Wednesday, August 2, 2023

The 1825 Confession of Faith and Covenant of the Presbyterian Church of Newark (1825)

  

Source: Presbyterian Church of Newark records, #6116, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

 

In 1825, the founding members of the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, New York, adopted a confession of faith and covenant. The confession lists and summarizes many of the central theological claims of the 1647 Westminster Confession of faith. The covenant was presumably made by all men who served the congregation as pastors or elders but may have been required of all church members as well. A clerk copied the confession and covenant into the congregation’s minute book as one of the church community’s founding documents.

 

Confession of Faith

 

Adopted by the Presbyterian Church of Newark

 

                           I.          You Believe, That there is one God, who is infinitely perfect, and is the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things: That this one God exists mysteriously in three Persons, the father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are the same in substance, and equal in all prefections.

                         II.          That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God, and are the only rule of faith and practice.

                        III.          That our first Parents were made perfectly holy; but, by disobedience, fell from the state in which they were created; in consequence of which. All their posterity are, by nature, entirely sinful.

                       IV.          That God, in his infinite and sovereign mercy, has provided a Saviour, even Jesus Christ, his dearly beloved Son, who having become incarnate, by his obedience honored the law, and by his death made a complete atonement for the sin of the world: So that, all who believe in Him obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and a sure title to eternal life.

                         V.          That salvation is freely offered to al: but that all mankind are naturally so depraved, and such perfect enemies to God and the Saviour, that no one will repent of sin and believe in Christ, until God, according to his eternal purpose give him a new heart by the sovereign and efficacious influence of his Holy Spirit.

                       VI.          That all true believers persevere in faith and holiness, being kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

                     VII.          That the law of God, which requires perfect holiness of heart and life, is the rule which Christians are bound to observe

                    VIII.          That Baptism and the Lord’s supper are Christian ordinances; the latter of which is to be administered to professing believers; and the former to them, and to their households.

                       IX.          That, at the end of the world, there will be a Resurrection of the bodies, of all mankind, and a day of Judgment; when Christ, the Judge, will sentence the wicked to endless punishment, and receive the righteous to life everlasting.

 

COVENANT

 

You do now, in the presence of the dread Majesty of heaven and earth, the Searcher of all hearts, and before his people solemnly profess to give up yourselves to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

 

You choose Him for your God, your Father, your Saviour and your Sanctifier.

 

You renounce all the ways of sin as what you truly abhor; and choose the service of God as your greatest privilege.

 

You promise, in humble dependence on Divine Grace, to liver soberly, righteously and piously, denying all ungodliness and every worldly lust.

 

You promise and covenant that so long as God, in his holy Providence, should permit you to remain among us, you will treat the members of this church with Christian watchfulness and brotherly affecting; that yow il attend upon its Institutions and Ordinances & Submit to its Discipline; Seek its Prosperity, & Peace and that in all your conduct, you will adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour. (“A Presbyterian Congregation’s Confession of Faith and Covenant,” in New York’s Burned-Over District: A Documentary History, ed. Spencer W. McBride and Jennifer Hull Dorsey [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2023], 195-97)