusion. So did St. Peter, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (11:4–18), who yet, for all that, neither was above the rest nor had greater authority than the rest. Very true, therefore, is that saying of Cyprian the Martyr, in his book De Simplicitate Clericorum: "The same doubtless were the rest of the apostles that Peter was, having an equal fellowship with him both in honor and power: but the beginning hereof proceeds from unity, to signify unto us that there is but one church."

St. Jerome also, in his Commentary upon the Epistle of Paul to Titus, has a saying not much unlike this: "Before that, by the instinct of the devil, there arose parties in religion, the churches were governed by the common advice of the elders: but after that every one thought that those whom he had baptized were his own and not Christ's, it was decreed that one of the elders should be chosen and set over the rest, who should have the care of the whole church laid upon him, and by whose means all schisms should be removed." Yet Jerome does not avow this as an order set down of God: for straightway after he adds, "Even as the elders knew, by the continual custom of the church, that they were subject to him that is set over them: so the bishops must know that they are above the elders, rather by custom, than by the prescript rule of God's truth, and that they ought to have the government of the church in common with them." Thus far Jerome. Now, therefore, no man can forbid by any right that we may return to the old appointment of God; and rather receive that than the custom devised by men.

The offices of the ministers are divers: yet notwithstanding most men restrain them to two in which all the rest are comprehended; to the teaching of the gospel of Christ, and to the lawful administration of the sacraments. For it is the duty of the ministers to gather together a holy assembly, therein to expound the Word of God and also to apply the general doctrine to the state and use of the church; to the end that the doctrine which they teach may profit the hearers and may build up the faithful. The minister's duty I say is to teach the unlearned and to exhort, yes and to urge them to go forward in the way of the Lord, who stand still or linger and go slowly on; moreover, to comfort and to strengthen those which are fainthearted and to arm them against the manifold temptations of Satan; to rebuke offenders; to bring them home that go astray; to raise them up that are fallen; to convince the gainsayer; to chase away the wolf from the Lord's flock; to rebuke wickedness and wicked men, wisely and severely; not to wink at, nor to pass over great wickedness. And besides, to administer the sacraments, and to commend the right use of them, and to prepare all men by wholesome doctrine to receive them; to keep together all the faithful in an holy unity; and to encounter schisms. To conclude, to catechize the ignorant, to commend the necessity of the poor to the church, to visit and instruct those that are sick or entangled with divers temptations, and so to keep them in the way of life. Besides all this, to provide diligently that there be public prayers and supplications made in time of necessity, together with fasting, that is, a holy abstinence; and most carefully to look to those things which belong to the tranquility, peace, and safety of the church.

And to the end that the minister may perform all these things the better, and with more ease, it is required in him that he is one that fears God, prays diligently, gives himself much to the reading of the Scripture and in all things and at all times, is watchful and shows forth a good example unto all men of holiness of life. And seeing there must necessarily be discipline in the church, and that, among the ancient fathers excommunication was in use, and there were ecclesiastical judgments among the people of God, wherein this discipline was exercised by godly men; it belongs also to the minister's duty, for the edifying of the church, to moderate this discipline, according to the condition of the time and public estate, and according to necessity. Wherein this rule is always to be held, that "all things ought to be done to edification, decently, and honestly" (1 Cor. 14:40) without any oppression or tumult. For the apostle witnesses that "power was given to him of God, to edify and not to destroy" (2 Cor. 10:8). And the Lord Himself forbad the cockle to be plucked up in the Lord's field because there would be danger lest the wheat also should be plucked up with it (Matt. 13:29).

But as for the error of the Donatists, we do here utterly detest it; who esteem the doctrine and administration of the sacraments to be either effectual or not effectual according to the good or evil life of the ministers. For we know that the voice of Christ is to be heard, though it is out of the mouths of evil ministers; forasmuch as the Lord Himself said, "Do as they command you, but according to their works do ye not" (Matt. 23:3). We know that the sacraments are sanctified by the institution and through the word of Christ; and that they are effectual to the godly, although they are administered by ungodly ministers. Of which matter Augustine, that blessed servant of God, did reason diversely out of the Scriptures against the Donatists.

Yet notwithstanding there ought to be a straight discipline among the ministers: for there should be diligent inquiry in the synods touching the life and doctrine of the ministers: those that offend should be rebuked of the elders and be brought into the way, if they are not past recovery; or else be deposed, and, as wolves, be driven from the Lord's flock by the true pastors, if they are incurable. For if they are false teachers, they are not to be tolerated. Neither do we disapprove of general councils, if they are taken up according to the example of the apostles, to the salvation of the church, and not to the destruction thereof.

The faithful ministers also are worthy (as good workmen) of their reward; neither do they offend when they receive stipends, and all things that are necessary for themselves and their family. For the apostle shows that these things are for just cause offered by the church, and received of the ministers in 1 Cor. 9:14 and in 1 Tim. 5:17–18 and in other places also. The Anabaptists likewise are confuted by this apostolic doctrine, who condemn and rail upon those ministers which live upon the ministry.

God, even from the beginning, added unto the preaching of the Word His sacraments, or sacramental signs, in His church. And this the Holy Scripture plainly testifies. Sacraments are mystical symbols, or holy rites, or sacred actions, ordained of God Himself, consisting of His Word, of outward signs, and of things signified; whereby He keeps in continual memory, and recalls to mind in His church His great benefits bestowed upon man; and whereby He seals up His promises and outwardly represents, and, as it were, offers unto our sight, those things which inwardly He performs unto us, and therewith strengthens and increases our faith through the working of God's Spirit in our hearts; lastly, whereby He separates us from all other people and religions and consecrates and binds us wholly unto Himself, and gives us to understand what He requires of us.

These sacraments are either of the old church or of the new. The sacraments of the old were circumcision and the Pascal Lamb, which was offered up; under which name, reference is made to the sacrifices which were in use from the beginning of the world. The sacraments of the new church are baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Some there are which reckon seven sacraments of the new church, of which number we grant that repentance, matrimony, and the ordination of ministers (we mean not the popish, but the apostolic ordination) are very profitable ordinances of God, but not sacraments. As for confirmation and extreme unction, they are mere devices of men which the church may very well want, without any damage or discommodity at all: and, therefore, we do not have them in our churches because there are certain things in them which we can by no means permit. As for that merchandise which the Roman prelates use in ministering their sacraments, we utterly abhor it.

The author and institutor of all sacraments is not any man, but God alone: for men can by no means ordain sacraments because they belong to the worship of God, and it is not for man to appoint and prescribe a service of God, but to embrace and retain that which is taught unto him by the Lord. Besides the sacramental signs have God's promises annexed to them, which necessarily require faith: now faith rests itself only upon the Word of God; and the Word of God is resembled to writings or letters, the sacraments to seals which the Lord alone sets to His own letters.

And as the Lord is the author of the sacraments, so He continually works in that church, where they are rightly used; so that the faithful, when they receive them of the ministers, do know that the Lord works in His own ordinance, and, therefore, they receive them as from the hand of God: and the minister's faults (if there be any notorious in them) cannot hurt them, seeing they acknowledge the goodness of the sacraments to depend upon the ordinance of the Lord. For which cause they put a difference in the administration of the sacraments, between the Lord Himself and His minister; confessing that the substance of the sacraments is given them of the Lord, and the outward signs by the ministers of the Lord.

But the principal thing which in all the sacraments is offered of the Lord, and chiefly regarded of the godly of all ages (which some have called the substance and matter of the sacraments) is Christ our Savior: that only sacrifice (Heb. 10:12), and that Lamb of God slain from the beginning of the world (Rev. 13:8), that rock also, of which all our fathers drank (1 Cor. 10:4) by whom all the elect are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands through the Holy Spirit (Col. 2:11–12) and are washed from all their sins (Rev. 1:5), and are nourished with the very body and blood of Christ unto eternal life (John 6:54).

Now, in respect of that which is the chief thing, and the very matter and substance of the sacraments, the sacraments of both the Testaments are equal. For Christ, the only Mediator and Savior of the faithful, is the chief thing and substance in them both: one and the same God is author of them both: they were given unto both churches as signs and seals of the grace and promises of God; which should call to mind and renew the memory of God's great benefits to them, and should distinguish the faithful from all the religions in the world; lastly, which should be received spiritually by faith, and should bind the receivers unto the church and admonish them of their duty. In these, I say, and such like things, the sacraments of both churches are not unequal, although in the outward signs they are diverse.

And indeed we do yet put a greater difference between them: for ours are more firm and durable as those which are not to be changed to the end of the world. Again, ours testify that the substance and promise is already fulfilled and performed in Christ, whereas the other did only signify that they should be fulfilled. And again ours are more simple and not so painful, not so sumptuous, nor so full of ceremonies. Moreover they belong to a greater people that is dispersed through the face of the whole earth: and because they are more excellent and do by the Spirit of God stir up in us a greater measure of faith, therefore, a more plentiful measure of the Spirit follows them.

But now, since Christ the true Messiah is exhibited unto us and the abundance of grace is poured forth upon the people of the New Testament, the sacraments of the Old Law are surely abrogated and ceased; and in their stead the sacraments of the New Testament are placed: namely, for circumcision, baptism, and for the Pascal Lamb and sacrifices, the Supper of the Lord.

And as in the old church the sacraments consisted of the Word, the sign and the thing signified, so even at this day they are composed, as it were, of the same parts. For the Word of God makes them sacraments, which before were not: for they are consecrated by the Word and declared to be sanctified by Him who first ordained them. To sanctify or consecrate a thing is to dedicate it unto God and unto holy uses; that is, to take it from the common and ordinary use and to appoint it to some holy use. For the signs that are in the sacraments are drawn from common use; things external and visible. As in baptism, the outward sign is the element of water, and that visible washing which is done by the minister. But the thing signified is regeneration and the cleansing from sins. Likewise in the Lord's Supper, the outward sign is bread and wine, taken from things commonly used for meat and drink. But the thing signified is the body of Christ which was given, and His blood which was shed for us, and the communion of the body and blood of the Lord.

Wherefore the water, bread, and wine, considered in their own nature, and out of this holy use and institution of the Lord, are only that which they are called and which we find them to be. But let the Word of God be added to them together with invocation upon His holy name, and the renewing of their first institution and sanctification, and then these signs are consecrated and declared to be sanctified by Christ. For Christ's first institution and consecration of the sacraments stands yet in force in the church of God, in such sort that they which celebrate the sacraments no otherwise than the Lord Himself from the beginning has appointed, have still even to this day, the use and benefit of that first and most excellent consecration. And for this cause in the administration of the sacraments, the very words of Christ are repeated.

And forasmuch as we learn out of the Word of God that these signs were appointed unto another end and use than commonly they are used, therefore, we teach that they now, in this their holy use, take upon them the names of things signified, and are not still called bare water, bread, or wine: but that the water is called "regeneration, and washing of the new birth" (Titus 3:5), and the bread and wine "the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 10:16), or the pledges and sacraments of His body and blood. Not that the signs are turned into the things signified, or cease to be that which in their own nature they are (for then they could not be sacraments which should consist only of the thing signified and have no signs); but, therefore, do the signs bear the names of the things because they are mystical tokens of holy things, and because the signs and the things signified are sacramentally joined together: joined together I say, or united by a mystical signification, and by the purpose and will of Him who first instituted them. For the water, bread, and wine are not common, but holy signs. And He that instituted water in baptism did not institute it with that mind and purpose, that the faithful should only be dipped in the water of baptism; and He which commanded the bread to be eaten and the wine to be drunk in the Supper did not mean that the faithful should only receive bread and wine without any further mystery, as they eat bread at home in their own houses: but that they should spiritually be partakers of the things signified and by faith be truly purged from their sins and be partakers of Christ also.

And, therefore, we cannot allow of them which attribute the consecration of the sacraments to I know not what syllables; to the rehearsal of certain words pronounced by him that is consecrated, and that has an intent of consecrating; or to some other accidental things, which are not left unto us either by the word or by the example of Christ or His apostles. We also dislike the doctrine of those that speak no otherwise of the sacraments than of common signs, not sanctified, nor effectual. We condemn them also, who, because of the invisible things despise the visible and think the signs superfluous because they already enjoy the things themselves: such were the Messalians, as it is recorded. We disapprove their doctrine also who teach that grace and the things signified are to be so tied to and included in the signs, that whosoever outwardly receives the signs must necessarily inwardly participate in the grace and in the things signified, whatever manner of men they may be.

Notwithstanding, as we esteem not the goodness of the sacraments by the worthiness or unworthiness of the ministers, so likewise we do not weigh them by the condition of the recipients. For we know that the goodness of the sacraments depends upon the faithfulness or truth and the mere goodness of God. For even as God's Word remains the true Word of God, wherein not only bare words are uttered when it is preached, but there withal the things signified by the words are offered of God, although the wicked and unbelievers hear and understand the words, yet do not enjoy the things signified because they receive them not by a true faith: even so, the sacraments consisting of the Word, the signs, and the things signified, continue true and perfect sacraments not only because they are holy things, but also that God also offers the things signified; however unbelievers do not receive the things which are offered. This comes to pass not by any fault in God, the author and offerer of them; but by the fault of men, who receive them without faith and unlawfully: "whose unbelief cannot make the truth of God of none effect" (Rom. 3:3).

Now forasmuch as in the beginning, where we showed what the sacraments were, we did also by the way set down to what end they were ordained, it will not be necessary to trouble ourselves with repeating anything which has been already handled. Next, therefore, in order, it remains to speak severally of the sacraments of the new church.

Baptism was instituted and consecrated by God; and the first that baptized was John who dipped Christ in the water in Jordan. From Him it came to the apostles, who also baptized with water. The Lord in plain words commanded them "to preach the gospel, and to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19). And Peter also, when divers demanded of him what they ought to do, said to them in the Acts, "Let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (2:38). Whereupon baptism is called of some a sign of initiation for God's people, as that whereby the elected of God are consecrated unto God.

There is but one baptism in the church of God: for it is sufficient to be once baptized or consecrated unto God. For baptism once received continues all a man's life and is a perpetual sealing of our adoption unto us. For to be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God; yes and in this life to be called after the name of God, that is to say, to be called a son of God; to be purged also from the filthiness of sins and to be endued with the manifold grace of God, to lead a new and innocent life. Baptism, therefore, calls to mind and keeps in remembrance the great benefit of God performed to mankind. For we are all born in the pollution of sin and are the sons of wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy, freely purges us from our sins by the blood of His Son, and in Him adopts us to be His sons, and by a holy covenant joins us to Himself, and enriches us with divers gifts, that we might live a new life. All these things are sealed unto us in baptism. For inwardly we are regenerated, purified, and renewed of God through the Holy Spirit: and outwardly we receive the sealing of most notable gifts by the water; by which also those great benefits are represented, and, as it were, set before our eyes to be looked upon. And, therefore, are we baptized, that is, washed and sprinkled with visible water. For the water makes clean that which is filthy, and refreshes and cools the bodies that are frail and faint. And the grace of God deals in like manner with the soul; and that invisibly and spiritually.

Moreover by the sacrament of baptism, God separates us from all other religions and nations, and consecrates us a peculiar people to Himself. We, therefore, by being baptized, confess our faith and are bound to give unto God obedience, mortification of the flesh, and newness of life; yes, and we are enlisted as soldiers for the holy warfare of Christ, that all our life long we should fight against the world, Satan, and our own flesh. Moreover, we are baptized into one body of the church that we may well agree with all the members of the church in the same religion and mutual duties.

We believe that is, of all others, the most perfect form of baptism, wherein Christ was baptized, and which the rest of the apostles used in baptism. Those things, therefore, which by man's device were added afterwards and used in the church, we think unnecessary to the perfection of baptism. Of which kind is exorcism and the use of lights, oil, salt, spittle and such other things; as namely, that baptism is twice every year consecrated with divers ceremonies. For we believe that the baptism of the church, which is but one, was sanctified in God's first institution of it, and is consecrated by the Word, and is now of full force, by and for the first blessing of God upon it.

We teach that baptism should not be ministered in the church by women or midwives. For Paul excludes women from ecclesiastical callings: but baptism belongs to ecclesiastical offices. We condemn the Anabaptists, who deny that young infants, born of faithful parents, are to be baptized. For according to the doctrine of the gospel "theirs is the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16); and they are written in the covenant of God (Acts 3:25). Why then should not the sign of the covenant be given to them? Why should they not be consecrated by holy baptism who are God's peculiar people and in the church of God? We condemn also the Anabaptists in the rest of their opinions which they peculiarly hold against the Word of God. We, therefore, are not Anabaptists, neither do we agree with them in any point that is theirs.

The Supper of the Lord (which is also called the Lord's Table, and the Eucharist, that is, a thanksgiving) is, therefore, commonly called a Supper because it was instituted of Christ in His last Supper, and as yet represents the same, and in it the faithful are spiritually fed and nourished. For the author of the Supper of the Lord is not an angel or man, but the very Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who first of all consecrated it to His church. And the same blessing and consecration still remains among all those who celebrate no other but that very Supper which the Lord instituted; and at that recite the words of the Supper of the Lord, and in all things look unto Christ only by a true faith; at whose hands, as it were, they receive that which they do receive by the ministry of the ministers of the church. The Lord by this sacred rite would have that great benefit to be kept in fresh remembrance which He performed for mankind; to wit, that by giving up His body to death and shedding His blood, He has forgiven us all our sins and redeemed us from eternal death and the power of the devil, and now feeds us with His flesh, and gives us His blood to drink: which things, being apprehended spiritually by a true faith, nourish us to life everlasting. And this so great a benefit is renewed so oft as the Supper is celebrated. For the Lord said, "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19).

By this holy Supper also it is sealed unto us that the very body of Christ was truly given up for us and His blood shed for the remission of our sins, lest our faith might somewhat waver. And this is outwardly represented unto us by the minister in the sacrament after a visible manner, and, as it were, laid before our eyes to be seen, which is inwardly in the soul invisibly performed by the Holy Ghost. Outwardly bread is offered by the minister and the words of the Lord are heard: "Receive, eat, this is my body; take it, and divide it amongst you: drink ye all of this, this is my blood" (Matt. 26:26–28; Luke 22:17–20). Therefore, the faithful receive that which is given by the minister of the Lord and eat the bread of the Lord, and drink of the Lord's cup. But yet, by the working of Christ, through the Holy Ghost, they receive also the flesh and blood of the Lord and feed on them to life everlasting. For the flesh and blood of Christ is true meat and drink unto everlasting life: yes Christ Himself, in that He was delivered for us, and is our Savior, is that special thing and substance of the Supper; and, therefore, we suffer nothing to be put in His place.

But that it may the better and more plainly be understood how the flesh and blood of Christ are the meat and drink of the faithful, and are received by the faithful to life everlasting, we will add moreover these four things.

Eating is of divers sorts: for there is a corporal eating, whereby meat is taken into a man's mouth, chewed with the teeth, and swallowed down into the belly. After this manner did the Capernaites in times past think that they should eat the flesh of the Lord: but they are confuted by Him (John 6:30–63). For as the flesh of Christ cannot be eaten bodily without great wickedness and cruelty, so is it not meat for the belly, as all men do confess. We, therefore, disapprove that canon in the pope's decrees, Ego Berengarius (De Consecrat., dist. 2). For neither did godly antiquity believe, neither yet do we believe that the body of Christ can be eaten corporally and essentially with a bodily mouth.

There is also a spiritual eating of Christ's body; not such a one whereby it may be thought that the very meat is changed into the spirit, but whereby (the Lord's body and blood remaining in their own essence and property) those things are spiritually communicated unto us, not after a corporal, but after a spiritual manner, through the Holy Ghost, who applies and bestows upon us those things (to wit, remission of sins, deliverance and life everlasting) which are prepared for us by the flesh and blood of our Lord, given for us: so that Christ now lives in us and we live in Him; and causes us to apprehend Him by true faith to this end, that He may become unto us such a spiritual meat and drink, that is to say, our life. For even as corporal meat and drink not only refresh and strengthen our bodies, but also keep them in life; even so the flesh of Christ delivered for us and His blood shed for us, do not only refresh and strengthen our souls, but also preserves them alive, not so far as they are corporally eaten and drunken, but so far as they are communicated unto us spiritually by the Spirit of God: the Lord saying, "The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51); also "The flesh (to wit, corporally eaten) profiteth nothing, it is the Spirit which giveth life: and the words which I speak to you, are Spirit and life" (John 6:63).

And as we must by eating receive the meat into our bodies to the end that it may work in us and show its efficacy in us (because, while it is without us, it profits us not at all); even so it is necessary that we receive Christ by faith, that He may be made ours and that He may live in us and we in Him. For He says, "I am the bread of life; He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and He that believeth in me, shall not thirst any more" (John 6:35); and also, "He that eateth me, shall live through me; and He abideth in me, and I in him" (John 6:56).

By all which it appears manifestly that by spiritual meat we do not mean any imaginary thing, but the very body of our Lord Jesus given to us; which yet is received of the faithful not corporally, but spiritually by faith: in which point we do wholly follow the doctrine of our Lord and Savior Christ in the 6th of John. And this eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of the Lord is so necessary to salvation that without it no man can be saved. This spiritual eating and drinking is also without the Supper of the Lord; even so often as and where ever a man believes in Christ. To which purpose that sentence of St. Augustine happily belongs: "Why dost thou prepare thy teeth and belly? Believe, and thou hast eaten."

Besides that former spiritual eating, there is a sacramental eating of the body of the Lord; whereby the faithful man not only is partaker spiritually and internally of the true body and blood of the Lord; but also by coming to the Table of the Lord outwardly receives the visible sacraments of the body and blood of the Lord. It is true that the faithful man, by believing, before received the food that gives life, and still receives the same, but yet, when he receives the sacrament, he receives something more. For he goes on in continual communication of the body and blood of the Lord, and his faith is daily more and more kindled, more strengthened and refreshed by the spiritual nourishment. For while we live, faith has continual increasings: and he that outwardly receives the sacraments with a true faith, the same not only receives the sign, but also enjoys (as we have said) the thing itself. Moreover the same man obeys the Lord's institution and commandment, and with a joyful mind gives thanks for his and the redemption of all mankind; and makes a faithful remembrance of the Lord's death, and witnesses the same before the church, of which body he is a member. This also is sealed to those which receive the sacrament, that the body of the Lord was given and His blood shed, not only for men in general, but particularly for every faithful communicant whose meat and drink He is, to life everlasting.

But as for him that without faith comes to this holy Table of the Lord, he is made partaker of the sacrament only; but the matter of the sacrament from whence comes life and salvation, he receives not at all and such men do unworthily eat of the Lord's Table. "Now they which do unworthily eat of the Lord's bread and drink of the Lord's cup, they are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and they eat and drink it to their judgment" (1 Cor. 11:26–29). For as they do not approach with true faith, they do despite unto the death of Christ, and, therefore, eat and drink condemnation to themselves.

We do not, therefore, so join the body of the Lord and His blood with the bread and wine, as though we thought that the bread is the body of Christ more than after a sacramental manner; or that the body of Christ lies hidden corporally under the bread, so as it ought to be worshipped under the form of bread; or yet that whoever he is which receives the sign, he receives the thing itself. The body of Christ is in the heavens, at the right hand of His Father: and, therefore, our hearts are to be lifted up on high, and not to be fixed on the bread, neither is the Lord to be worshipped in the bread; though notwithstanding the Lord is not absent from His church when they celebrate the Supper. The sun, being absent from us in the heavens, is yet notwithstanding present among us effectually: how much more Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, though in body He is absent from us in the heavens, yet is present among us, not corporally, but spiritually, by His lively operation; and so as He Himself promised in His last Supper, to be present among us (John 14–16). Whereupon it follows that we have not the Supper without Christ, and yet that we have meanwhile an unbloody and mystical Supper, even as all antiquity called it.

Moreover, we are admonished in the celebration of the Supper of the Lord to be mindful of the body whereof we are made members; and that, therefore, we are at concord with all our brethren that we live holily and not pollute ourselves with wickedness and strange religions; but persevering in the true faith to the end of our life give diligence to excel in holiness of life.

It is, therefore, very requisite that, purposing to come to the Supper of the Lord, we do try ourselves according to the commandment of the apostle: first, with what faith we are endued, whether we believe that Christ is come to save sinners and to call them to repentance, and whether each man believes that he is in the number of them that, being delivered by Christ, are saved; and whether he has purposed to change his wicked life, to live holily, and persevere through God's assistance in true religion and in concord with his brethren, and to give worthy thanks to God for his delivery.

We think that rite, manner, or form of the Supper to be the most simple and excellent which comes nearest to the first institution of the Lord and to the apostles' doctrine: which consists in declaring the Word of God, in godly prayers, in the action itself that the Lord used, and the repeating of it; in the eating of the Lord's body and drinking of His blood; in the wholesome remembrance of the Lord's death and faithful giving of thanks; and in a holy fellowship in the union of the body of the church.

We, therefore, disapprove them which have taken from the faithful one part of the sacrament, to wit, the Lord's cup. For these do very grievously offend against the institution of the Lord, who says, "Drink all of you of this" (Matt. 26:27), which He did not so plainly say of the bread. What manner of mass it was that the fathers used, whether it were tolerable, or intolerable, we do not now dispute. But this we say freely, that the Mass which is now used throughout the Roman Church, which, for brevity's sake, we will not now particularly recite, for many and most just causes is quite abolished out of our churches. Truly we could not like it because of a most wholesome action, they have made a vain spectacle; also because it is made a meritorious matter and is said for money; likewise because in it the priest is said to make the very body of the Lord, and to offer the same really, even for the remission of the sins of the quick and the dead. Add this also; that they do it for the honor, worship, and reverence of the saints in heaven.

Although it is lawful for all men privately at home to read the Holy Scriptures and by instruction to edify one another in the true religion: yet that the Word of God may be lawfully preached to the people, and prayers and supplications publicly made; also that the sacraments may be lawfully ministered, and that collections may be made for the poor and to defray all necessary charges, or to supply the wants of the church; it is very needful there should be holy meetings and ecclesiastical assemblies. For it is manifest that in the apostolic church and primitive church, there were such assemblies frequented of godly men. So many then as do despise them and separate themselves from them are condemners of true religion and are to be compelled by the pastors and godly magistrates to cease stubbornly to separate and absent themselves from sacred assemblies.

Now ecclesiastical assemblies must not be hidden and secret, but public and common, unless persecution by the enemies of Christ and the church will not allow them to be public: for we know what manner of assemblies the primitive church had heretofore in secret corners, being under the tyranny of Roman emperors. But let those places where the faithful meet together be decent and in all respects fit for God's church. Therefore, let houses be chosen for that purpose, or churches that are large and fair, so that they may be purged from all such things as do not become the church. And let all things be ordered most meet for comeliness, necessity, and godly decency, that nothing may be wanting which is requisite for rites and orders and the necessary uses of the church.

And as we believe that God does not dwell in temples made with hands, so we know that by reason of the Word of God and holy exercises therein celebrated, places dedicated to God and His worship are not profane, but holy; and that, therefore, such as are conversant in them ought to behave themselves reverently and modestly as those who are in a sacred place in the presence of God and His holy angels. All excess of apparel, therefore, is to be abandoned from churches and places where Christians meet in prayer, together with all pride and whatever else does not become Christian humility, discipline, and modesty. For the true ornament of churches does not consist in ivory, gold, and precious stones; but in the sobriety, godliness, and virtues of those which are in the church. "Let all things be done comely and orderly" in the church (1 Cor. 14:26): to conclude "Let all things be done to edifying" (v. 40). Therefore, let all strange tongues keep silence in the holy assemblies, and let all things be uttered in the vulgar tongue which is understood of all men in the company.

It is true that a man may lawfully pray privately in any tongue that he understands, but public prayers ought in the holy assemblies to be made in the vulgar tongue or such a language as is known to all. Let all the prayers of the faithful be poured forth to God alone, through the mediation of Christ only, out of a true faith and pure love. As for invocation of saints or using them as intercessors to entreat for us, the priesthood of our Lord Christ, and true religion, will not permit us. Prayer must be made for magistracy, for kings and all that are placed in authority, for ministers of the church, and for all necessities of churches; and specially in any calamity of the church, prayer must be made, both privately and publicly, without ceasing.

Moreover we must pray willingly, and not by constraint, nor for any reward: neither must we superstitiously tie prayer to any place, as though it were not lawful to pray but in the church. There is no necessity that public prayers should be in form and in time the same or alike in all churches. Let all churches use their liberty. Socrates, in his History, says, "In any country or nation wheresoever, you shall not find two churches which do wholly agree in prayer." The authors of this difference I think were those which had the government of the churches in all ages. Thus, if any agrees, it deserves great commendation and is to be imitated of others.

Besides this, there must be a mean and measure, as in every other thing, so also in public prayers that they are not over long and tedious. Let, therefore, the most time be given to teaching the gospel in such holy assemblies: and let there be diligent heed taken that the people in the assemblies not be wearied with over long prayers so that, when the preaching of the gospel should be heard, they through wearisomeness either desire to go forth themselves or to have the assembly wholly dismissed. For unto such the sermons seem to be over long, which otherwise are brief enough. Yes, and the preachers ought to keep a mean.

Likewise the singing in sacred assemblies ought to be moderated where it is in use. That song which they call Gregory's has many gross things in it: wherefore it is upon good cause rejected of ours and of all other Reformed churches. If there are any churches which have faithful prayer in good manners and no singing at all, they are not, therefore, to be condemned: for all churches do not have the commodity and opportunity of singing. And it is certain by testimonies of antiquity that, as the custom of singing has been very ancient in the Eastern churches, so it was long ere it was received in the Western churches.

In ancient times, there were no such things as canonical hours; that is, known prayers framed for certain hours in the day and therein chanted or oft repeated, as the manner of the papists is: which may be proved by many of their lessons appointed in their hours, and divers other arguments. Moreover they have many absurd things (that I say no more) and, therefore, are well omitted by our churches, which have brought in their stead matters more wholesome for the whole church of God.

Although religion is not tied unto time, yet it cannot be planted and exercised without a due dividing and allotting out of time unto it. Every church, therefore, chooses unto itself a certain time for public prayers, and for preaching of the gospel, and for the celebration of the sacraments: and it is not lawful for everyone to overthrow this appointment of the church at his own pleasure. For except some due time and leisure were allotted to the outward exercise of religion, without doubt men would be quite drawn from it by their own affairs. In regard hereof, we see that in the ancient churches, there were not only certain set hours in the week appointed for meetings, but that also even for the Lord's Day itself, ever since the apostles' time, was consecrated to religious exercises and unto a holy rest; which also is now very well observed of our churches for the worship of God and increase of charity. Yet herein we give no place unto the Jewish observation of the day or to any superstitions. For we do not account one day to be holier than another, nor think that mere rest is of itself liked of God. Besides we do celebrate and keep the Lord's Day, and not the Sabbath, and that with a free observation.

Moreover, if the churches do religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord's nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of His ascension into heaven, and sending the Holy Ghost upon His disciples, according to Christian liberty, we do very well approve of it. But as for festival days ordained to men or departed saints, we cannot allow them. For indeed such feasts must be referred to the first table of the Law and belong peculiarly unto God. To conclude, these festival days, which are appointed to saints and abrogated of us, have in them many gross things, unprofitable and not to be tolerated. In the meantime, we confess that the remembrance of saints in due time and place may be to good use and profit commended unto the people in sermons, and the holy examples of holy men set before their eyes to be imitated of all.

Now, the more sharply that the church of Christ accuses surfeiting, drunkenness, and all kind of lusts and intemperance, so much the more earnestly does it commend unto us Christian fasting. For fasting is nothing else but the abstinence and temperance of the godly, and watching and chastising of our flesh taken up for the present necessity, whereby we are humbled before God and withdraw from the flesh those things whereby it is cherished, to the end it may the more willingly and easily obey the Spirit. Wherefore they do not fast at all that have no regard of those things, but do imagine that they fast if they stuff their bellies once a day, and for a set or prescribed time abstain from certain meats, thinking that by this very work wrought they please God and do a good work. Fasting is a help of the prayers of the saints and of all virtues: but the fasts wherein the Jews fasted from meat and not from wickedness, pleased God not at all, as we may see in the books of the prophets.

Now fasting is either public or private. In old time they celebrated public fasts in troublesome times and in the afflictions of the church: wherein they abstained altogether from meat unto the evening and bestowed all that time in holy prayers, the worship of God and repentance. These differed little from mournings and lamentations; and of these there is often mention made in the prophets, and especially in the second chapter of Joel. Such a fast should be kept at this day when the church is in distress. Private fasts are used of every one of us, according as every one feels the Spirit weakened in him: for so far forth he withdraws that which might cherish and strengthen the flesh. All fasts ought to proceed from a free and willing spirit and such a one as is truly humbled, and not framed to win applause and liking of men, much less to the end that a man might merit righteousness by them. But let everyone fast to this end that he may deprive the flesh of that which would cherish it and that he may the more zealously serve God.

The fast of Lent has testimony from antiquity but none out of the apostles' writings; and, therefore, ought not, nor cannot, be imposed on the faithful. It is certain that in old time there were divers manners and uses of this fast; whereupon Irenaeus, a most ancient writer, says, "Some think that this fast should be observed one day only, others two days, but others more, and some forty days. Which variety of keeping this fast began not now in our times, but long before us; by those as I suppose which, not simply holding that which was delivered to them from the beginning, fell shortly after into another custom, either through negligence or ignorance." Moreover, Socrates, the writer of the History, says, "Because no ancient record is found concerning this matter, I think the apostles left this to every man's own judgment, that every one might work that which is good without fear or constraint."

Now as concerning the choice of meats, we suppose that in fasting all that should be taken from the flesh whereby the flesh is made more lusty, wherein it most immoderately delights and whereby it is most of all pampered, whether they be fish, spices, dainties, or excellent wines. Otherwise we know that all the creatures of God were made for the use and service of men. All things which God made are good (Gen. 1:31) and are to be used in the fear of God and with due moderation, without putting any difference between them. For the apostle says, "To the pure, all things are pure" (Titus 1:15); and also, "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat ye, and ask no question, for conscience' sake" (1 Cor. 10:25). The same apostle calls the doctrine of those which teach to abstain from meats, "the doctrine of devils" for "God created meats to be received of the faithful and such as know the truth with thanksgiving because whatsoever God has created, it is good, and is not to be refused, if it is received with giving of thanks" (1 Tim. 4:1, 3–4). The same apostle to the Colossians reproves those which by an overmuch abstinence will get into themselves an opinion of holiness (Col. 2:20–23). Therefore, we altogether dislike the Tatians, and the Encratites, and all the disciples of Eustathius, against whom the Synod of Gangra was assembled.

Unto the ancient people were given in old time certain ceremonies, as a kind of schooling to those which were kept under the Law, as under a schoolmaster or tutor. But Christ the deliverer, being once come and the Law taken away, we which believe are no more under the Law (Rom. 6:14) and the ceremonies have vanished out of use. And the apostles were so far from retaining them or restoring them in the church of Christ that they witnessed plainly that they would not lay any burden upon the church (Acts 15:28). Wherefore we should seem to bring in and set up Judaism again, if we should multiply ceremonies or rites in the church according to the manner of the old church. And thus we are not of their judgment who would have the church of Christ kept in with many and divers rites as it were with a certain schooling. For if the apostles would not thrust upon the Christian people the ceremonies and rites which were appointed by God, who is there, I pray you, that is well in his wits, that will thrust upon it the inventions devised by man? The greater the heap of ceremonies is in the church, so much the more is taken not only from Christian liberty but also from Christ and from faith in Him; while the people seek those things in ceremonies which they should seek in the only Son of God, Jesus Christ, through faith. Wherefore a few moderate and simple rites that are not contrary to the Word of God are sufficient for the godly.

And in that there is found diversity of rites in the churches, let no man say, therefore, that the churches do not agree. Socrates says, "It is not possible to set down in writing all the ceremonies of the churches, which are throughout cities and countries. No religion doth keep everywhere the same ceremonies, although they admit and receive one and the selfsame doctrine touching them for even they which have one and the selfsame faith, do disagree among themselves about ceremonies." Thus much says Socrates; and we at this day having diversities in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and in certain other things in our churches, yet we do not disagree in doctrine and faith, neither is the unity and society of our churches rent asunder. For the churches have always used their liberty in such rites as being things indifferent, which we also do at this day.

But yet, notwithstanding, we admonish men to take heed that they count not among things indifferent such as indeed are not indifferent; as some count the mass and the use of images in the church for things indifferent. "That is indifferent (said Jerome to Augustine) which is neither good nor evil, so that whether you do it, or do it not, you are never the more just, or unjust thereby." Therefore, when things indifferent are wrested to the confession of faith, they cease to be free: as Paul shows that it is lawful for a man to eat flesh, if no man admonishes him that it was offered to idols (1 Cor. 10:27–28), for then it is unlawful because he that eats it seems to approve idolatry by eating it.

The church of Christ has riches through the bountifulness of princes and the liberality of the faithful who have given their goods to the church. For the church has need of such goods; and has had goods from ancient times for the maintenance of things necessary for the church. Now the true use of church goods was and now is to maintain learning in schools, and in holy assemblies, with all the service, rites, and buildings of the church; finally, to maintain teachers, scholars, and ministers with other necessary things; and chiefly for the succor and relief of the poor. But for the lawful dispensing of these ecclesiastical goods, let men be chosen that fear God; wise men and such as are of good report for government of their families. But if the goods of the church by injury of the time, and the boldness, ignorance, or covetousness of some is turned to any abuse, let them be restored again by godly and wise men unto their holy use: for they must not wink at so impious an abuse. Therefore, we teach that schools and colleges, whereinto corruption is crept in doctrine in the service of God, and in manners, must be reformed: and that there must be order taken, godly, faithfully and wisely, for the relief of the poor.

Such as have the gift of chastity given unto them from above, so as they can with the heart or whole mind be pure and continent and not be grievously burned with lust, let them serve the Lord in that calling, as long as they shall feel themselves endued with that heavenly gift: and let them not lift up themselves above others, but let them serve the Lord daily in simplicity and humility. For such are more apt for doing of heavenly things than they which are distracted with the private affairs of a family. But if again the gift is taken away and they feel a continual burning, let them call to mind the words of the apostle, "It is better to marry, than to burn" (1 Cor. 7:9).

For wedlock (which is the medicine of incontinency and continency itself) was ordained by the Lord God Himself, who blessed it most bountifully, and willed man and woman to cleave one to the other inseparably and to live together in great love and concord (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5–6). Whereupon we know the apostle said, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled" (Heb. 13:4). And again, "If a virgin marry, she sinneth not" (1 Cor. 7:28). We, therefore, condemn polygamy and those which condemn second marriages.

We teach that marriages ought to be made lawfully in the fear of the Lord and not against the laws which forbid certain degrees to join in matrimony, lest the marriages should be incestuous. Let marriages be made with consent of the parents or such as are in the place of parents; and for that end especially for which the Lord ordained marriages: and let them be confirmed publicly in the church with prayer and blessing. Moreover, let them be kept holy, with peace, faithfulness, dutifulness, love, and also purity of the persons coupled together. Therefore, let them take heed of brawlings, debates, lusts, and adulteries. Let lawful judgments and holy judges be established in the church, which may maintain marriages and may repress all dishonesty and shamefulness, and before whom controversies in matrimony may be decided and ended.

Let children also be brought up of the parents in the fear of the Lord; and let parents provide for their children, remembering the saying of the apostle, "He that provideth not for his own hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim. 5:8). But specially let them teach their children honest sciences whereby they may maintain themselves: let them withdraw them from idleness and plant in them a true confidence in God in all these things; lest they, through distrust, or overmuch careless security or filthy covetousness, wax loose and in the end come to no good.

Now it is most certain that those works which parents do in a true faith, by the duties of marriage and government of their families, are, before God, holy and good works indeed, and please God no less than prayers, fasting, and alms deeds. For so the apostle has taught in his epistles, especially in those to Timothy and Titus. And with the same apostle we account the doctrine of such as forbid marriage, or do openly dispraise or secretly discredit it as not holy or clean, among the "doctrines of devils" (1 Tim. 4:1). And we do detest unclean single life, licentious lusts, and fornications, both open and close, and the continency of dissembling hypocrites, whenas they are of all men most incontinent. All that be such, God will judge. We do not disapprove of riches and rich men, if they are godly, and use their riches well; but we reprove the sect of the Apostolicals, etc.

The magistracy, of whatever sort it is, is ordained of God Himself for the peace and quietness of mankind; and so he ought to have the chiefest place in the world. If he is an adversary to the church, he may hinder and disturb it very much, but if he is a friend and so a member of the church, he is a most useful and excellent member thereof, which may profit it very much, and finally may help and further it very excellently. His chief duty is to procure and maintain peace and public tranquility, which doubtless he shall never do more happily than when he shall be truly seasoned with the fear of God and true religion; namely, when he shall, after the example of the most holy kings and princes of the people of the Lord, advance the preaching of the truth and the pure and sincere faith, and shall root out lies and all superstition, with all impiety and idolatry, and shall defend the church of God. For indeed we teach that the care of religion chiefly pertains to the holy magistrate.

Let him, therefore, hold the Word of God in his hands and see to it that nothing is taught contrary thereunto. In like manner let him govern the people committed to him of God with good laws, made according to the Word of God. Let him hold them in discipline and in duty and in obedience: let him exercise judgment by judging uprightly: let him not accept any man's person or receive bribes: let him deliver widows, fatherless children, and those that are afflicted from wrong: let him repress, yes, and cut off such as are unjust, whether in deceit or by violence. "For he hath not received the sword of God in vain" (Rom. 13:4).

Therefore, let him draw forth this sword of God against all malefactors, seditious persons, thieves or murderers, oppressors, blasphemers, perjured persons, and all those whom God has commanded him to punish or even to execute. Let him suppress stubborn heretics (which are heretics indeed), who cease not to blaspheme the majesty of God, and to trouble the church, yes, and finally to destroy it. But if it is necessary to preserve the safety of the people by war, let him do it in the name of God, provided he has first sought peace by all means possible and can save his subjects in no way but by war. And while the magistrate does these things in faith, he serves God with those works, as with such as are good and shall receive a blessing from the Lord.

We condemn the Anabaptists, who, as they deny that a Christian man should bear the office of a magistrate, so also they deny that any man can justly be put to death by the magistrate, or that the magistrate may make war, or that oaths should be performed to the magistrate, and such like things. For as God will work the safety of His people by the magistrate, whom He has given to be, as it were, a father of the world; so all subjects are commanded to acknowledge this benefit of God in the magistrate. Therefore, let them honor and reverence the magistrate as the minister of God; let them love him, favor him, and pray for him as their father; and let them obey all his just and equal commandments. Finally, let them pay all customs and tributes and all other duties of the like sort, faithfully and willingly. And if the common safety of the country and justice require it, and the magistrate of necessity makes war, let them even lay down their life and spend their blood for the common safety and defense of the magistrate; and that in the name of God, willingly, valiantly and cheerfully. For he that opposes himself against the magistrate procures the wrath of God against him. We condemn, therefore, all condemners of magistrates, rebels, enemies of the commonwealth, seditious villains, and, in a word, all such as do either openly or closely refuse to perform those duties which they owe.

We beseech God, our most merciful Father in heaven, that He will bless the princes of the people, and us, and His whole people, through Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior, to whom be praise and thanksgiving, both now and forever. Amen.

1. The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience: although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterward for the better preserving, and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.

2. Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written; are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these:

Of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Of the New Testament: The Gospels according to Matthew Mark Luke John The Acts of the Apostles Paul's Epistles to the Romans Corinthians I Corinthians II Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians Thessalonians I Thessalonians II to Timothy I to Timothy II to Titus to Philemon The Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle of James The first and second Epistles of Peter The first, second, and third Epistles of John The Epistle of Jude The Revelation of John.

3. The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon (or rule) of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority to the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of, than other human writings.

4. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

5. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God, to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scriptures; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies, and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion, and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture; unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word, and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church common to human actions and societies; which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

7. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.

8. The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal to them. But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have a right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation, unto which they come, that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope.

9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold but one), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.

10. The supreme judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit, into which Scripture so delivered, our faith is finally resolved.

1. It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus his only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them both, to be the Mediator between God and man; the Prophet, Priest, and King; Head and Savior of his church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world; unto whom he did from all eternity give a people to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.

2. The Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one substance and equal with him who made the world, who upholdeth and governeth all things he hath made: did when the fullness of time was come take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin: being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowing her, and so was made of a woman, of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham, and David according to the Scriptures: so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, were inseparably joined together in one person: without conversion, composition, or confusion: which person is very God and very man; yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.

3. The Lord Jesus, in his human nature thus united to the divine, in the person of the Son, was sanctified, anointed with the Holy Spirit, above measure; having in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; in whom it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell: to the end that being holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace, and truth, he might be thoroughly furnished to execute the office of a mediator and surety; which office he took not upon himself, but was thereunto called by his Father; who also put all power and judgment in his hand, and gave him commandment to execute the same.

4. This office the Lord Jesus did most willingly undertake, which that he might discharge he was made under the law, and did perfectly fulfill it, and underwent the punishment due to us, which we should have born and suffered, being made sin and a curse for us: enduring most grievous sorrows in his soul; and most painful sufferings in his body; was crucified, and died, and remained in the state of the dead; yet saw no corruption: on the third day he arose from the dead, with the same body in which he suffered; with which he also ascended into heaven: and there sitteth at the right hand of his Father, making intercession; and shall return to judge men and angels, at the end of the world.

5. The Lord Jesus by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of God, procured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him.

6. Although the price of redemption was not actually paid by Christ, till after his incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefit thereof were communicated to the elect in all ages successively, from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices, wherein he was revealed, and signified to be the seed of the woman, which should bruise the serpent's head; and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world: being the same yesterday, and today and forever.

7. Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.

8. To all those for whom Christ hath obtained eternal redemption, he doth certainly, and effectually apply, and communicate the same; making intercession for them, uniting them to himself by his Spirit, revealing unto them, in and by the Word, the mystery of salvation; persuading them to believe, and obey, governing their hearts by his Word and Spirit, and overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power, and wisdom; in such manner, and ways as are most consonant to his wonderful, and unsearchable dispensation; and all of free, and absolute grace, without any condition foreseen in them, to procure it.

9. This office of Mediator between God and man, is proper only to Christ, who is the Prophet, Priest, and King of the church of God; and may not be either in whole, or any part thereof transferred from him to any other.

10. This number and order of offices is necessary; for in respect of our ignorance, we stand in need of his prophetical office; and in respect of our alienation from God, and imperfection of the best of our services, we need his priestly office, to reconcile us, and present us acceptable unto God: and in respect to our averseness, and utter inability to return to God, and for our rescue, and security from our spiritual adversaries, we need his kingly office, to convince, subdue, draw, uphold, deliver, and preserve us to his heavenly kingdom.

1. The catholic or universal church, which (with respect to the internal work of the Spirit, and truth of grace) may be called 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.

2. All persons throughout the world, professing the faith of the gospel, and obedience unto God by Christ, according unto it, not destroying their own profession by any errors everting the foundation, or unholiness of conversation, are and may be called visible saints; and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted.

3. The purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan; nevertheless Christ always hath had, and ever shall have a kingdom, in this world, to the end thereof, of such as believe in him, and make profession of his name.

4. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order, or government of the church, is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner; neither can the pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God; whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.

5. In the execution of this power wherewith he is so entrusted, the Lord Jesus calleth out of the world unto himself, through the ministry of his Word, by his Spirit, those that are given unto him by his Father; that they may walk before him in all the ways of obedience, which he prescribeth to them in his Word. Those thus called, he commandeth to walk together in particular societies, or churches, for their mutual edification; and the due performance of that public worship, which he requireth of them in the world.

6. The members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing (in and by their profession and walking) their obedience unto that call of Christ; and do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves, to the Lord and one to another by the will of God, in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel.

7. To each of these churches thus gathered, according to his mind, declared in his Word, he hath given all that power and authority, which is in any way needful, for their carrying on that order in worship, and discipline, which he hath instituted for them to observe; with commands, and rules for the due and right exerting, and executing of that power.

8. A particular church, gathered and completely organized, according to the mind of Christ, consists of officers, and members; and the officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the church (so called and gathered) for the peculiar administration of ordinances, and execution of power, or duty, which he entrusts them with, or calls them to, to be continued to the end of the world, are bishops or elders and deacons.

9. The way appointed by Christ for the calling of any person, fitted, and gifted by the Holy Spirit, unto the office of bishop or elder, in a church, is, that he be chosen thereunto by the common suffrage of the church itself; and solemnly set apart by fasting and prayer, with imposition of hands of the eldership of the church, if there be any before constituted therein; and of a deacon that he be chosen by the like suffrage, and set apart by prayer, and the like imposition of hands.

10. The work of pastors being constantly to attend the service of Christ, in his churches, in the ministry of the Word, and prayer, with watching for their souls, as they that must give an account to him; it is incumbent on the churches to whom they minister, not only to give them all due respect, but also to communicate to them of all their good things according to their ability, so as they may have a comfortable supply, without being themselves entangled in secular affairs; and may also be capable of exercising hospitality towards others; and this is required by the law of nature, and by the express order of our Lord Jesus, who hath ordained that they that preach the gospel, should live of the gospel.

11. Although it be incumbent on the bishops or pastors of the churches to be instant in preaching the Word, by way of office; yet the work of preaching the Word, is not so peculiarly confined to them; but that others also gifted, and fitted by the Holy Spirit for it, and approved, and called by the church, may and ought to perform it.

12. As all believers are bound to join themselves to particular churches, when and where they have opportunity so to do; so all that are admitted unto the privileges of a church, are also under the censures and government thereof, according to the rule of Christ.

13. No church members, upon any offense taken by them, having performed their duty required of them towards the person they are offended at, ought to disturb any church order, or absent themselves from the assemblies of the church, or administration of any ordinances, upon the account of such offense at any of their fellow members, but to wait upon Christ, in the further proceeding of the church.

14. As each church, and all the members of it, are bound to pray continually for the good and prosperity of all the churches of Christ, in all places; and upon all occasions to further it (every one within the bounds of their places and callings, in the exercise of their gifts and graces) so the churches (when planted by the providence of God so as they may enjoy opportunity and advantage for it) ought to hold communion among themselves for their peace, increase of love, and mutual edification.

15. In cases of difficulties or differences, either in point of doctrine, or administration; wherein either the churches in general are concerned, or any one church in their peace, union, and edification; or any member, or members, of any church are injured, in or by any proceedings in censures not agreeable to truth, and order: it is according to the mind of Christ, that many churches holding communion together, do by their messengers, meet to consider, and give their advice in, or about that matter in difference, to be reported to all the churches concerned; howbeit these messengers assembled, are not entrusted with any church-power properly so called; or with any jurisdiction over the churches themselves, to exercise any censures either over any churches or persons: or to impose their determination on the churches, or officers.

1. All saints that are united to Jesus Christ, their Head, by his Spirit, and faith; although they are not made thereby one person with him, have fellowship 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 obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, in an orderly way, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

2. Saints by profession are bound to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in 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, according to the rule of the gospel, though especially to be exercised by them, in the relation wherein they stand, whether in families, or churches; yet as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended to all the household of faith, even all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus; nevertheless their communion one with another as saints, doth not take away or infringe the title or propriety which each man hath in his goods and possessions.

1. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of positive, and sovereign institution; appointed by the Lord Jesus, the only Lawgiver, to be continued in his church to the end of the world.

2. These holy appointments are to be administered by those only, who are qualified and thereunto called, according to the commission of Christ.