The Church's One Foundation
One of the 94 hymns we sing together at Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church on the Gold Coast. Browse the full hymnbook.
Lyrics
Verse 1
The church’s one foundation,
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.
Verse 2
Elect from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
Verse 3
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!
Verse 4
‘Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.
Behind the Hymn
"The Church's One Foundation" was written by Samuel John Stone in 1866 during a painful crisis in the Anglican Church. Stone was a young curate in Windsor, England, who wrote the hymn in response to the controversial teachings of Bishop John William Colenso of Natal, South Africa, who had publicly questioned the historical accuracy of parts of the Old Testament. The resulting "Colenso Controversy" threatened to split the Church of England, and Stone wrote this hymn to reaffirm that the church's true foundation is not human scholarship but Jesus Christ Himself. The text draws heavily from the Apostles' Creed, particularly the article "I believe in the holy catholic church," and each of the seven original stanzas corresponds to a phrase from the creed. The tune "Aurelia" was composed by Samuel Sebastian Wesley (grandson of Charles Wesley) and has become inseparably linked with Stone's text. The hymn's honest acknowledgment that the church is often "by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed" while maintaining unwavering confidence in Christ's lordship has given it enduring relevance in every generation.