Loughbrickland Reformed Presbyterian Church

The Sum Of Saving Knowledge

Our woeful condition by nature, through breaking the covenant of works

Hos. xiii. 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.

I The almighty and eternal God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, three distinct persons in the one and the same undivided Godhead, equally infinite in all perfections, did, before time, most wisely decree, for his own glory, whatsoever cometh to pass in time ; and doth most holily and infallibly execute all his decrees, without being partaker of the sin of any creature.

II This God, in six days, made all things of nothing, very good in their own kind : in special, he made all the angels holy ; and he made our first parents, Adam and Eve, the root of mankind, both upright and able to keep the law written in their heart. Which law they were naturally bound to obey under pain of death ; but God was not bound to reward their service, till he entered into a covenant or contract with them, and their posterity in them, to give them eternal life, upon condition of perfect personal obedience ; withal threatening death in case they should fail. This is the covenant of works.

III Both angels and men were subject to the change of their own free-will, as experience proved, (God having reserved to himself the incommunicable property of being naturally unchangeable :) for many angels of their own accord fell by sin from their first estate, and became devils. Our first parents, being enticed by Satan, one of these devils speaking in a serpent, did break the covenant of works, in eating the forbidden fruit; whereby they, and their posterity, being in their loins, as branches in the root, and comprehended in the same covenant with them, became not only liable to eternal death, but also lost all ability to please God ; yea, did become by nature enemies to God, and to all spiritual good, and inclined only to evil continually. This is our original sin, the bitter root of all our actual transgressions, in thought, word, and deed.

The Sum Of Saving Knowledge

Home