18. QUEST. Wherein confifts the finfulnefs of that estate whereinto man fell?

ANSW. The finfulness of that estate, whereinto man fell, confifts in the guilt of Adam's firft fin, the want of original righteoufnefs, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original fin, together with all actual tranfgreffions which proceed from it.

Queft 1. What do you understand by original fin? Anfw. The fin we have from our original and birth, Pfalm li. 5.

Queft. 2. How is original fin ufually distinguished? Anfw. Into original fin imputed, and original fin inherent.

Quest. 3. What is original fin imputed ?
Anfw. The guilt of Adam's first sin.
Queft. 4. What is original fin inherent?

Anfrv. The want of original righteousness, and the corruption of the whole nature.

Queft. 5. What do you understand by the guilt of

fin?

Anfw. An obligation to punishment on account of fin, Rom. vi. 23.

Queft. 6. How are all mankind guilty of Adam's first fin?

Anfw. By imputation, Rom. v. 19.

Queft. 7. Upon what account is Adam's first fin imputed to his pofterity?

Anfw. On account of the legal union betwixt him and them, he being their legal head and reprefentative, and the covenant made with him, not for himself only, but for his pofterity likewife. Queft. 8. Why was Adam's first fin imputed, and none of his after-fins?

An w. Be

Anfw. Because the covenant being broken by his firft fin, his federal headship thereby ceafed ; for being then legally dead, and his posterity in him and with him, he stood afterwards but as a fingle perfon for himself, and no longer in the capacity of their public reprefentative in that covenant of life, which, by that first fin, brought him and them under the fentence of death, Gal. iii. 22. Rom. iii. 9. and v. 12, 13.

Queft. 9. When Adam ceased to be the federal head, by breaking the covenant of works, did that covenant ceafe likewife?

Anf. No: that covenant, though broken, ftands binding, fo as the obligation to pay the debt of obedience to the precept, and fatisfaction now to the penalty thereof, remains upon every one of his pofterity, while in a natural state, under the law as a covenant of works, Gal. iii. 10.

Quest. 10. How doth it appear from fcripture, that all Adam's pofterity have his first fin imputed unto them?

Anfw. From their being faid to be made finners, by one man's difobedience, Rom. v. 19.; and to have the judgment, or fentence, by one to condemnation, ver. 16 and furely there can be no condemnation, paffed by a righteous judge, where there is no crime.

Queft. 11. Is it not faid, Ezek. xviii. 20. The fon fhall not bear the iniquity of the father?

Anfw. The prophet is there speaking of particular private parents, not of Adam as a federal head; he is fpeaking of adult children, who were preferved from fome groffer violations of the law, which their parents were guilty of, and who did not imitate them therein, not of the pofterity of Adam in general, as exeeming them from his first fin, which the fcripture quoted, in answer to the former question, plainly prove them chargeable with.

Queft. 12.

Quest. 12. What is meant by the want of original righteoufnefs?

Anfw. The want of that rectitude, and purity of nature, which Adam had in his firft creation; confifting in a perfect conformity of all the powers and faculties of his foul, to the holy nature of God, and to the law which was written on his heart, Eccl. vii. 29.

Queft. 13. How doth it appear that all mankind are now deftitute of this original righteoufnels?

Anw. From the exprefs teftimony of God, that among all Adam's race, there is none righteous, no not one; and that by the deeds of the law there fhall no flesh be justified in his fight, Rom. iii. 10, 11, 12, 20. Luke vi. 44.

Queft. 14. What follows upon this want of original righteousness?

Anfw. That all mankind are naked before God; and that their fig-leaf coverings will ftand them in no ftead before his omnifcient eye, nor answer the demands of his holy law, Rev. iii. 17. lfa. lxiv. 6. Queft. 15. Doth the law of God demand original righteousness from mankind finners, though they now

want it?

:

Anfw. Yes their want of it can never derogate from the right of the law to demand it, because God endowed man with this part of his image, at his creation, and his want of it was owing to his own voluntary apostasy from God.

Queft. 16. Under what penalty doth the law demand this original righteousness ?

Anfw. Under the penalty of death and the curfe, Rom. vi. 23. Gal. iii. 10.

Queft. 17. Is there no help for a finner in this deplorable fate ?

Anfw. None in heaven or in earth, but in Christ, the last Adam, the Lord our righteoufnefs, on

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whom

whom our help is completely laid, Jer. xxiii. 6. Pfal. lxxxix. 19.

Queft. 18. Doth original fin confist in a mere privation or want of righteoufnels?

Anfw. It confifts alfo in the corruption of the whole nature, Tit. i. 15. Rom. iii. 10,---19.

Queft. 19. What is meant by the corruption of the whole nature?

Anfw. The univerfal depravation both of foul and body, in all the faculties of the one, and members of the other, Ifa. i. 5, 6.

Queft. 20. How doth this corruption of the whole nature appear?

Anf. In an utter impotency, and bitter enmity to what is fpiritually good; and in the strongest inclination and bias to what is evil, and to that only, and continually, Rom. viii. 7. Gen. vi. 5.

Queft. 21. How may we be certain that our whole nature is corrupted?

Anw. From the word of God, and from experience and obfervation.

Quest. 22. How doth the word of God affure us of the univerfal corruption of our nature ?.

Anfw. It tells us, that the image after which man was at firft made, and the image after which he is now begotten, are quite oppofite the one to the other; Adam was at firft made in the likeness of God, but having fallen, he begat a fon in his oun likeness, after his own image, Gen. v. 1, 3. The fcripture affures us, that none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean, Job xiv. 4.; that we are fhapen in iniquity, and that in fin did our mothers conceive us, Pfal. li. 5.; that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, John iii. 6.; and that we are by nature children of wrath, Eph. ii. 3.

Queft. 23. How may we know the corruption of our nature by the experience and obfervation of things without us ?

Anfw. The

Anfw. The flood of miferies which overflow the world; the manifold grofs out-breakings of fin therein; and the neceffity of human laws, fenced with penalties, are clear outward evidences of the corruption of our nature.

Quest. 24. What inward evidences may every one of us experience within ourfelves of the corruption of

our natures ?

Anfw. Each of us may fadly experience a natural difpofition to hearken to the inftruction that causeth us to err; a caring for the concerns of the body more than thefe of the foul; a difcontentment with fome one thing or other in our lot in a prefent world; an averfion from being debtors to free grace, and an inclination to rest upon fomething in ourselves as the ground of our hope : every one of which may be an evidence to ourfelves that our natufe is wholly corrupted.

Queft. 25. How is the corruption of nature propagated fince the fall ?

Anjw. By natural generation, Job xv. 14. What is man, that he should be clean? and he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

Queft. 26. How can this corruption be propagated to the foul, feeing it is created immediately by God, and not generated with the body?

Anfw. As the creating and infufing of the foul are precifely at one and the fame time, fo the very moment the foul is united unto the body, we become children of the first Adam, not only as our natural, but as our federal head; and confequently, at that inftant, have his first fin imputed to us, which cannot but be attended with the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of the whole nature, Rom. v. 12, 19.

Queft. 27. How is God freed from being the author of fin in this matter?

Anfw. Adam, by his tranfgreffion, as a covenant

head,