Likewise 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 that man, by his fall, having lost all ability of will to what is spiritually good, cannot in his natural state, and by his own strength, convert himself (being dead in trespasses and sins), nor can he in less or more contribute to his own salvation, or in the least prepare himself thereunto; neither is there any natural, necessary or moral connection between the most diligent and serious use of the means, and obtaining salvation thereby.  Although the Presbytery maintain, that as a God of grace has promised the converting influences of his Spirit to be showered down upon dead souls, in the use of means of his own appointment; they are therefore to be attended to with the utmost care and diligence; as appears from Rom. v, 6; John vi, 44, 65; Tit. iii, 3-5; Job xiv, 4; Confess. chap. 9, Sec. 3; larger Cat. quest. 25.