Though man, when God made the covenant of works with him, had power to obey and fulfil the conditions of the covenant, yet he disobeyed God and broke the covenant.1 The serpent deceived Eve, and Adam hearkened unto the voice of his wife and wilfully transgressed the commandment of his Creator by eating of the forbidden fruit; and by this means he broke broke God’s covenant,2 forfeited his right to the promised life, became subject to the threatened death,3 lost his original uprightness and fellowship with God, and became totally corrupt in soul and body.4 As he was the root and representative of mankind, his first sin is imputed to them, and his corruption flows into all his seed, who spring from him by natural generation.5 In consequence of this natural corruption, mankind are become incapable of goodness, yea, opposed to all goodness and prone to all evil; and from this depraved nature springs all actual sin.6 Original sin and all actual sins, in soul or body, are transgressions of God’s holy law, bring the sinner under a curse, and expose him to the wrath of God, and to spiritual, temporal, and eternal misery.7
1 Eccles. 7:29; Rom 5:12. 2 Gen. 3:6-8,13; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rom 3:23. 3 Rom. 5:12; Rom. 7:10; Gal. 3:10; Eph. 2:1; Tit. 3:3; Jer 17:9. 4 Eccles. 7:29; Psa. 14:1-4; Rom 3:10-19; Rom. 8:7,8; Job 14:4; Mark 7:21-23; Tit. 1:15; Col. 1:21. 5 Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor.15:21,22. 6 Rom. 3:10; Rom. 5:6; Rom. 7:14; Gen. 6:5; Gen. 8:21; James 1:14; James 3:2; Eph. 2:2,3; Matt. 15:19; Prov. 20:9. 7 1 John 3:4; Rom. 1:18; Rom. 3:9,19; Rom. 6:23; John 3:36.
