Chapter 10. Of sin, and the fall of Angels.
A GOLDEN CHAIN
Chapter 10. Of sin, and the fall of Angels.
The fall is a revolting of the reasonable creature, from obedience to sin. Sin is the corruption, or rather deprivation, of the initial integrity. More plainly, it is a falling or turning from God, binding the offender by the course of God's justice, to undergo the punishment.
Here a doubt may be raised, whether sin exists or not. The answer is this: of things which exist, some are positive, others privative. Things that are positive are all substances, together with their properties, effects, inclinations, and affections, which the Lord has created and imprinted in their natures. That thing is called privative, which grants or presupposes the absence of some such thing, that ought to be in a thing. Such a thing is sin, which properly and of itself is nothing created and existing; rather, it is the absence of that good which ought to be in the creature.
Sin has two parts: a defect, or impotency; and a confusion or disturbance of all the power and actions of the creature.
Impotency is nothing but the very lack or loss of that good which God has ingrafted in the nature of His creature.
The fall was effected in this manner.
First, God created His reasonable creatures good indeed; but along with that, He created them changeable, as we showed before. For unchangeable good is proper to God alone.
Secondly, God tested their obedience in those things about which they were conversant. Deu 13.3, You shall not hearken to the words of the prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proves you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul.
WILLIAM PERKINS
Thirdly, in this trial God does not assist them with new grace to stand; but for just causes, He forsakes them.
Lastly, after God has forsaken them, and left them to themselves, they quite fall from God. This is no different than when a man, picking up a staff from the ground, stands it upright; if he ever so little withdraws his hand, it falls of itself.
The fall is of men [chap. 11], and Angels.
The fall of Angels is that by which the understanding — pointing at a more excellent estate, and approving of it, of its own accord — together with the will, makes a special choice of it. Though by their integrity they might have freely chosen the contrary, they did not, and were the sole instruments of their fall from God.
2Pet 2.4, If God did not spare the Angels which sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be kept unto damnation, etc.
Jude 1.6, The Angels which did not keep their first estate, but left their own habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains, etc. Joh 8.44, [The Devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and did not continue in the truth; for there is no truth in him.
In the fall of Angels, consider:
I. First, their corruption arising from the fall, which is the deprivation of their nature. It is either the fearful malice and hatred by which they set themselves against God; or else their insatiable desire to destroy mankind.
To effect this, they neglect neither force nor fraud. 1Joh 3.8, He that commits sin, is of the devil, because the devil sinned from the beginning. For this cause, the Son of God was revealed: to dissolve the works of the devil.
1Pet 5.8, Your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Eph 6.12,
You do not strive against flesh and blood, but against Principalities, and powers, and worldly governors, the
A GOLDEN CHAIN
princes of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickednesses, which are in supercelestial things.
II. Their degree and diversity. For one is chief of these Angels, and the rest attendants. The chief is
Beelzebub, prince of the rest of the devils, and the world, far above them all in malice. Mat 25.41, Away from me you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 2Cor 4.4, Whose minds the god of this world has blinded. Rev 12.7, And there was war in heaven; Michael and his Angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought.
Ministering angels are those who wait upon the devil in accomplishing his wickedness.
III. Their punishment. God, after their fall, gave them over to perpetual torments, without any hope of pardon. Jude 1.6; 2Pet 2.4, God did not spare the Angels that had sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be kept unto damnation. He did this, first, to admonish men what great punishment they deserved. Secondly, to show that grievous sins must be punished more grievously.
The fall of Angels was more grievous because their nature was more able to resist, and because the devil was the first founder of sin.
Their punishment is easier, or more grievous.
Their easier punishment is double. The first, is their ejection from heaven. 2Pet 2.4, God cast the Angels that sinned into hell. The second, is the abridging and limitation of their power. Job 1.12, The Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your hand, only do not lay your hand upon him.
The more grievous pain is that torment in the deep, which is endless and infinite, in time and in measure.
Luk 8.31, And they begged him, that he not command them to go down into the deep.