ARTICLES OF FAITH

I

We believe that the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God; and the only rule of faith and practice.

II

We believe that the Scriptures teach that there is but one living and true God; and there are three persons in this one God - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and this Triune God is the only object of religious worship and adoration, and that all worship paid anything less in the name of God is idolatry and abomination in His sight.

III

We believe that God created man good and happy; that he sinned and fell from that condition; that by the fall he lost his original righteousness and became sinful and depraved; and as a natural consequence, that his posterity by ordinary generations are involved in all the consequences of his fall.

IV

We believe that man, by nature, has no power to recover himself from his lost and ruined condition and, unless God Himself had provided a way of Salvation, would have been ruined and miserable forever, because all have sinned.

V

We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly by grace, through the mediatorial office of the Son of God, who took upon Himself our nature, yet without sin, honored law by His personal obedience and made atonement for our sins by His Death; being risen from the dead, is now enthroned in heaven, and uniting in his wonderful person the tenderest sympathies with Divine perfection, in every way qualified to be a suitable, compassionate and all-sufficient Savior.

VI

We believe that fallen man has nothing, and can do nothing, of himself, to recommend him to the favorable notice of the Divine Being, and that all his hopes of pardon, justification, redemption, and sanctification are derived alone from the merits of Christ.

VII

We believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is the only Mediator between God and man; that He first became our surety and in the fullness of time our sacrifice, and that the efficacious plea He makes before the throne in our behalf is built upon His own all-adorning sacrifice.

VIII

We believe the Holy Spirit - the third person in the Trinity - is the great agent in convincing man of his lost and condemned condition, and in making the Gospel plain and acceptable.

IX

We believe that all who are sanctified by the Spirit are freely justified by the righteousness of Christ, which comes to all that believe.

X

We believe that all who are called to be saints through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth shall never finally be lost.

XI

We believe that Christian churches are to be formed of believers in Christ who give evidence of a change of heart, and have been properly baptized.

XII

We believe that the government of the church is not left in the hands of any one man, or number of men, distinct from the body, but that it is left with the whole church.

XIII

We believe that the first day of the week, called the Lord's Day, is sanctified or set apart for the public worship of God, and that it is the duty of Christians to abstain from all unnecessary visiting, trifling conversation, and labor, except so much as is devoted to works of necessity and mercy.

XIV

We believe that God has appointed the preaching of the Gospel for the edification of His church and the advancement of His kingdom; that it is the duty of church members to contribute to the support of the ministry as God in His providence may give them ability.

XV

We believe that God calls men, by His Spirit, to preach the Gospel, and that it is the duty of the individual thus called to study to show himself approved unto God a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

XVI

We believe that Jesus Christ has appointed two positive institutions or ordinances to be observed in His church - baptism and the Lord's Supper; that baptism is immersion in water, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and believers only are capable of rightfully receiving the ordinances, that baptism precedes the Lord's Supper and none but ordained ministers have any right to administer them.

XVII

We believe that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust; that the just will rise to everlasting life and the unjust to everlasting shame and contempt.

XVIII

We believe that the Gospel with all its obligations, privileges, and blessings, has been committed to the church of whom it is especially enjoined to make known to every creature, while a risen and ascended Savior pledges His presence to the end of the world.