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 first 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 moved whether sin be a thing existing or not. The answer is this: Of things which are, some are positive, other privative. Things positive are all substances, together with those their properties, powers, inclinations and affections, which the Lord hath created and imprinted in their natures. The thing is called privative which granteth or presupposeth the absence of some such thing as ought to be in a thing. Such a thing is sin, which properly and of itself is not anything created and existing; but rather the absence of that good which ought to be in the creature: and though it be inherent in things positive as a privation, yet it is always to be distinguished from them.

Sin hath two parts: A defect, or impotency; and disorder.

Impotency is nothing else but the very want or loss of that good which God hath ingrafted in the nature of his creature.

Disorder is the confusion or disturbance of all the powers and actions of the creature.

The fall was effected on this manner. First, God created his reasonable creatures good indeed, but withal changeable, as we have shewed before. For to be unchangeably good is proper to God alone. Secondly, God tried their obedience in those things about which they were conversant.

Deuteronomy 13:3
Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether you love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul.

Thirdly, in this trial God doth not assist them with new grace to stand, but for just causes forsaketh them. Lastly, after God hath forsaken them, and left them to themselves, they fall quite from God: no otherwise than when a man staying up a staff on the ground, it standeth upright; but if he never so little withdraw his hand, it falleth of itself.

The fall is of men and angels.

The fall of angels is that by which the understanding, pointing out a more excellent estate, and of its own accord approving thereof, and the will choosing the same as pleasing unto it (their nature in the meanwhile remaining fit to make choice either of the contrary, or of divers objects) they are the sole authors of their fall from God.

2 Peter 2:4
If God spared not the angels which sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be kept unto damnation...

Jude 6
The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains...

John 8:44
He was a murderer from the beginning, and continued not in the truth: for there is no truth in him.

In the fall of angels, consider: First, their corruption, arising from the fall; which is the deprivation of their nature, and is either that fearful malice and hatred, by which they set themselves against God, or their insatiable desire to destroy mankind; to the effecting whereof, they neglect neither force nor fraud.

1 John 3:8
He that committeth sin is of the devil, because the devil sinned from the beginning. For this cause was the Son of God revealed, to dissolve the works of the devil.

1 Peter 5:8
Your adversary the devil goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Ephesians 6:12
You strive not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and worldly governors; the princes of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness, which are in supercelestial things.

Secondly, their degree, and diversity: for of these angels, one is chief, and the rest attendants. The chief is Beelzebub, prince of the rest of the devils and the world, far above them all in malice.

Matthew 25:41
Away from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

2 Corinthians 4:4
Whose minds the god of this world hath blinded.

Revelation 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 such as wait upon the devil, in accomplishing his wickedness.

Thirdly, their punishment. God, after their fall, gave them over to perpetual torments, without any hope of pardon. Jude 6 (above) and:

2 Peter 2:4
God spared not the angels that had sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be kept unto damnation.

This he did: First, to admonish men, what great punishment they deserved. Secondly, to shew that grievous sins must more grievously be punished.

The fall of angels was the more grievous, because both their nature was more able to resist, and the devil was the first founder of sin.

Their punishment is easier, or more grievous.

Their easier punishment is double. The first is their dejection from heaven.

2 Peter 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 unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thine hand, only upon him lay not thine hand.

The more grievous pain is that torment in the deep, which is endless and infinite, in time and measure.

Luke 8:31
And they besought him, that he would not command them to go down into the deep.