We are compelled, our faith urging us, to believe and to hold—and we do firmly believe and simply confess—that there is one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins.
The apostolic church thought more about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ than about death and heaven. The early Christians were looking, not for a cleft in the ground called a grave but for a cleavage in the sky called Glory.
One of the special marks of the Holy Ghost in the Apostolic Church was the spirit of boldness.
To be a Christian is to be a theologian-a student of God and his will. The contemporary disdain for theological content and emphasis on self-image and emotions were not shared by the apostolic church.
If anyone in word and mind does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers all even to the last portion that which has been handed down and preached in the holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church of God. . . let him be anathema.
This Apostolic Church never turned from the way of truth nor held any kind of error. It is imperative that nothing of the truths which have been defined be lessened, nothing altered, nothing added, but that they be preserved intact in word and meaning. This is the true rule of faith.
It is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth.
By heart we believe and by mouth confess the one Church, not of heretics but the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church outside which we believe that no one is saved.
