Confession of faith

“ She finds all the articles of her faith more solemnly affirmed; all the practices which her piety demands more numerous and accessible; confession, absolution, communion—all is there; and must she refrain from satisfying her thirst for them?
“Is it credible that a soul thus thirsty for truth, faith, and love should be much disposed to recoil from the difficulty of accepting one word more in the confession of faith, [10] or of recognizing the head of the universal church as the head of the church in the East as well as of that in the West? ”

“ The second part of confession is faith, and indeed faith in Jesus Christ, who hath made satisfaction for all thy sins and has also obtained forgiveness of the same. Faith is as a hand which appropriates the forgiveness of sins and receives it as an unmerited gift of divine grace. Without this faith all knowledge and sorrow for sin is only the confession of a Cain or a Judas, which ends in despair. But by faith in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all sinners, the heart is comforted and made quiet. ”

“ And, on the other hand, the men of tenderness of conscience and pure heart toward God and men, have leaned not only to the Confession of the permanently central truths, but to the eager and solemn Confession of whatever truth the time and its trial called for—to its Confession not only individually, but by the unanimous and accordant voice of the witnessing Church of Christ. ”

“ For what has more power than the confession of the Trinity which is daily celebrated by the mouth of the whole people? All eagerly vie one with the other in confessing the faith, and know how to praise in verse the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. ”

“ The honor of God demands a confession of faith, when a refusal to give it signifies that one does not accept the truths revealed by God, that revelation contains error, etc. (b) The needs of our neighbor demand a confession of faith, when a refusal to give it will prevent another from embracing the faith, or will cause him to lose it or give up its practices, etc. ”

“ In a word, a public confession, by virtue of the very fact that it is public, cannot be, and ought not to be pretended to be, just the expression of his faith which each one who accepts it as representing his faith would have framed had he only himself to consider. ”

“ Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him; the childlike teachableness that waits on Him to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit. ”

“ Instead of being disturbed or infected by the restlessness of these Churches, bound to a confession with a strictness that must wound every tender conscience which finds any phraseology in the document to which it can raise any exception, we should pity them as brethren still in durance, and point out to them the safe pathway through which we escaped more than a century and a half ago. ”

“ Secondly, I am to consider what an excellent work the act of confession is, to induce us the more to exercise and frequent it; pondering how Christ our Lord instituted this sacrament in His Church, that the faithful might take occasion by their own sins to exercise excellent acts of virtues, with which they might not only repair the losses they received by them, but also might gain new advantages. ”

“ These, then, as has been briefly stated before, are the principal articles of our general Christian faith, as we teach and practice the same throughout in our churches and among our people; which, in our judgment, is the only true Christian faith, which the apostles in their time believed and taught, yea, testified with their life, confirmed with their death, and, some of them, also sealed with their blood; wherein we in our weakness with them and all the pious, would fain abide, live, and die, that we 'may afterwards obtain salvation with them through the grace of the Lord. ”

“ Men who have received and made an open confession of Christ under these circumstances have not likely received a sufficient knowledge of our faith, or attained an adequate familiarity with its truths; nor have they been grounded in its principles and life, sufficiently to warrant us in the hope and assurance that they will continue this life in their heathen homes and do honour to our cause and the name of Christ which they have professed. ”

“ Whatever the faith may be, and whatever answers it may give, and to whomsoever it gives them, every such answer gives to the finite existence of man an infinite meaning, a meaning not destroyed by sufferings, deprivations, or death. This means that only in faith can we find for life a meaning and a possibility. ”

“ Relying on thy infinite goodness, O Holy and Sanctifying Spirit, I confidently hope that, receiving thee in the Sacrament of Confirmation, I shall receive the abundance of thy graces. I trust in thee that thou wilt make me a perfect Christian, and that thou wilt give me strength to confess the faith, even at the peril of my life. ”

“ On the contrary, we must confess our Faith, and if necessary, defend it against all attacks. Often one serious word will suffice to silence a calumniator of the Faith and cause him to blush. We must confess our Faith not only in the bosom of our family, but also in public. ”

“ That is your want of faith—nothing else; you have the evidence of the truth before you, and you see how these miraculous powers build up the belief of God’s people; and yet you doubt. To doubt is sin: whatsoever is not of faith is sin. ”

“ O HOLY Spirit of truth, we beseech Thee to enlighten the minds of unbelievers in the midst of us; to incline their hearts to love Thy word, and to believe the teachings of Thy Church; give them courage to accept the faith and openly profess it ”

“ Sad delusion! For to know what faith is, or that we are in the faith, is to know that Christ is in us of a truth; it is to know the power of his life, his death, his resurrection and ascension, made good in our souls. To be in the faith, is to have done with notions about it, because it is felt by its living power and fruits within us, which are righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Would you divinely know the mysteries of grace and salvation? Let divine love work within you. ”

“ First, then, following the soul beyond the limits of this world, I see her overwhelmed with a conviction of the reality and truth of the objects of her faith. Now, in saying that this soul obtains a conviction of the truths of faith, I do not mean to suppose the case of one who has been a sceptic in this world. ”

“ I ask the infidel world what they can give in exchange for the faith I have in Jesus Christ and the religion I believe in and practice. If I am wrong, mistaken, over-zealous, enthusiastic and bewildered in my imagination, what can you give me? "Nothing, we have nothing; we do not believe in anything." ”

“ Faith never makes a confession. ”

“ Instead of brotherly confession one to another, or the pastoral sympathy of a fatherly elder, the religious mind of the day was instructed in an awful mysterious sacrament of confession, which gave to some human being a divine right to unlock the most secret chambers of the soul, to scrutinize and direct its most veiled and intimate thoughts, and, standing in God's stead, to direct the current of its most sensitive and most mysterious emotions. ”

“ The intelligence of each one, his past history, his moral dispositions, will determine how far the faith that is in him corresponds to the faith that is without him—the faith as it is in itself, the object of faith as it is in God. ”

“ What comforts me in this life is that I now see Him by faith; and I see Him in such a manner as might make me say sometimes, I believe no more, but I see. I feel what faith teaches us, and in that assurance and that practice of faith I will live and die with Him. ”

“ And this may teach us an important lesson respecting the true nature of faith. It is faith when we receive the testimony of the Lord Jesus as an undoubted truth, and, without questioning, simply believe Him. There are difficult truths taught in His word, and some strangely at variance with human opinion; but true faith gives up all and trusts. It makes a complete surrender to Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. ”

“ They confound a plenary conviction of the truth of the Christian scheme of salvation, with an assurance of a personal interest in its invaluable blessings. This is the error into which they have fallen, and on the eve of which you are now standing; but it does not require much force of reasoning to show its fallacy. Faith is an assent of the mind to some truth, or some system of truth, which is established by satisfactory evidence. ”

“ In which words the apostle declares, that it is an article of Divine faith, revealed by God, and preached as His word by the apostles, that if we confess Jesus outwardly, and believe Him in our hearts, we shall be saved; for though the internal faith of the heart is sufficient for our justification that is, for being reconciled with God through repentance yet, if occasion be given, we are also bound to confess outwardly, both by words and actions, without shame, or fear of the world, the faith which we believe in our hearts, in order to obtain salvation. ”

“ Love to the truth animated the martyrs and confessors of Christ, in all ages, and in all their sufferings: They loved not their lives unto the death, because they loved the truth. Let us go and do likewise, at least in affection and resolution. Truth is as precious as ever, and the duty of contending for it will never grow out of date while the world stands.
4. It is our duty to confess, before men, the whole truth of the gospel, or the whole of Christ’s name, as revealed in the scripture. All the doctrines exhibited in the word, are to be the matter of our confession ”

“ Don't you think that, if you had faith, as a Christian man, the Bible would be a different book to you?"
"That looks easy; of course, if I had faith I would be just as you are. But how can a man believe what he does not believe?"
"Did you ever hear about prayer?" ”

“ Something passed from my life that day which nothing can replace; for perfect faith, like love, comes to a man but once.
1 was empty of comfort and without resting-place for my spirit. Then said I: Look you, belief in this religion as dogma is gone; why not hold fast to its imaginative beauty! If revelation is a fraud, at least the intricacies of this catholic faith have grown up from the long yearning of the human heart, and possess this inner reality of corresponding with our spiritual needs. ”

“ Our church, on the contrary, in one of her homilies, says, that a true faith “is a sure trust and confidence in God, that by the merits of Christ, his sins are forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God.” And that the Scriptures every where promise to believers, a sure and internal witness from the Spirit of God, to witness with their spirits that they are his children, is so evident, that he who runs may read. ”

“ For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Confession of Christ is the culmination of the work of true repentance. We owe it to the world, to our fellow-Christians, to ourselves. He died to redeem us, and shall we be ashamed or afraid to confess Him? Religion as an abstraction, as a doctrine, has little interest for the world, but what people can say from personal experience always has weight. ”

“ In this sense, at any rate, it is true that all genuine religious life implies the practical influencing of feeling and action by convictions which go beyond proved and known truth, and may therefore be said to be matters of faith. ”

“ When we long for miracles, neglecting those standing miracles of our faith, the gospel and the Church: when our reason is satisfied of a doctrine or a duty, and yet we remain irresolute, sighing for the impulse of some rare spiritual enlightenment or excitement, for a revival, or a mission, or an oration to lift us above ourselves, we are virtually asking to be shown what we already confess, to behold a sign, while we possess the evidence. ”

“ For such are the dispositions which Scripture in other places requires, Christ, however, here and elsewhere, names and requires faith alone, and attributes salvation, more especially of the body, to faith, because faith is the prime origin and root of hope, fear, sorrow, and love of God. ”

“ So it is evident that the work of confession is nothing else than an occasion by which God is called to the fulfilment of His own promise, or by which we are trained to believe that we shall without doubt obtain the promise. ”

“ Those who dispute the doctrine of holiness, of purity or sinless perfection. They confess that they commit sin, and their life bears evidence that their confession is true. Or should they profess holiness and yet not live a true holy life they are classed with the great dark apostasy. ”

“ For the final confirmation of our faith we look to the ideal Believer, who not only has an ampler religious experience than any other, but also possesses more power to create faith, and to take us farther into the Unseen; we look unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith. ”

“ We all, and every one of us underwritten, protest, that after long and due examination of our own consciences in matters of true and false religion, we are now thoroughly resolved in the truth by the Word and Spirit of God: And, therefore, we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands and constantly affirm before God and the whole world, that this only is the true Christian faith and religion pleasing God, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed evangel ”

“ First, with respect to ourselves, it teaches us not to pride ourselves in, or to rest satisfied with, a mere profession of the true faith. There is indeed but one true faith—that, namely, which God has delivered to us in His Word, and maintained by the testimony of His Church. ”

“ Viewing faith as the acceptance of truth on adequate testimony, it follows that all our knowledge of things, whether natural or supernatural, that is not the result of the action of our own minds, but which we accept on the testimony of others, is an act of faith. ”