Canadian Protestant League - About Canadian Protestant League

THE MEMBERS OF THE CANADIAN PROTESTANT LEAGUE , professing a common personal experience of salvation by grace alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone, hold the following essential doctrines of the Gospel revealed from Scripture alone, while reserving liberty of conscience and showing charity of heart in all other issues of Christian faith and practice:

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
The 66 canonical books of the Old and New Testaments are alone the Word of God written, inspired by the Holy Spirit, inerrant in all matters they touch, the infallible and complete rule of Christian faith and practice. Nothing may be added to or removed from Holy Scripture by pretended continued revelation or by mere Church authority and human tradition.

THE LIVING & TRUE GOD
There is but one living and true God, who is Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth; sustaining in the Godhead the personal relations of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the same in essence and equal in power and glory. He is alone the Creator and King of all, governing all by the counsel of His own will. No creature may be invoked or honoured in the manner proper to, or beside, the Triune God.

MAN'S CREATION & FALL
GOD created all things visible and invisible by the word of His power in the space of six days and all very good. By direct act He created our first parents to bear His own image with dominion over the creation. By the fall of our first parents, all mankind is born under the curse of original sin, totally depraved, unable and unwilling to please or return to God. No human works or rituals can merit, dispose, or prepare us for salvation.

THE LOVE OF THE FATHER
GOD THE FATHER has from eternity loved and chosen a people in His Son as His own, whom none can number, not according to their works but His own purpose and grace. He has given His only-begotten Son as their only Mediator and Surety; He calls them into salvation by His Word and Spirit, and preserves them by faith to the end. All regenerate believers share a common adoption in Christ as God's children, by which none may call another 'father' or ascribe to man the divine title of the Holy Father.

THE GRACE OF THE SON
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, who is God the eternal and only-begotten Son, took to Himself our full human nature without sin, being born of the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit in the fullness of time, and so became and continues to be God and Man in two distinct natures and one person forever. As Mediator and Surety, Christ lived a life of perfect obedience to the Divine Law, and died once for all the Just for the unjust to bear the punishment of sin. Through His imputed righteousness and the efficacy of His atoning Blood, all believers are freely justified in Him by faith alone. None can share in His unique person and work as the one Mediator between God and man.

THE COMMUNION OF THE HOLY GHOST
The Lord Jesus rose bodily from the dead the third day and ascended to the right hand of the Father, exalted as the only Prince and Saviour of sinners. The Father and the Son have sent God the Holy Ghost as personal Comforter to apply the salvation Christ has secured for sinners. The immediate, personal influence and power of the Holy Spirit are necessary and effectual in converting and sanctifying believers through the Word, untied to any ritual , order of human ministry, or church.

THE CHURCH
Christ the risen Lord rules over all things for the sake of His church, the whole company of His redeemed people in heaven and earth which are one Body in Him the only Head. In this life Christ gathers by His Word and Spirit visible churches to worship and serve Him in the world. True churches are marked by the pure preaching of the Gospel, the observance of the Sacraments or Ordinances of the New Testament, an orderly ministry, and disciplined holiness of life. Christ has given to the Churches the commission to preach the Gospel to all nations. The Churches have no Head but Christ; no rule but His Word. All true believers have been made kings and priests to God by the Blood of the Lamb under Christ our only High Priest, and have no need of any earthly mediation in their access to or acceptance with God.

THE SACRAMENTS OR ORDINANCES
Christ has marked the Church by two distinct rites only, to symbolize and pledge to believers the benefits of salvation.

Water Baptism in the Name of the Trinity is administered according to the appointment of Christ to signify cleansing from sin and union with Him in His death and resurrection. Baptism does not convey regeneration in and of itself.

The Lord's Supper is to be observed to show forth in sign and emblem the Saviour's death till He come. All lawful partakers are to share in eating bread and drinking of the cup to remember His one offering up of Himself upon the Cross for sin, once for all, and to offer all praise and thanks to God for the free gift of His beloved Son, sharing in the benefits of His finished work by faith. No sacrifice for sin is here offered, repeated or extended for the living or dead, nor is the bread and wine changed into the substance of Christ's body and blood.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
God has saved His people to live as He first intended them. His plan for human conduct, first written in the conscience but blighted by the fall, is summed up in the Ten Commandments. The Lord Jesus saves us from sin to live by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He applies the Ten Commandments to us anew through the teaching of the New Testament. Both creation and redemption bind us to obey this Moral Law out of love to God and our neighbour. We are not saved by doing good, but saved in order to do good.

THE STATE
God the faithful Creator has ordained civil authority among mankind to restrain sin, maintain peace, and promote righteousness. Christians, as servants of God, must obey and pray for their rulers, except in any matter contrary to the Word of Christ. Christ alone is Lord of conscience and Prince of the kings of the earth.

THE REFORMATION TESTIMONY
We embrace and maintain the historic testimony of the Protestant Reformation against all apostasy from the biblical "faith once delivered unto the saints." This Scriptural witness is recorded in the Anglican Articles of Religion, Reformed Heidelberg Catechism, Presbyterian Westminster Standards and Baptist London Confession 1689..

LAST THINGS
We hope for the personal, physical, visible return of Christ Jesus in power and glory to end the present age. We confess the resurrection both of the just and unjust at His coming; the General Judgment; the everlasting happiness of believers in new heavens and a new earth of righteousness; the everlasting torment and punishment of the ungodly and unbelieving in Hell. Seeing we look for such things, we are to walk in holiness and ever pray, "Come, Lord Jesus!"