Selected quad for the lemma: church_n
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A34245
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The confession of faith, of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands with the formes which they use ... translated out of Dutch into English.; Belgic confession. English
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Brès, Guy de, 1522-1567.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing C5784; ESTC R12576
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43,584
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48
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incumbent on all believers according to the Word of God to separate them selves from those that are not of the Church and to join to this Congregation in what place socever God hath constituted the same although it were contrary to the decrees of Magistrates and Princes even on pain of corporal punishment or death Wherefore all those who separate them selves from this Church or do not join with it act against the ordinance of God. XXIX Wee believe that it is requisite to search diligently and with a circumspect care to discerne from the Word of God which is the true Church since all Sects that are in the World now adayes do cover them selves with the name of the Church Wee do not speak of the company of Hypocrites who are mixed in the Church amongst the good ones without belonging to the Church thô outwardly they are in it but wee say that the body and Communion of the true Church ought to be distinguished from all Sects who call them selves the Church The marks to know the true Church by are these If in the Church there is a pure preaching of the Gospel If the pure administration of the Sacraments so as it is instituted by Christ him self is made use of If the Ecclesiastical censure is exercised for the punishment of sins In a word if the conversation is according to the pure Word of God rejecting all things contrary thereunto and holding Jesus Christ as the onely head By these tokens one may certainly know the true Church and none ought to separate themselves from the same And as for those that are of the Church they may be known by the marks of the Christians viz. by their Faith and when they have received the onely Saviour Jesus Christ avoiding sin and pursuing righteousness loving the true God and their neighbour not declining neither to the right nor to the left hand and crucifying their flesh with its deeds Nevertheless they may be attended with great weakness but they sight against it through the Spirit all the dayes of their life having continually recours to the blood death susterings and obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ in which they have remission of sins through Faith in him As for the false Church she ascribes unto her self and her ordinances more power and Authority then to the Word of God and will not submit unto the yoke of Christ she administers the Sacraments not after such a Manner as Christ hath instituted in his word but she adds and takes away according to her pleasure She relyeth more upon men then upon Christ she persecutes those who live a holy life according to the Word of God and who rebuke her faults coveteousness and Idolatry These two Churches may easily be known and distinguished XXX Wee believe that this true Church must be governed according to the Spirituall policy which our Lord hath taught us in his word viz. That there must be Ministers or Pastors for to preach the Word of God and to administer the Sacraments as also Overseers and Deacons to make up together with the Pastors an Ecclesiastical Councel and by this means to maintain the true Religion and to procure a free course for the true Doctrine likewise that the Transgressors be punished and restrained by Spirituall means that the poor and distressed be also relieved and comforted according to what they stand in need of Through these means all things will proceed well and orderly in the Church when such persons are chosen who are faithfull and according to the rule which St. Paul preseribes in his Epistle to Timothy XXXI Wee believe that the Ministers of the Word of God and the Elders and Deacons ought to be chosen to their respective offices by a lawfull Election with invocation of the Name of the Lord and in good order as the Word of God teacheth Every one therefore must take care of intruding him self by undecent means but ought to stay untill he be call'd by God that so he may have a testimony of his calling and be certain and assured that it is of the Lord And as for the Ministers of the Word where ever they-are they have an equal power and Authority being all Ministers of Jesus Christ the one general Bishop and onely head of the Church Moreoever least the holy ordinance of God be violated or despised wee say that every one ought te have a speciall respect unto the Ministers of the Word and the Elders of the Church for their works sake and to live in peace with them without murmuring strife or dissention as much as possibly can be XXXII In the mean while wee believe although it may be serviceable and good that those who govern the Church do institute among them selves certain ordinances for the maintenance and supporting the body of the Church yet that they ought to take heed of departing from any thing which Christ our onely master hath ordered And therefore wee reject all manner of humane inventions and Laws which any might introduce in the Worship of God thereby to bind and compell the consciences Admitting of nothing but what may serve to the nourishing and preservation of Concord and Unity and to keep all in the obedience of God unto which the Excommunication is required according to the Word of God and the circumstances belonging thereunto XXXIII Wee believe that our gracious God having regard on our meanness and infirmity hath assorded us the Sacraments for to be seales of his promises and pledges of the kindness and grace of God unto us and thereby to nourish and sustain our faith having joyned them with the Word of the Gospel that so he might propound to our outward senses both that which he signifies unto us by his Word and that which he workes inwardly in our hearts assuring us of the salvation which he doth impart us For they are visible signs and Seals of an inward and invisible thing by which means God worketh in us through the power of the holy Ghost Therefore the signs are not invain or empty to be deceived thereby for Christ Jesus is the truth thereof without whom they would signify nothing at all Moreover wee are content with the number of the Sacraments which Christ our Master hath instituted being but two to wit the Sacrament of Baptism and that of the holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ XXXIV Wee believe and confess that Jesus Christ who is the end of the Law hath made an end by the shedding of his blood of all other sheddings of blood that might be made for the propitiation and satisfaction of sin and that having abrogated the circumcision which was done with blood hath instituted instead thereof the Sacrament of Baptisme by which wee are received in the Church of God and become separated from all other people and strange Religions that so wee may be fully addicted to him and bear his Mark and Ensign And it serves us for a testimony that hee will be our God and
THE CONFESSION of FAITH OF The Reformed CHURCHES in the NETHERLANDS WITH The FORMES which they use In The administration of the Sacraments The Exercise of Ecclesiasticall discipline The confirmation of Ecclesiasticall Officers Ministers Elders and Deacons The Celebration of Marriage before the Church Translated out of Dutch into English AMSTERDAM Printed by the Widow of STEVEN SWART 1689. THE CONFESSION of FAITH Revised in the Nationall Synod last held at Dordrecht in the year of our Lord 1618. and 1619. The I Article WE all do believe with the heart and confess with the mouth that there is one onely and single Spiritual Being which we call God everlasting incomprehensible invisible unchangeable infinite almighty perfectly wise just good and a super-abounding fountain of all good II. We know him by two means First by the Creation and maitaning and governing of the whole World seing it is before our eyes as a fair book in which all the Creatures both great and small are as characters showing unto us the invisible things of God viz. his eternal power and Godhead as St. Paul saith Rom. 1.20 All which things are sufficient to convince Mankind and to leave them without excuse Secondly he makes him self known unto us more plainly and fully by his Holy and Divine Word to wit as much as we stand in need of in this life to his Glory and the Salvation of his people III. We confess that this Word of God was not sent nor produced by the will of man but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the holy Ghost as St. Peter tells us God afterwards by a special care which he takes for us and our Salvation commanded his Servants the Prophets and Apostles to write down his manifested Word And he himself wrote with his own finger the two Tables of the Law. Therefore we call such Writings Holy and Divine Scriptures IV. We comprehend the Holy Scriptures in the two Volumnes of the Old and New Testament which are Canonical Books without all contradiction These are summed up in the Church of God after this manner The Books of the Old Testament are the five Books of Moses viz. Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronome the Book of Joshua Judges Ruth two Books of Samuel and two Books of the Kings two Books of the Chronicles the first Book of Ezra Nehemiah Esther Job the Psalms of David the three Books of Solomon viz. the Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Song the four great Prophets viz. Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and Daniel and the other twelf lesser Prophets viz. Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah 〈◊〉 Micah Nahum Habbakuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi Those of the New Testament are the four Evangelists viz. Mathew Mark Luke John the Acts of the Apostles the fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul viz. to the Romans two to the Corinthians to the Galatians to the Ephesians to the Philippians to the Colossians two to the Thessalonians two to Timothie to Titus to Philemon to the Hebrews the seven Epistles of the other Apostles viz. the Epistle of James the two Epistles of Peter the three Epistles of John the Epistle of Jude and the Revelation of the Apostle John. V. These Books onely we receive as holy and canonical to the regulating grounding and confirming of our Faith believing without any doubt all which is contained in them not so much because the Church doth receive and take them for such but more especially because the holy Ghost bears witness in our hearts that they are from God seeing they carry the evidence of it along with them for the very blind are able to perceive the fulfilling of those matters that are fore told in the same VI. We distinguish those holy Books from the Apocryphal viz. the third and fourth Book of Ezdras the Books of Tobie and Judith the Books of Wisdom Jesus Syrach Baruch the Appendix to the book of Esther the prayer of the three men in the fire the History of Susanne that of the Image of Bell and the Dragon the prayer of Manasse the Books of the Macchabees All which the Church may read and take instruction out of them in as much as they do agree with the Canonical Books But they have not such a power and efficacy as to confirm by any of their Testimonies any point of the Faith or Christian Religion much less to detract of the authority of those other Holy Books VII We believe that these Holy Scriptures doe fully contain the will of God and that every thing which a man ought to believe unto Salvation is sufficiently taught in the same For because the whole manner of service which God requires of us is writ down in them at large it is unlawfull for any one thô an Apostle to teach otherwise then we are taught by the Holy Scriptures nay though it was an Angel from heaven as St Paul saith For seeing it is forbidden to add unto or take away any thing from the word of God it doth evidently appear that the Doctrine of it is very perfect and compleat in all respects Neither ought we to compare the writings of any men thô never so holy unto those divine Scriptures nor the customs with the truth of God for the truth is above all nor the great multitude nor Antiquity nor Succession of times or Persones nor Councels or Decrees For all men are naturally Lyars and more vain then Vanity it self Therefore we reject with our very heart every thing which doth not agree with this infallible Rule as the Apostles have taught us saying Try the Spirits whether they are of God. And If there come any unto you and bring not this Doctrine receive him not into your house VIII According to this truth and this Word of God we believe in one onely God who is one single Being which are three persons in deed and in truth and from everlasting distinguished according to their incommunicable Attributes viz. the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost The Father is the cause the original and the beginning of all things both visible and invisible the Son is the Word the Wisdom and the Image of the Father the Holy Ghost is the eternal strength and power proceeding from the Father and the Son. Nevertheless God is not by this distinction divided into three since the Holy Scriptures doe teach us That the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost each of them hath his substance distinguished by their Attributes but thus that these three persons are but one onely God Hence it is plain that the Father is not the Son and that the Son is not the Father and that neither the Holy Ghost is the Father nor the Son. Howbeit these persons thus distinguished are not divided nor mixed together For the Father has not taken upon him the Flesh neither hath the Holy Ghost done it but onely the Son the Father hath never been without his Son or without his Holy Ghost for they are all three coeternall and coessential