The First Congregational Church (of North Attleborough)
We do now, in the presence of the only true and
living God, who searches our hearts, the sins and before angels and men,
choose Jehovah for our Lord and God; to be the only object of our Supreme and
constant affection, confidence, obedience and enjoyment.
We choose God, the Father to be our Supreme portion,
Sovereign and Judge, the Lord Jesus Christ to be our Mediator, Redeemer and
Savior in his several offices of prophet, (priest) and King, and the Holy
Spirit, to be our teacher, comforter, Sanctifier.
We renounce deceit and the service of Satan; the sins
of the world, the indulgence of unholy and sinful affections and the pursuit
of selfish interests and enjoyment.
We engage to receive in truth and love the pure and
sound doctrines of the Holy Gospel, as they are revealed in Holy Scripture and
we promise to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the
saints.
We promise to yield ourselves unto the service and
glory of God, persevering obedience to his holy requirements; to walk in all
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.
We promise to covenant and remember and sanctify the
Sabbath, to call the Sabbath a delight; the holy of the Lord; honorable; and
to honor God on His blessed and holy day, nor doing our own ways, nor finding
our own pleasure nor speaking our own words; but guarding ourselves on that
holy and blessed day, from its commencement to its conclusion from worldly
thoughts and cares, words and works.
We covenant with the true-faithful God and with the
members of this church to dedicate our children and the children that our God
may give us, in the ordinance of baptism, unto Jehovah, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
We promise to acknowledge and worship the living and
true God in our families, by the daily reading of the Holy Scriptures and by
social praise with our households.
We also promise to educate our children and to
instruct all persons who may be under our domestick government, in the
knowledge, fear and love of God, and in the doctrines, duties, and blessings
of the Christian religion.
We submit ourselves to the government and authority
of the King, Jesus Christ and to the regular administration of His government
in this church and to the Holy and faithful discipline which He requires and
binds His ministers and churches to maintain and we promise to be accountable
to this church for our faith and practices for as long as we shall live,
unless our relation to it be regularly dissolved.
We covenant to attend constantly, decently and
punctually the public worship of God and the ordinances of the Gospel with
this church so long as God in His providence affords us opportunity; and to
reatch, pray and labor for the peace, order, purity, enlargement, prosperity,
and edification of this church in the knowledge, practice and enjoyment of this
glorious Gospel of the blessed God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
You who now offer yourself for admission into this
church do solemnly and heartily devote yourself to the service and glory of
God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the fellowship of the church in the
doctrines, duties, disciplines, ordinances and privileges of the Gospel,
agreeably to our covenant. And you promise and covenant before God, angels and
man to be true, faithful and constant, to your publick, solemn vows.
We so therefore receive you into our communion, and
we promise and covenant to watch over you and to pray to God for you that you
may be kept from the evils of the world, be advanced in knowledge, holiness,
usefulness, and happiness and be blessed, adorned, and beautified with all the
gifts, graces and blessings of the Holy spirit.
We do also covenant to promote your spiritual consolation and edification, amidst the various
changes, temptations and affliction of this life; with brotherly affection, tenderness and
faithfulness treating you in truth and love, as a member of the spiritual body of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the head of all things to the church, which is the body, the fulness of Him that
filleth all in all.