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Chapter 6: Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof

The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith

1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.a This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.b

a. Gen 3:13; 2 Cor 11:3. • b. Rom 11:32.

2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God,a and so became dead in sin,b and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.c

a. Gen 3:6-8; Eccl 7:29; Rom 3:23. • b. Gen 2:17; Eph 2:1. • c. Gen 6:5; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10-19; Titus 1:15.

3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed,a and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.b

a. Gen 1:27-28 and 2:16-17 and Acts 17:26 with Rom 5:12, 15-19 and 1 Cor 15:21-22; 1Cor 15:45, 49. • b. Gen 5:3; Job 14:4; 15:14; Psa 51:5.

4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,a and wholly inclined to all evil,b do proceed all actual transgressions.c

a. Rom 5:6; 7:18; 8:7; Col 1:21. • b. Gen 6:5; 8:21; Rom 3:10-12. • c. Mat 15:19; Eph 2:2-3; James 1:14-15.

5. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated;a and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin.b

a. Prov 20:9; Eccl 7:20; Rom 7:14, 17-18, 23; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8, 10. • b. Rom 7:5, 7-8, 25; Gal 5:17.

6. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto,a doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner,b whereby he is bound over to the wrath of Godc and curse of the law,d and so made subject to death,e with all miseries spiritual,f temporal,g and eternal.h

a. 1 John 3:4. • b. Rom 2:15; 3:9, 19. • c. Eph 2:3. • d. Gal 3:10. • e. Rom 6:23. • f. Eph 4:18. • g. Lam 3:39; Rom 8:20. • h. Mat 25:41; 2 Thes 1:9.

 

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Reformed Theology at A Puritan's Mind