The Covenant

The mutual agreement and solemn covenant of the persons constituted into a church of Jesus Christ at Forest Grove Meetinghouse near Parsonsburg in the state of Maryland on Tuesday, January twenty sixth in the year 1886. We the subscribers hereunto being desirous of walking in the fear of the Lord and in Christian fellowship with each other with a humble dependence upon the Power and Grace of God for support, direction, do give ourselves up to the Lord and to one another in a church covenant. Desirous to conform in every respect to that perfect and glorious pattern so plainly laid down in the New Testament by our Blessed Savior and His Apostles, renouncing all human traditions and the institutions and inventions devised by men to promote which important ends, we willingly subject ourselves to the authority of Jesus Christ and the direction and instruction of His word and Spirit.

1. We do promise and engage to and with each other to walk in the Truth and in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord's house, hoping thusly to secure and promote Christian love and fellowship and a communion that will be right in the sight of God and profitable to ourselves.
2. To this end we declare it is our purpose and design to meet together at stated times for public worship for attendance upon the ministry of the Word and to wait upon the Lord in the maintenance of good order and Gospel discipline and and the administration of the ordinances of the Lord's House.
3. We in this solemn engagement recognize our mutual obligation to attend the appointments of the church whenever we can consistently do so whether for public worship or for the transaction of church business and to promptly and faithfully share according to our ability the expenses incident to the support of the public ministry of the Word among us and the keeping of our house of worship in proper order.
4. We promise and mutually agree to watch over each others conversation and deportment and not to suffer sin upon one another so far as the same shall be discovered and to stir up one another to love and to good works, to warn, rebuke, and admonish one another in meekness, forbearance and love.
5. We hope to be promoted by a fellow felling and brotherly regard for each other to bear with each others weaknesses, failings, and infirmities with much tenderness and to assist in bearing the burdens of each other where we have the opportunity and are able to do so.
6. Trusting that we have been brought to know that unity in which the Lord's people dwell, it shall be our aim to preserve that unity unimpaired and to follow the things that make for peace and whereby one may edify another, these and all other gospel duties we humbly submit unto, realizing as we trust the sacredness of our obligations and the weight of our responsibilities, promising to perform according to ability which God giveth whose we are and whom we desire to serve to whom be glory, now and forever. Amen

We adopt as the name of this church Forest Grove, and it is our expectation and desire to unite with the Salisbury Baptist Association. (After the merger of the Forest Grove Church and the Salisbury Church, we agreed to be hereafter called the Forest Grove-Salisbury Old School Baptist Church).