The 1900 Primitive Baptist Confession of Faith

• Preface
• General Address
• Chapter I - Of the Holy Scriptures
• Chapter II - Of God and of the Holy Trinity
• Chapter III - Of God's Decree
• Chapter IV - Of Creation
• Chapter V - Of Divine Providence
• Chapter VI - Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
• Chapter VII - Of God's Covenant
• Chapter VIII - Of Christ the Mediator
• Chapter IX - Of Free Will
• Chapter X - Of Effectual Calling
• Chapter XI - Of Justification
• Chapter XII - Of Adoption
• Chapter XIII - Of Sanctification
• Chapter XIV - Of Saving Faith
• Chapter XV - Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation
• Chapter XVI - Of Good Works
• Chapter XVII - Of The Perseverance Of The Saints
• Chapter XVIII - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
• Chapter XIX - Of the Law of God
• Chapter XX - Of the Gospel, and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof
• Chapter XXI - Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
• Chapter XXII - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
• Chapter XXIII - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
• Chapter XXIV - Of the Civil Magistrate
• Chapter XXV - Of Marriage
• Chapter XXVI - Of the Church
• Chapter XXVII - Of the Communion of Saints
• Chapter XXVIII - Of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
• Chapter XXIX - Of Baptism
• Chapter XXX - Of the Lord's Supper
• Chapter XXXI - Of the State of Man After Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
• Chapter XXXII - Of the Last Judgment
• Appendix

Chapter VI - Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof

1. Although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which had been unto life had he kept it, and threatened death upon the breach thereof,1 yet he did not long abide in this honour; Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who, without any compulsion, did willlfully transgress the law of their creation, and the command given unto them, in eating the forbidden fruit,2 which God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.

1. Ge 2:16-17.
2. Ge 3:12-13; 2Co 11:3.

Fulton Footnote: We understand the word "permit" as here and elsewhere used in this Confession, to mean "to suffer," "not hinder." We are not to understand that obedience unto the law given to Adam would have been unto eternal life, but to a perpetuation of natural life.


2. Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them whereby death came upon all;3 all becoming dead in sin,4 and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.5

3. Ro 3:23.
4. Ro 5:12-21.
5. Tit 1:15; Ge 6:5; Jer 17:9; Ro 3:10-19.


3. They being the root, and by God's appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation,6 being now conceived in sin,7 and by nature children of wrath,8 the servants of sin, the subjects of death,9 and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, an eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.10

6. Ro 5:12-19; 1Co 15:21-22,45,49.
7. Ps 51:5; Job 14:4.
8. Eph 2:3.
9. Ro 6:20; 5:12.
10. Heb 2:14-15; 1Th 1:10.


4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil;11 do proceed all actual transgressions.12

11. Ro 8:7; Col 1:21.
12. Jas 1:14-15; Mt 15:19.


5. The corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated;13 and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and the first motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.14

13. Ro 7:18,23; Ecc 7:20; 1Jn 1:8.
14. Ro 7:23-25; Gal 5:17.