12. Q. What special act of providence did God exercise towards man in the estate wherein he was created?

A. When God created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil upon the pain of death.

Q. 1. What is a covenant?

A. A covenant, is a mutual agreement and engagement between two or more parties, to give or do something.'

Q. 2. What is God's covenant with man?

A. Dod's covenant with man, is his engagement, by promise of giving something, with a stipulation, or requiring something to be done on man's part.

Q. 3. How many covenants hath God made with man?

A. There are two covenants which God hath made with man: 1. A covenant of works. 2. A covenant of grace.

Q. 4. When did God enter into a covenant of works with man?

A. God did enter into a covenant of works with man, immediately after the creation. When he was yet in a state of innocency, and had committed no sin. Q5. What was the promise of the covenant of works which God made with man?

A. The promise of the covenant of works was a promise of life; for God's threatening death upon man's disobedience, Gen. ii. 17, implieth his promise. of life upon man's obedience.

Q. 6. What life was it that God promised man in the covenant of works?

A. The life that God promised to man in the covenant of works, was the continuance of natural and spiritual life, and the donation of eternal life.

Q. 7. Wherein doth natural, spiritual, and eternal life consist?

A. 1. Natural life doth consist in the union of the soul and body. 2. Spiritual life doth consist in the

union of God and the soul. 3. Eternal life doth consist in perfect, immutable and eternal happiness into, and an immediate vision and fruition of God the chief good.

Q. 8. What was the condition of the first covenant, and that which God required on man's part in the covenant of works?

A. The condition of and that required by God on man's part in the covenant of works, was perfect obedience, Gal. iii. 12. The law is not of faith, but the man that doth them, shall live by them: compared with the 10 verse, As many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Q. 9. In what respect was this obedience (required of man in the first covenant) to be perfect?

A. The obedience required of man in the first covenant, was to be perfect, 1. In respect of the matter of it, all the powers and faculties of the soul, all the "parts and members of the body were to be employed in God's service, and made use of as instruments of righteousness. 2. It was to be perfect in respect of the principle, namely, habitual righteousness, and natural disposition and inclination, to do any thing God required, without indisposition or reluctance, as the angels do obey in heaven. 3. It was to be perfect in respect of the end, which was chiefly to be God's glory swaying in all actions. 4. It was to be perfect in respect of the manner; it was to be with perfect love and delight, and exactly with all the circumstances required in obedience. 5. It was to be perfect in respect of the time; it was to be constant and perpetual.

Q. 10. What is the prohibition, or the thing forbidden in the covenant of works?

A. The thing forbidden in the covenant of worke is the tasting of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Gen. ii. 16, 17. And the Lord God commanded, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it..........

Q. Why was this tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

A. Because man by eating the fruit of this tree dia know experimentally what good he had fallen from, and had lost: namely, the image and favour of God: and what evil he was fallen into, namely, the evil of sin and misery.

Q. 12. What was the penalty and punishment threatened upon the breach of the covenant of works?

A. The punishment threatened upon the breach of the covenant of works,, was death, Gen. ii. 17. In the -day thou catest thereof thou shalt surely die, Rom. y. 38. The wages of sin is death.

Q. 13. What death was it that God threatened as the punishment of sin?"

A. The death which God threatened as the punishment of man's sin, was temporal death, spiritual death and eternal death.

Q. 14. Wherein doth temporal, spiritual and eternal death consist?

A. Temporal death doth consist, in the separation of the soul from the body; this man was liable unto, in the day that he did eat of the forbidden fruit and not before. 2. Spiritual death doth consist, in the separation of the soul from God, and loss of God's image this death seized upon man in the moment of his first sin. 3. Eternal death doth consist in the exclusion of man from the comfortable and beatifical presence of God in glory for ever: together with the immediate impressions of God's wrath, affecting most horrible anguish in the soul, and in the extreme tortures in every part of the body eternally in hell.

13. Q. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?

A. Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the state wherein they were created, by sinning against God.

Q. What is meant by the freedom of the will? A. By the freedom of the will, is meant, a liberty in the will of its own accord, to choose or refuse, to do

or not to do, to do this or to do that, without any constraint or force from any one.

Q. 2. How many ways may the will be said to be made free?

A. The will may be said to be free, three ways, 1. When the will is free only to good; when the will is not compelled or forced, but freely chooseth only such things as are good thus the will of God (to speak after the manner of men) is free only to good: He neither can do nor will any thing that is evil: Such also is the freedom of the will of angels, and such will be the freedom of the will of all the glorified saints in heaven, there neither is, nor will be any inclination of the will unto any evil things forever, and yet good will be of free choice. 2. The will may be said to be free only unto evil, when the will is not constrained, but freely chooseth such things as are evil and sinful; thus the will of the devil is free only to sin; and thus the wills of all the children of men in the world, whilst in a state of nature, are free only unto sin. 3. The will may be said to be free both unto good and evil, when it sometimes chooseth that which is good, sometimes chooseth that which is evil, such is the freedom of the wills of all regenerate persons, who have in some measure recovered the image of God, they choose God freely through a principle of grace wrought in them by the spirit; yet through the remainder of corruption, at some times their wills are inclined to that which is sinful.

Q. 3. What freedom of will had man at his first 'creation?

A. The freedom of will which man had at his first creation, was a freedom both to good and evil, though the natural inclination and disposition of his will was only good yet being made mutable or changeable, through temptations it might be altered and might become inclineable unto evil.

Q. 4. How were our first parents left to the freedom of their own will?

A. Our first parents were left by God to the free

dom of their own wills, when God witheld that further grace (which he was no way bound to give unto them) which would have strengthened them against the temptations and preserved them from falling into sin.

5. How did our first parents fall when they were left to the freedom of their own will?

A. Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own wills, through the temptation of the devil who spoke to them in the serpent, through the desireableness of the fruit of the forbidden tree, to their sensual appetite, and through the desireableness of being made wise and like unto God by eating thereof, unto their rational appetite, and through the hopes of escaping the punishment of death threatened by God, they did venture against the express command of God to eat of the tree; the woman being first beguiled and perverted by the devil, did eat, and then the man being persuaded by the wife, and the devil too, did eat also, Gen. iii. 4, 5, 6. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die: For God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise; she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her hus band with her, and he did eat, 2 Cor. xi. 3. The ser pent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, 1 Tim. ii. 14. The woman being deceived, was first in the transgres

sion.

Q. 6. What was the state in which our first parents were created from whence they fell?

A. The state wherein our first parents were created and from whence they fell, was a state of innocency, Eccl. vii. 29. Lo, this only have I found that God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.

7. Whereby did our first parents fall from the state wherein they were created?

A. Our first parents fell from the state. wherein they were created by sinning against God.