7. From whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. 8. I believe in the Holy Ghost. 9. I believe in a holy general Christian church, the communion of saints. 10. Forgiveness of sins. 11. Resurrection of the flesh. 12. And an eternal life. This is the most ancient and simple creed, which, it appears, was confessed already in or about the time of the apostles; and for which many, yea the greater part of the first Christian believers, have sacrificed their lives. But as, in the course of time, the true and simple meaning of the confession set forth was assailed and disputed by the contradiction and perverse interpretation of contentious and, not less, erring persons going under the name of good Christians; the true believers of the church of God were compelled, as often as this happened, and necessity required, to declare how they understood and interpreted this or that article. Hence it has come that at this day there are found among those who are called Anabaptists, various confessions, which differ in style, but not in faith (we speak of the foundation of the same), in which confessions the creed set forth above is more fully interpreted and explained. Of these we shall present here principally three, which were acknowledged and adopted without contradiction as a unanimous confession, by a great number of teachers, assembled from various districts, in the year 1649, in the city of Harlem. Two of these had been drawn up at Amsterdam, in 1627 and 1630, and the third at Dort, the 21st of April 1632; all on account of certain church unions which took place subsequently in these years. FIRST CONFESSION. Drawn up at Amsterdam, the 27th of September, 1627, called “_Scriptural Instruction_,” concerning who the people are, on whom the peace of God rests, and how they are bound to peace and unity; given in answer to the following several questions, of which the first is: _What are the fundamental and unmistakable marks by which the children of God and members of Jesus Christ (being the church of God) can and must be known, according to the testimony of the word of the Lord?_