Articles Of The Faith And Order Of A Primitive Or Strict And Particular Baptist Church Of The Lord Jesus Christ, Based On The Declaration Of Faith And Practice Of John Gill, D. D., 1720<\/p>\n
We believe that God created the first man, Adam, after His own image and in His own likeness, an innocent, upright, and holy being, capable of serving and glorifying Him,[1]<\/sup> but that he, sinning, all his posterity sinned in him, and have come \u201cshort of the glory of God the guilt of whose sin is imputed to, and whose corrupt nature is derived by, all that descend from him by ordinary and natural generation,[2]<\/sup> so that all men are under sentence of condemnation, and by their first birth carnal and unclean, averse to all that is good, prone to all that is evil, and incapable of pleasing God, and are hence by nature the \u201cchildren of wrath,\u201d,[3]<\/sup> and that they are consequently not only involved in spiritual death, but subject to corporeal and eternal death[4]<\/sup> from all which there is no deliverance but by Christ, the \u201c Last Adam.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/p>\n ——————————- ————————————————————–<\/strong><\/p>\n Note 1.\u2014\u201cAdam\u201d as created was \u201can innocent, upright, and holy being. This he must have been, or God would have originated a sinful creature, which His essential holiness forbids our thinking. Adam, however, was not a spiritual being, that is\u2014the holiness he possessed, as a creature, is not said to have flowed from Christ as the source of spiritual life to His people, and to have been the same as is now possessed by regenerated sinners.<\/p>\n The position that he was originally a spiritual person lies at the foundation of Andrew Fuller\u2019s scheme of Duty-faith\u2014and the argument is sound. It is indisputably incumbent on all natural men to be and do all that was incumbent on Adam before the Fall,\u2014since man\u2019s inability to keep the whole Law involves no diminution of its claims. If, therefore, Adam were spiritual, and spiritual Faith was a duty which he was origin\u00adally under obligation to perform, all men ought to be spiritual, and it is their duty to believe with spiritual faith.<\/p>\n We, however, deny the assertion,\u2014and repudiate the conclusion.<\/p>\n Note 2.\u2014The expressions, \u201cthe Covenant of works,\u201d and that \u201cAdam sustained a federal relation to his posterity,\u201d are not found in the Bible: though the truths they convey, are unmis\u00adtakably in God\u2019s word. (1 Cor. 15:21,22.) The Jews are accused of transgressing the Covenant under which they as a nation possessed their land, in the same way as Adam transgressed the Covenant under which he enjoyed the favours of Paradise. \u201cThey, like Adam, have transgressed the Covenant.\u201d Hos. 6:7, Revised Version.<\/p>\n Note 3. Clear as is the testimony of the texts cited, the Fall of mankind in Adam and the guilt and depravity of the human race through their federal union to him, are so universally denied as almost to render the doctrine of this Article a distinguishing tenet of the Section of the Baptist Denomination whose views are here given.<\/p>\n Note 4.\u2014The two main consequences of the Fall are human guilt and depravity. These should be distinguished. Guilt is the condition that follows transgression of the Law. It is a relative term, indicating exposure to punishment. Depravity is a positive term, and indicates a vitiated or corrupt state of nature. Men are guilty by the condemnation of the holy Law of God,\u2014depraved because their whole natures are disorganised, and all their mental and moral powers out of conformity to the will of God. Both human guilt and human depravity are stated to be the results of Adam\u2019s trangression in Rom. 5:12-21.<\/p>\n Note 5.\u2014All men are guilty and therefore under the sentence of the law through the sin of \u201cthe first Adam.\u201d Hence, the assertion that \u201clife is a state of probation\u201d is true only in a very restricted sense. Man\u2019s real probation terminated with the catastrophe of Adam in Eden. \u201cBy the offence of one, (or through one trespass,) the judement came unto all men to con\u00ad demnation.\u201d (Rom. 5:18.) \u201cHe that believeth not is condemned already his trial is over: his sentence is passed; his innocence or guilt is not a question to be settled; his character is gone; \u201che hath already been judged.\u201d (John 3:16.) How inexpressibly wicked, therefore, are men who, when professing to preach the Gospel, expressly or implicitly deny this!<\/p>\n Note 6.\u2014All men are not only guilty but depraved through Adam\u2019s sin. The penal consequences of the transgression of the \u201cfirst man\u201d descend to his posterity, but this is not all; his corrupt nature is derived by all that descend from him by ordinary generation. This sweeping statement does not assert that every man from his earliest youth is as bad as bad can be, or deny men the possession of eminent goodness, but insists that all are \u201cvery far gone from original righteousness,\u201d so that they \u201cthat are in the flesh cannot please God.\u201d (Rom. 8:8.) Virtue and holiness are to be carefully distinguished. Children from their infancy are sinners, and their simplicity and affection should not be mistaken for sinlessness. The popular figure that the mind of a babe resembles a sheet of white paper, awaiting the good or bad im\u00ad pressions of education, is utterly misleading.<\/p>\n Note 7.\u2014The words \u201cby ordinary and natural generation,\u201d are introduced into the above Article in order to exempt Christ. He was \u201cthe Son of Man,\u201dbut not of \u201cAman.\u201d He did not descend from Adam in the ordinary way. His body was prepared for Him by the Holy Ghost. (Heb. 10:5) He miraculously avoided contamination, though formed in the womb and nourished from the breast of a sinful mother. He therefore, and He alone of all men was not represented by Adam, or involved in the Fall.<\/p>\n Note 8.\u2014It is sometimes sneeringly enquired whether it is incumbent on us to repent of Adam\u2019s sin? It is granted that our sinning in him does not mean that we personally committed the actual sin which he committed. It, therefore, cannot be our duty to repent personally of his trespass. Every spiritually-minded person, however, is conscious of sorrow and shame foi Adam\u2019s sin, just as the descendants of a notoriously wicked person, (though themselves innocent and pure,) blush to reflect that his blood flows in their veins, and that they bear his tainted and dishonoured name. It is our disgrace to possess the defiled and degraded nature which we inherit from Adam. This all who are \u201cfollowing after the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord,\u201d (Heb. 12:14,) feel with poignant grief,\u2026\u201cBackward, with humble shame, we look to our original. How is our nature dashed and broke, in our first father\u2019s fall!\u201d\u2014WATTS<\/p>\n Note 9.\u2014That human death is a consequence of Adam\u2019s sin is a truth so humbling to man\u2019s pride that he often seeks to evade it. Witness the common saying that it is a a debt due to nature. This is false. Sin introduced human death which is a debt due not to nature, but to the justice of God. Death is a penal infliction, and its onslaughts upon men are a perpetual testimony to the presence and progress of sin. \u201cThrough one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; or, better, \u201call sinned\u201d in Adam, their natural and covenant head. (Rom. 5:12.)<\/p>\n Note 10.\u2014Solemn and terrible as is the truth that the entire human race were made, (not simply sinful) but sinners, (that is both depraved and guilty,) by the Fall. (Rom. 5:19,) it should be remembered that the operation of the same principle herein exemplified, secures to God\u2019s people the blessing of salvation. As the guilt of Adam\u2019s sin is imputed to his posterity, and the sinfulness of his nature imparted to them by generation, so the righteousness of Christ is imputed to His people, and the holi\u00adness of His nature imparted to them by regeneration. Mankind were ruined by their Covenant union with a fallen representative, without their assent to the arrangement, and apart from any transgressions of their own; so men are recovered and renovated by their union with a perfect Representative, without any proposals being made for their acceptance or rejection, and wholly apart from any merit of their own.<\/p>\n This parallel appears in many Scriptures. \u201cAs in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.\u201d (1 Cor. 15:22.) This does not mean that the results of Christ\u2019s death are co-extensive with the results of Adam\u2019s sin,\u2014this would involve universalism,\u2014but that, as all that were federally in Adam, (that is the whole human race,) die, even so (on the same principle.) shall all that are federally in Christ, (that is all that were chosen in Him,) be made alive.\u201d There are two \u201cAdams\u201d and two \u201calls.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, \u201cAs, through the disobedience of the one man, the many, (that is the whole human race,) were made sinners, even so also, (on precisely the same principle,) through the obedience of the One, shall the many, (the whole \u2018election of grace,\u2019) be made righteous.\u201d (Rom. 5:19.)<\/p>\n Thus, then, the principle of federal headship which is the incidental cause of all our sin and woe, secures our deliverance from guilt; our renovation and recovery from our lapsed condition of depravity; and our participation in all Covenant blessings through our union with Christ.<\/p>\n Note 11.\u2014This truth is adapted to minister rich comfort to those whose infant children have been taken from them. Such die, not for their personal transgressions, but because of their descent by natural generation from the first Adam, \u201cthrough” whom \u201csin entered into the world, and death by sin.\u201d (Rom. 5:12.) Such are saved, not through their personal repentance and faith, but through their federal union with \u201cthe last Adam,\u201d the Covenant head of all the election of grace.<\/p>\n Thus the operation of the same principle which consigns them to the grave, ensures, through sovereign grace, their immediate admission to heaven after death, and their glorious resurrection at the last day.<\/p>\n So far from Infant Salvation being contradicted by the views of extreme\u2014or consistent\u2014Calvinists, it is logically and scripturally demonstrable by those only who hold that all men are lost, and the chosen of God saved, on the principle of Covenant relationship and its inevitable results.<\/p>\n Note 12.\u2014Though \u201cno truth of Revelation should be concealed,\u201d (Hazelton,) the Doctrine of this Article is often kept in abeyance by preachers who \u201clove the praise of men more than the praise of God.\u201d It should, however, be fully and urgently proclaimed by all who aim at true usefulness.<\/p>\n One great source of the success of James Wells was his constant reiteration of the fact that the condemnation of the human race occurred when Adam fell. This gave him, through the Spirit, his unique grip on the consciences of sinners, and enabled him, with such remarkable power, to cut down their fancied righteousness \u201croot and branch.\u201d<\/p>\n While other preachers deluded their hearers by preaching spiritual faith as a natural duty, for performing which they might and could avert their doom, he told the unregenerate the plain, unpopular, unpalatable truth\u2014whether they would receive it or not. Hence his extraordinary success, under the blessing of God.<\/p>\n
\n[1] Gen 1:26; Ps 8:5; Ecc 7:29; 1 Tim 2:14
\n[2] Gen 2:17; 3:3; Rom 6:23, 5:12; 8:10; 1 Cor 15:22; Job 14:4
\n[3] Ps 58:3; Jn 3:6; Rom 5:18; 6:23; Eph 2:3
\n[4] Matt 8:22 (\u201cLet the {spiritually} dead bury their {natural} dead.\u201d); Rom 5:15; 2 Cor 5:14; Eph 2:1; 1 Tim 5:6; Ecc 12:7; 2 Sam 14:14; Heb 9:27; Matt 10:28; Lk 12:5; Rom 8:13; Rev 2:11; 20:14
\n[5] Ps 49:7,8; Jn 3:36; 14:6; Acts 4:12; Rom 3:22,23; 1 Cor 15:45<\/p>\nAnnotations:<\/h3>\n
The Nature of Adam before the Fall.<\/h4>\n
Federal Headship taught in Scripture.<\/h4>\n
Human Guilt and Depravity distinguished.<\/h4>\n
Christ not included in the Covenant of Works.<\/h4>\n
Adam\u2019s Sin is our Shame.<\/h4>\n
Human Death a Penal Evil.<\/h4>\n
Federal Headship the Ground of Salvation.<\/h4>\n
Federal Headship and Infant Salvation.<\/h4>\n
The Fall\u2014a Doctrine to be Preached.<\/h4>\n