ise they profess and declare, that God, as the last and finishing
part of his workmanship in this lower world, created man an intelligent
being, endued with a living, reasonable and immortal soul, whose
greatest glory consisted in his having the gracious image of his God and
Creator drawn upon his soul, chiefly consisting in that knowledge,
righteousness and inherent holiness wherewith he was created. And
further, that God, in his favor and condescension to man, was pleased to
enter into a covenant with him, as the public head and representative of
all his posterity, wherein God promised unto him eternal life and
blessedness with himself in glory, upon condition of personal, perfect
and perpetual obedience; to the performance whereof, he furnished him
with full power and ability, and threatened death upon the violation of
his law and covenant, as is evident from the sacred text; Gen. i, 26,
27; Eccl. vii, 29; Gen. ii, 17; Rom. x, 5, and according to our Confess,
chap. 4, Sec. 2; chap, 7, Sec. 1, 2; chap. 19, Sec. 1; larger Cat. quest. 20;
short. Cat. quest. 10, 12.

V. OF THE FALL OF MAN.--They again assert and maintain, that the first
and common parents of mankind, being seduced by the subtilty of Satan,
transgressed the covenant of innocency, in eating the forbidden fruit;
whereby they lost the original rectitude of their nature, were cut off
from all gracious intercourse with God, and became both legally and
spiritually dead; and therefore they being the natural root of all
mankind, and the covenant being made with _Adam_, not as a private, but
a public person, all his descendants by ordinary generation, are born
under the guilt of that first sin, destitute of original righteousness,
and having their nature wholly depraved and corrupted; so that they are
by nature children of wrath, subjected unto all the penal evils
contained in the curse of a broken law, both in this life, and in that
which is to come; Gen. iii, 6, 13; Eccl. vii. 20; Rom. v, from 12 to 20;
Rom. iii, 10-19; Eph. ii, 3; Confess, chap. 6: larger Cat. quest. 21,
22, short. Cat. question 13 to 20.

In like manner they assert and declare, that all mankind, by their
original apostasy from God, are not only become altogether filthy and
abominable in the eyes of God's holiness; but also, are hereby utterly
indisposed, disabled, and entirely opposite to all good, the
understanding become darkness, and the will enmity and rebellion itself
against God; so tha