WHAT follows is a brief
expression, in terms of present-day thought, of the great
Christian certainties and of the Christian ideal of human
life.
I. CONCERNING
GOD
We believe in one Almighty God,
Creator of all things, Father of all men, only Ruler and
Judge of the world, holy and wise and loving. We believe it
is His will that men should know Him; and through the life,
death, and victory of the Lord Jesus Christ we have learned
that God loves men, seeks their good, bears all their
sorrows, suffers for their sins, and will triumph in His
glorious purpose over all evil at the last.
II. CONCERNING
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
We believe that God so loved
the world that He gave His Son to be the Saviour of mankind.
We believe that this very Son of God, for us men and for our
salvation, became man in Jesus Christ, Who, having lived on
earth the perfect human life, devoted wholly to the will of
God and the service of man, died for our sins, rose again
from the dead, and is now exalted Lord over all. We believe
that Jesus Christ is the Revealer of the Father, and that the
mind of God towards the world must in all things be
interpreted by the mind of Christ. We believe that when in
our experience we are brought face to face with Jesus Christ
we are in the presence of the eternal and holy God.
Therefore, with the Church of
all ages, we worship Him together with the Father.
III. CONCERNING
THE HOLY SPIRIT
We believe that God through His
Spirit is ever present in the lives of men, seeking them for
Himself, rebuking their sinfulness, inspiring every right
desire, and every effort after truth. We believe that all who
seek God through Jesus Christ may in the Spirit have
communion with Him by obedience, by prayer, and by the
fellowship and Sacraments of the Church; and that by the same
Spirit, power is granted to all who ask it, giving them
victory over sin, and transforming them into the likeness of
Christ.
IV. CONCERNING
THE HOLY TRINITY
Thus knowing God through Jesus
Christ His Son, and through the working of His Spirit in our
lives, we acknowledge and adore one God-Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.
V. CONCERNING
PROVIDENCE
We believe, in face of the
mysteries of an unfinished world, that God orders all things
for perfectly wise and loving ends, that He has every human
life in His gracious and holy keeping, and will never forsake
the work of His own hands. Inasmuch as He has given to men
freedom of will, He is not responsible for their sins or for
the miseries that come of these. Yet He is not defeated by
our evil doings, but overrules all events
for the furtherance of His
supreme designs of good.
VI. CONCERNING
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
We believe that the
unchangeable purpose of God is the establishing and
perfecting of His Kingdom-a society ruled in all its parts by
love and righteousness, a society of which Christ is King,
and to which all belong who are themselves animated by His
Spirit. We believe that the Kingdom of God is already among
us, and that the appointed task of all good men is to advance
it, and to bring every relation of human life under the
dominion of Christ. We believe that Christ is the true and
only Lord of all mankind, and that those who confess Him are
bound to make Him known till all the world acknowledge Him as
Lord and King.
We believe that the Kingdom of
God will finally dominate the life of man, and that in the
world to come God will complete and perfect it, the Lord
Jesus Christ being manifested in power and great glory.
VII. CONCERNING
THE CHURCH
We believe that, as Jesus
Christ gathered and still gathers round Him a fellowship of
faith and love, it is His will that those who through Him
believe in God should unite in a visible Church. We believe
it to be His purpose that, through their common life of
worship and service, they may learn to be like Him in faith,
hope, and love, further the ends of His Kingdom, proclaim His
Gospel to all mankind, and be His fellow-workers in combating
ignorance, pride and covetousness, vice and disease, and
every social injustice and public wrong.
We believe that the Catholic or
Universal Church is the whole company of the redeemed, and we
recognise as belonging to this fellowship all who are united
to God through faith in Christ. Of the visible Church, and
every branch thereof, the only Head is the Lord Jesus Christ;
and in its faith, order, discipline, and duty, it must be
free to obey His holy will.
We receive, as Divine gifts to
the Church, the Holy Scriptures and the Sacraments of the New
Testament. We believe that through these Sacraments-Baptism
and the Lord's Supper-received with faith, there are conveyed
to men the blessings of salvation.
VIII.
CONCERNING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
We believe that God has
revealed Himself in nature, conscience, and history, so that
never in any nation has He left Himself without witness. Yet
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments record a clear
and ever-growing revelation of God as faithfully and
unchangeably Redeemer, which is made complete in Christ; they
therefore contain, in a supreme sense, the Word of God, and
are needful for the full understanding of His purpose, for
reconciliation with Him, and for life according to His will.
Of this we are convinced by the witness of the Holy Spirit in
the hearts of men to and with the Word; and the Spirit of
God, thus speaking from the Scriptures to believers and to
the Church, is the supreme authority by which all opinions in
religion are finally to be judged.
IX. CONCERNING
SIN
We believe that the sin of man
was not part of the purpose of God; yet that all men are
sinful, and that each of us has been guilty of wilful and
repeated sin. We acknowledge that sin separates men from God,
and brings them under His condemnation and punishment: and
that without His forgiveness and His patient and mighty help
no man can deliver himself from either the guilt or the power
of his sin.
X. CONCERNING
THE SAVING LOVE OF GOD
We believe that from the
beginning God has been patiently seeking the redemption of
His children, and that through prophet and psalmist He made
it clear that there is forgiveness with Him. But we believe
that His eternal purpose to redeem has been fully made known
in Jesus Christ, in Whom God Himself came among men to seek
and to save that which is lost, and that in the death on the
Cross He has shown us the malignity of sin and His antagonism
thereto, but, above all, His love in putting away sin by the
sacrifice of Himself. Therefore, with thankful devotion, we
find in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ the assurance of
God's forgiving grace, and learn that His holy love can only
be satisfied with a holy life in those whom He forgives.
We believe that we are received
into sonship and peace with God, not because of any good
works or holiness on our part, as though we could deserve so
great salvation, but only and altogether because of His
infinite mercy, freely granted to all who repent and turn
from their sins, and accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour and
Lord.
XI. CONCERNING
CHRISTIAN SONSHIP
We believe that all who receive
the Gospel are called and enabled to live in fellowship with
God as His children, to keep His commandments, to grow in
knowledge of His love, and to trust His fatherly care in
every trial and perplexity, thereby in their whole life
showing themselves thankful to God for all His gifts.
XII. CONCERNING
THE LIFE TO COME
We believe that after death the
soul continues to live in the just and merciful keeping of
Almighty God, who will give to it a body as it pleases Him.
We believe that He, Who alone
can read the heart, will judge the world in righteousness by
Jesus Christ, and that wickedness will not go unpunished.
We believe that those who
accept the mercy of God will in His fellowship go on towards
perfect holiness and blessedness. And, with glad and solemn
hearts, we look for the consummation and bliss of the life
everlasting, wherein the people of God, freed for ever from
sin and sorrow, shall serve Him in the perfected communion of
saints. These things, as all else in our Christian faith, we
hold in reverent submission to the guidance and teaching of
the Holy Spirit Who is truth, and we shall ever seek of Him
enlightenment and grace both to unlearn our errors and also
more fully to learn the mind and will of God, to Whom be
glory for ever and ever.
