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What We Believe
In Faith and the Holy Trinity
There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in the unity of this Godhead, there are three persons of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
In the Word, or Son of God, Who was made Very Man.
The Son, who is the word of the Father, the very eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and the manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for the original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.
In the Resurrection of Christ
Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again His body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth until he returns to judge all men on that last day.
In the Holy Ghost
The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.
In the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary for salvation; so that whosoever is not read therin, nor may be proved thereby, is not required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisit or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture, we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testiments, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
In the Old Testament
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testaments Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man, offers everlasting life to mankind. Wherefore they are not to be heard, who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil percepts thereof of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet, notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from obedience of the commandments which are called moral.
In Original or Birth Sin
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the pelegians do viably talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is far gone from the original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.
In Free Will
We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of out Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings; wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.
In the Justification of Man
The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and works to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.
Of Good Works
Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's Judgment; yet they are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith, may be so evidently known, as a tree discerned by its fruit.
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