WE all and every one of us  under-written, 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, and bringing salvation to man,  which now is, by the mercy of God, revealed to the world by the preaching of  the blessed evangel; and is received, believed, and defended by many and sundry  notable kirks and realms, but chiefly by the kirk of Scotland, the King's  Majesty, and three estates of this realm, as God's eternal truth, and only  ground of our salvation; as more particularly is expressed in the Confession of  our Faith, established and publickly confirmed by sundry acts of Parliaments,  and now of a long time hath been openly professed by the King's Majesty, and  whole body of this realm both in burgh and land. To the which Confession and  Form of Religion we willingly agree in our conscience in all points, as unto  God's undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word. And therefore  we abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine; but chiefly all kind of  Papistry in general and particular heads, even as they are now damned and  confuted by the word of God and Kirk of Scotland. But, in special, we detest  and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the scriptures  of God, upon the kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men; all his  tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty; his  erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word, the perfection  of the law, the office of Christ, and his blessed evangel; his corrupted  doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to God's  law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and  obedience to the law; the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments; his  five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine,  added to the ministration of the true sacraments without the word of God; his  cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament; his absolute  necessity of baptism; his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation, or real  presence of Christ's body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the  wicked, or bodies of men; his dispensations with solemn oaths, perjuries, and  degrees of marriage forbidden in the word; his cruelty against the innocent  divorced; his devilish mass; his blasphemous priesthood; his profane sacrifice  for sins of the dead and the quick; his canonization of men; calling upon  angels or saints departed, worshipping of imagery, relicks, and crosses;  dedicating of kirks, altars, days; vows to creatures; his purgatory, prayers  for the dead; praying or speaking in a strange language, with his processions,  and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or mediators; his manifold  orders, auricular confession; his desperate and uncertain repentance; his  general and doubtsome faith; his satisfaction of men for their sins; his  justification by works, opus operatum, works of supererogation, merits,  pardons, peregrinations, and stations; his holy water, baptizing of bells,  conjuring of spirits, crossing, sayning, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of  God's good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith; his  worldly monarchy, and wicked hierarchy; his three solemn vows, with all his  shavelings of sundry sorts; his erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent,  with all the subscribers or approvers of that cruel and bloody band, conjured  against the kirk of God. And finally, we detest all his vain allegories, rites,  signs, and traditions brought in the kirk, without or against the word of God,  and doctrine of this true reformed kirk; to the which we join ourselves  willingly, in doctrine, faith, religion, discipline, and use of the holy  sacraments, as lively members of the same in Christ our head: promising and  swearing, by the great name of the LORD our GOD, that we shall continue in the  obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and shall defend the  same, according to our vocation and power, all the days of our lives; under the  pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of  God's fearful judgment. 
                And seeing that many are stirred up by Satan, and that Roman  Antichrist, to promise, swear, subscribe, and for a time use the holy  sacraments in the kirk deceitfully, against their own conscience; minding  hereby, first, under the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and subvert  secretly God's true religion within the kirk; and afterward, when time may  serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of  the Pope's dispensation, devised against the word of God, to his greater  confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the Lord Jesus: we  therefore, willing to take away all suspicion of hypocrisy, and of such double  dealing with God, and his kirk, protest, and call the Searcher of all hearts  for witness, that our minds and hearts do fully agree with this our Confession,  promise, oath, and subscription: so that we are not moved with any worldly  respect, but are persuaded only in our conscience, through the knowledge and  love of God's true religion imprinted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, as we  shall answer to him in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be  disclosed. 
                And because we perceive, that the quietness and stability of  our religion and kirk doth depend upon the safety and good behaviour of the  King's Majesty, as upon a comfortable instrument of God's mercy granted to this  country, for the maintaining of his kirk, and ministration of justice amongst  us; we protest and promise with our hearts, under the same oath, hand-writ, and  pains, that we shall defend his person and authority with our goods, bodies,  and lives, in the defence of Christ, his evangel, liberties of our country,  ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within  this realm or without, as we desire our God to be a strong and merciful  defender to us in the day of our death, and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; to  whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory  eternally.  Amen.  |