Non servaverunt

suam originem, id

est, rectitudinem in qua conditi

erant, q. d. justiFst. in 1. 2. Sen

tiam originalem.

tent. dist. 3.

ὁσιότης της

the author of their first being; but this seems to be a harsh phrase and expression, to make the keeping of their beginning, or first estate, to be adhering to and acquiescing in God, who gave them their first being. The best interpretation, and that which is most agreeable to the scope both of these and other scriptures, seems to be that which makes this their first estate to be that original and primitive condition of angels, not as they are substances spiritual and immortal, (for such even the fallen angels are,) but as they were created with their original holiness, righteousness, or integrity of nature; in which respect the elect angels which were preserved from falling are called the angels of God, of the Son of man, holy, and such as behold the face of God. This "first estate" which Jude saith these wicked angels kept not, Christ expresses by this one word, "truth;" where he saith that the devil did not abide in the truth, and hath no truth in him, John viii. 44. By truth in this place is to be understood that righteousness and true holiness, holiness of truth, wherein ἀληθείας. stands the image of God, Eph. iv. 24; nor is it unusual in Scripture to express that rectitude of heart and life which is bestowed upon renewed persons by the word truth. "Remember," saith Hezekiah, "how I have walked before thee in truth," 2 Kings xx. 3. And fitly may holiness be called truth, because it neither deceives him in whom it is by false hopes, nor any other by mere shows. We must not think that angels were inferior to men. If man from the beginning was holy, why not angels? And as bodies cannot be said to fall, but from a higher place than that into which they fall; so neither can there be a fall of spirits, but from the height of some good which formerly they had; which fall from good is not so much in regard of local motion, as of their defection from righteousness to sin, of which their change of place is afterwards a punishment. And how can any but most impiously imagine, that He who is perfectly and absolutely good, and goodness itself, should create evil? And if God does righteously punish the sin of angels, then God did not create them sinful; for how can God punish for the being of that which he himself made to be? And it is by all the learned exploded for impious Manicheism, to hold that any creature is evil by a necessity of nature. It is plainly expressed, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." The creatures were good with a goodness of nature, and very good because to the goodness of every particular creature there was an accession of the goodness of that order, whereby they all harmoniously suited and agreed with one another for making up the beauty of the whole. And whereas some object that the wolf is by nature ravenous, and the fox subtle and deceitful, therefore that angels may possibly be subtle and cruel by nature; it is answered, that this is the dignity and excellency of intellectual nature, either angelical or human, that what is the nature of beasts hominis natura sit is a sin in angels and man. To which may be added, that the fore..amed qualities of cruelty and subtlety in angels and man would be against a law given to them; but this cannot be said of those beasts which are not capable of a law.

Tantæ excellentiæ in comparatione pecoris est homo, ut vitium

pecoris. Aug. de Pec. Orig. c. 40.

Holiness then it was which at first God bestowed upon the angels, and from this first estate of holiness they made a defection. A heinous offence! whither we consider what this holiness was bestowed upon them, and when it was bestowed. (1.) It was a conformity to the original pattern of purity and

|

excellency. It was that by which they as much resembled the great and glorious God as creatures, yea, the best of creatures, could do; that whereby they who stood are still called the sons of God, yea, gods, Job i. 6; Gen. xxxiii. 10. To cast dirt upon, or to cut in pieces, the picture of a king is a heinous offence, but to trample upon and spoil the image of God is an infinitely more heinous indignity. We are wont to burn or openly disgrace the pictures only of traitors or eminent offenders; and we account that the dishonour of the picture is the dishonour of the person: the image of God in man was very excellent, but it was far more excellent in an angel, who was a subject more capacious to receive it, and wherein it might more gloriously appear. But, (2.) When was this holiness bestowed? It was bestowed upon angels at their creation. It was given to their nature; it was their "first estate." These angels were, as it were, crowned in the cradle. God was a Benefactor to them betimes. And what an impiety was it to trample upon so early a mercy! That land which comes to us by inheritance, with Naboth, we love to keep, though bequeathed by an earthly father; yea, a gift which is bestowed upon us as soon as we are born, we love to keep all our days; but these angels threw away a gift even born with them, as old as their beings, conveyed by God himself.

Gerhard in 2 Pet. ii. 4.

II. The angels forsook also "their own habitation." By these words rò idov oikηThptov, "their own habitation," some understand those heavenly places of happiness and glory in this sense, as if for their defection from their original holiness they were cast out, and compelled to depart from them; but because the punishment of their fall is subjoined in the second part of the verse, I conceive, with learned Gerhard and others, that by "their own habitation" we are rather here to understand that proper station and set office in heaven, wherein their great Lord and Master was pleased to fix them for serving him; the apostle comparing them to a company of fugitive soldiers, who leave their colours, and that station in the army where by their Commander they are placed. And this interpretation seems to be much favoured by these words rò totov, "their own," that place properly and peculiarly appointed, allotted, and set out for them by God; viz. to serve and honour him in; and this is the force of the word in other places of Scripture, when used either concerning persons or places. God in the beginning appointed several places for his creatures, wherein they were to perform their services unto him; and, like a master of a family who has sundry servants, distinct offices to all sorts of creatures. Heaven was the place of angels, and the melodious praising of God in heaven the work of angels: and, possibly, in heaven those glorious spirits might have their several parts peculiarly appointed to each of them, all of them together making up the celestial harmony; and because there are sundry titles of dignity given them in Scripture, it seems to follow, that there are sundry sorts of duties allotted to them; from which several duties, for in respect of their nature angels are all alike, some are simply called angels, some archangels, some powers, some principalities; though what the particular differences between these are, and what the offices of these, I confess, with Austin, I Tom. 3. in Enchir. understand not. I conceive it is neither my duty to know, nor my danger to be ignorant of these things. The bold determinations of Aquinas and other schoolmen herein, are by the niost learned and godly writers rather noted than liked. And this forsaking of "their own habitation" seems in a due and proper sense to be subjoined to the former

c. 29.

expression, of the falling of these angels from their original holiness, and intended by the apostle to be its effect; as if, because they kept not their natural integrity, they therefore forsook their appointed duty and office wherein God had set them. For, as Junius well remarks, these angels Jun, in Jud. having deprived their nature of what good was in it before, since it could not be idle, it did not now incline to and act in former, but contrary ways and employments; for that privation being put, the effects thereof must needs follow accordingly in the same kind; as a man being blind, | suitable effects and operations will succeed. Hence it is that Christ, to this privation of holiness and not abiding in the truth, most fitly annexes the impotent inclination of the devil to sin in these words, "There is no truth in him ;" and the action whereby he expressed that inclination, which was, in being a murderer. By reason of this defection then from his original holiness he became a liar, an adversary to God and all his, a tempter, a murderer, a spirit of uncleanness, a slanderer, a devil. So that from the former privative action of forsaking his primitive integrity, as from a fountain, flowed a voluntary and incessant acting suitable thereunto, and opposite to the duty which at first God appointed him.

And now for the high nature of this offence of the angels in leaving "their own habitation," it must needs be answerable to the forementioned cause, viz. the revolting from their original integrity. Bitter was that stream which came from such a fountain: how high a contempt of God was this!

1. To slight the place of his presence, in which is fulness of joy, and at whose "right hand there are pleasures for evermore," Psal. xvi. 11. If it be a heinous sin not to attain that presence when we are without it, how insufferable a provocation is it to despise it when we have it! The presence of God is heaven upon earth, and the heaven of heaven. The forsaking of this was the despising of all good at once, even of that which was able to satisfy all the desires and capacities of all the creatures to the brim. Nay, the glorious perfections of God satisfy God himself; and if they can fill the sea, how much more a little vessel!

2. Heinous was the impiety of these angels in leaving their own habitation, as it was forsaking that office and station wherein God had placed them. (1.) They were the creatures, nay, the sons of God, Job i. 6. He made them, and therefore it was their duty to serve him; the homage of obedience was due to God for their very beings. He gave them those hands which he employed; he planted in them those endowments of which he desired the increase. (2.) They were of the highest rank of all the creatures. If he expected work from the weakest worm, how much more might he do so from the strongest angel! If God required the tax of obedience from the poorest, how much more due was it from those richest, those ablest of creatures to pay it! And, (3.) As God had bestowed upon them the best of all created beings and abilities, so had he laid out for them the happiest, the most honourable of all employments. All creatures were his subjects, but these his menial servants; or, other creatures did the work without doors, these waited upon his person by an immediate attendance. This employment was both work and wages. What was their work, but to behold the face of the King of glory, and to praise the glory of that King? and what other happiness is desirable, imaginable?

Obs. 1. Holiness, the image of God, makes the difference between an angel and a devil. When an angel leaves his integrity, he becomes a devil. If he

keep not his primitive purity, he parts with his primitive pre-eminence. The original holiness of the angels is set out by the word doxn, which signifies dignity. Cut off Samson's locks, and he will be even as another man. Though never so many other accomplishments be left behind, as spirituality, strength, wisdom, immortality; yet if holiness be gone, the truly angelical part is gone. That which is to be desired in a man, yea, an angel, is goodness. All the stars cannot make a day. Should a whole sheet of paper be filled only with ciphers, they could not all amount to the smallest number; nor can the rarest endowments without grace make a person excellent. The righteous, not the rich, the honourable, the learned, is more excellent than his neighbour. There is nothing will have a lustre at the day of judgment but purity. Riches and honours, like glow-worms, in the dark, blind night of this world glister and shine in men's esteem; but when the Sun of righteousness shall arise in his glory, all these beauties will die and decay. How much are they mistaken, who shun and abhor Christians as devils, because they are poor, deformed, disgraced, though they keep their integrity! and how great their sin, who hate them because they keep their integrity! but the world will love its own. Black men account the blackest most beautiful. Would we look upon men with a renewed eye and Scripture spectacles, we would judge otherwise. The poorest saint is an angel in a disguise, in rags; and the richest sinner is, for the present, little better than a gilded devil. Holiness, though veiled with the most contemptible outside, is accompanied with a silent majesty; and sin, even in the highest dignity, bewrays a secret

vileness.

Obs. 2. Truth and holiness can only plead antiquity. The first estate of the fallen angels was holy; sin came, or rather crept in afterwards: holiness is as ancient as the Ancient of days; and the essential holiness of God, the pattern of that which was at the first created in angels and man, is eternal and uncreated. Sin is but an innovation, and a mere invention of the creatures. A sinner is but an upstart. They who delight in sin do but keep alive the adventitious blemishes of their original, and the memory of their traitorous defection from God. Oh that we might rather remember from whence we are fallen, and in Christ recover a better than our first estate! To any who pretend the greatest antiquity and longest custom for error, or any other sin, it may be said, "From the beginning it was not so," Matt. xix. 8. And custom without truth is Consuetudo sine at the best but the antiquity of error. veritate, vetustas The old path and the good way are put est error is. Tert. for the same, Jer. vi. 16. If the removal of the ancient bounds and landmarks which our fathers have set be a sin so frequently prohibited, Hos. v. 10; Prov. xxii. 28, how heinous is the violation of the ancient boundary of holiness, which at the first was fixed by God himself!

Obs. 3. The depravation of nature introduces all disorder in practice. When these angels had left their original purity, they soon forsake their original employment; and the devil abiding not in the truth, becomes a murderer. All the irregularities of life, are but derivations from unholy principles. The corrupt tree yields not good fruit, Matt. vii. 18. Out of the evil treasure of the heart are evil things brought forth, Luke vi. 45. The wheels of the clock going wrong, needs must the hand do so; the translation will be according to the original. We see at what door to lay all the prodigious impieties in the world, which are but the deformed issues of corrupt nature. How foolishly are men angry with them

selves for outward and visible transgressions in their lives, when they tamely and quietly endure an unchanged nature! like men who manure and water the roots of their trees, and yet are angry for their bearing fruit. How preposterous, and how plainly begun at the wrong end, are those endeavours of reformation which are accompanied with the hatred of renovation! If the tree is bitter and corrupt, all the influences and showers of heaven cannot make the fruit good. When these angels had lost the integrity of nature, even heaven itself did not help them to it. How miserable, lastly, is he who has no better fountain than corrupt nature for issuing forth all his services! Even the best performances of an unrenewed person cannot be good, coming not from a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned; they are but dead carcasses embalmed; and at the best but hedge-fruit, sour and unsavoury, till they who bear them are ingrafted into Christ, and partake of his life, Phil. i. 11; Eph. ii. 10.

Obs. 4. Corrupt nature cares not for the joys, joined with the holiness, of heaven. As soon as these angels had left their first estate of integrity, they forsook even that holy, though most happy habitation. Heaven itself was no heaven to them, when they became unholy. A sinner may not unfitly be compared to a common beggar, who had rather live poorly and idly, than plentifully in honest employment. How great is the antipathy of corrupt nature to heavenly performances, when they will not down though never so sweetened! The enmity of sin against God and holiness is not to be reconciled. How little are we to wonder that heaven is a place only for the pure in heart, and that Christ at the last day will say to the workers of iniquity, “Depart from me," "Matt. vii. 23; since they not only in this life say to God, "Depart from us," Job xxi. 14; xxii. 17, but should they be admitted into that habitation of bliss with unholy hearts, they would be unwilling there to continue with him! Let it be our care to be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, if we expect to have, nay, to love, the joys thereof.

Obs. 5. How irrational is every sinner! There is no person in love with any sin but is indeed out of love with his own happiness. These angels, for a mere supposed imaginary happiness of their own contriving, part with the real blessedness of enjoying the satisfying presence of the blessed God. None can become a devil, till first he become a beast. A sinner can with no better plea of reason yield to any temptation of sin, than could Samson to that motion of Delilah, "Tell me where thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee," Judg. xvi. 6. Wicked men are rightly called unreasonable, 2 Thess. iii. 2, or absurd, ἄτοποι. such whom no reason will satisfy; and brute beasts, led with humour and sense against all reason, Jude 10; Psal. xlix. 20. Who, that had not laid aside even reason, would lose his soul for a trifle, a shadow, and die (as Jonathan said) for tasting of a little honey? He who accounts it unreasonable to part with the poorest worldly commodity without a valuable consideration, much more to exchange a conveyance of a thousand pound per annum for a painted paper, is yet much more absurd in sinning against any command of God, which is backed with the very height of reason, both in respect of our duty to the Commander, and benefit by the command.

Obs. 6. It is a sin for any, even the highest, to exempt himself from service. Angels have their tasks set them by God, which they must not leave there is no creature but has an allotment of duty. Though we cannot be profitable, yet must we not be idle. God allows the napkin to none upon whom he has

bestowed a talent; nor has he planted any to cumber the ground, and only to be burdens to the earth. If we are all of him, we must be all for him. It is not consistent with the sovereignty of this great King, to suffer any subject within his dominions who will be absolute, and not yield him his homage; nor to his wisdom, to make any thing which he intends not to use. The first who adventured to cease from working was a devil, and they who follow him in that sin shall partake with him in the suitable punishments of chains and darkness. It is a singular mercy to have opportunities of service, abilities for it, and delight in it at the same time. It is the privilege of the glorious angels, to be confirmed in their work as well as in their happiness. God never is so angry with any, as those whom he turns out of his service.

66

66

εντελής σύνδρο μου ἔχουσα τη Távou. Isid.

συμπήξει την Pelus, 1. 1. ep. 65.

Obs. 7. The glorified are in heaven as in a habitation. Heaven is in Scripture often set out by expressions importing it to be a place of stability, settlement, and abode; as, "everlasting habitations," Luke xvi. 9; a "Father's house, mansions," John xiv. 2; a "building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," 2 Cor. v. 1; a city, a city which hath foundations," Heb. xi. 10, 16; a continuing city," Heb. xiii. 14; " a rest," Heb. iv. 9. How suitable are fixed and immovable affections to this permanent and stedfast happiness! every thing on this side heaven is transitory."The fashion of this world passeth away: here we have no continuing city." Our bodies are tabernacles and cottages of clay, which shortly shall be blown down by the wind of death; yea, their falling begins with their very building; and Ex Yup to ὄντως ἡ μονή. this whole world is a habitation which Ἡ γὰρ παρούσα ζωὴ σκηνὴ ἔστιν ere long will be consumed by fire. Let us love the world as always about to leave it; and delight in the best of earthly enjoyments only as refreshments in our journey, not as in the comforts of our country; only as things without which we cannot live, not as things for which we do live; not making them fetters, but only using them as furtherances to our place of settlement. Wicked Cain was the first that ever built a city, and yet even then the Holy Ghost brands him with the name of a vagabond. The godly of old dwelt in tabernacles; and the reason was, because they "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God," Heb. xi. 9, 10. To conclude, let the sin of these angels in leaving this habitation make us fear lest we should fall short of it; let us be thoroughly sensible of our misery by nature, in being born without a right to it, and interest in it. Let us speedily get into, and constantly keep in, the way that leads to it. Christ is that way; let us by faith procure him, as one who has purchased it for us by the merit of his obedience; and in him let us continue, that he may prepare us for it by his Spirit of holiness. Let us profitably improve those ordinances which are the gates of heaven; let us content ourselves with no degree of proficiency by them, but proceed from strength to strength, till at last we appear before God in this habitation.

66

1. Αποφατικώς. Gerh. in 2 Pet.

The third branch of this first part of the text, containing the sin of these angels, is this, Wherein this defection of the angels was seen, and did consist. This is expressed two ways. 1. Negatively, They kept not," &c. 2. 2 Katuparikus. Affirmatively, They "left their," &c. The nature of the subject, and indeed the very expressions of the apostle, of not keeping, and leaving, require us to explain three particulars.

1. What was the original cause that these angels made a defection, or that they "kept not their first estate."

II. What was that first sin whereby this defection was made, or their first estate not kept.

III. In what degree and measure it was made, it being here said they "kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation."

I. What was the original cause that these angels made a defection, or that they "kept not their first estate."

1. God, who is infinitely and perfectly good and holy, the fountain of all goodness, and goodness itself, was not the cause of the sinful defection of these angels; nor had it been justice in God to have condemned them for that which himself had caused; or to make them fall, and then to punish them for falling. And whereas it is objected; that God might have hindered them from falling, therefore he was the cause thereof; I answer, 1. Not every one who can hinder an evil is accessory to it, unless he is bound to hinder it; but God was not here so bound. Nor owes he any thing to any of his creatures further than he binds himself. Angels and men are bound to God ex officio, by duty: nothing from God is due to them but of his own good will and pleasure, when freely and of his own accord he binds himself to them by his promise of grace. Angels and men owe to God all they are, all they have, all they have lost; they are debtors to God by nature, and even nature itself is owing to God.

Angeli et homines ex officio debent Deo. Deus nihil debet nisi ἐξ εὐδοκίας. Junius in loc.

Asserunt malam

esse naturam, quæ

immutari nullo modo potest.

Aug. con. 2 Ep.

Pet.

2. Nor, secondly, were the angels made to sin (as the Manichees fondly and falsely imagined) by some first evil cause, which (as they held) was the original and fountain of all sin; and whereby a necessity of sinning lay upon creatures from the very being of nature, which therefore could not be changed from being evil, but was so, unavoidably, unalterably.

3. Nor, thirdly, do I conceive that this sin of the angels proceeded from any error or ignorance in their understanding before their sin, as if their understanding first judged that to be good which was not, and therefore they afterwards sinned in willing and embracing that good; for this were to make them erroneous before they were unholy; miserable, before they were sinful; whereas the ignorance of that which ought to be known is a part of sin, and all misery is a fruit of sin. That ignorance or error, saith Illa ignorantia Estius, whereby he who sins is ignorant sive error secun- and erroneous, properly is not a cause peccans ignorat of sin, but something of sin; for a man who judges amiss sins inchoatively; as peccati, sed potius he whose will chooseth wickedly, sins

dum quem omnis

et errat, proprie non est causa

aliquid peccati. Peccat enim ho

ratio prave judicat. Peccat inchcative, sicut consummative

percat, in eo quod eligit. Nam om

voluntas male

ne peccatum quasi duabus

consummatively and completely; for mo eo ipso, quod all sin, he saith, as it were, consists and is made up of two parts, false judgment, and evil election; and the error of judgment is not to be separated from sin, but to be included in and involved under the sin itself of evil election, as illis partibus con- something intrinsical to it; and that every one who sins, properly is said to err in that he sins, and improperly said to sin by or from error. And thus the soundest among the schoolmen answer the objection against the possibility of the fall of the angels, taken from this ground, that every sin proceeds from ignorance, which cannot (say they) be true of the sin of the angels.

stat, &c. Frror Judicii non est separandus a peccato, sed in

plena ejus ratione bus in 1. 2. Sent.

includitur. Es

dist. 22.

4. Fourthly, I conceive that sin, being a defect, a privation of good, and a want of due rectitude, has not properly any cause whereby it may be said to be effected or made. Sin is not a nature or a being, for

Aug. de Civ.

then it would be a creature, and appetible, every creature desiring its being, and by consequence good. Nor yet is it a mere negation of good, for then the bare absence of any good belonging to another creature would be a man's sin. But sin is a privation of that good which has been and should be in one. Now as sin is a privation and defect, Let none, saith Augustine, inquire after the efficient cause of an evil and sinful will, of this Dei, 1. 12. c. 7. there being not an efficient, but only a deficient cause; for to depart from that which is chief and highest, to that which is less and lower, is to begin to have an evil and a sinful will. To inquire therefore after the causes of that defection, when they are not efficient, but deficient, is as if a man would go about to see darkness, or to hear silence; both which, notwithstanding, are known to us; the former by the eye, the latter by the ear; and yet not by any species or representation, but by the privation thereof: darkness cannot be seen, unless it be by not seeing; nor silence perceived, unless by not hearing.

posset: per hoc

eo habet, quod a

facta est, deficiat,

Aug. de Civ. Dei,

tione naturæ, sed

q. 63.

5. The original or beginning of the sin of these angels, was the defectibility and mutability of their own will; whereby, though for the present they willed that which was good, and might have willed to have persevered therein; yet, being mutable, they might also will evil, and so fall from God. Every creature, as it is made of nothing, may again, unless sustained by God, return to nothing; and in that respect it was that the intellectual creature might make a defection from him who created it, and deviate from the rule of Divine righteousness: for, (as St. Augustine observes,) the being Vitio depravari, of nature comes from hence, that it is misi ex hilo made by God; the defection of nature facta, natura non from hence, that it is made of nothing. ut natura sit, ex If there be any creatures therefore Deo facta est; ut which cannot sin, they have not this autem ab eo a quo from the condition of nature, but from ex hoc quod de the gift of the grace of God. And facta es Aquinas seems to argue rightly, that, 1. 14. c. 13. according to the condition of nature, Non ex condi none is exempted from a possibility of ex dono gratiæ. sinning but only God; because that sin 4. par. 1. being the declining of an act from the rectitude of the rule, it is only impossible for that act not to decline from rectitude, the rule of which is the very power and will of the agent: for, as he well illustrates it, if the hand of the artificer were the very rule of cutting a piece of timber, the artificer could not but cut the wood evenly and rightly; but if the rectitude of the cutting be by another, an external rule, the cutting may either be right, or not right. The Divine will is only the rule of his act, as not being ordained to any higher end; but the will of every creature has in its act no rectitude, but as it is regulated by the will of God, which is its ultimate end. And hence it is, that notwithstanding the nature of the intellectual creature was good, yet evil is said to arise and proceed from it; and that Augustine so frequently, and others after him, assert, that evil has its original and beginning from that which was good. For though evil does not proceed from good, saith St. Augustine, as that good was made by God, yet it proceeded from good, as that good was made of nothing, and not of God. And whereas it is objected against this, that a good tree cannot bring

Solum illum actum a rectitudine

contigit, cujus re

declinare non gula est ipsa virtus agentis; si ficis esset ipsa re gula incisionis, artifex nisi recte sed si rectitudo incisionis sit ab

enim manus arti

nunquam possit lignum incidere;

esse rectam, vel

vina autem vo

alia regula, contigit incisionem non rectam ; Dia est regula sui actus. iorem finem or dinatur; omnis cujuslibet creain suo actu non habet, nisi secuntur. Aquin. par.

quia non ad sirpe

autem voluntas turæ rectitudinem

dum quod regula1. q. 63.

Vid. 1. 1. cont. Jul. Pelag. c. 3.

Johan. Major, in 2

vinitatis quæ mori nescit. Anima moritur, nec angelus immortalis,

&c. in angelis na turæ capacitas vi

tio obnoxia. Nec ex immortali natura habet, sed ex

gratia, si se ad vi

tia non inutat. Hierom in 6.

Gal. Aug. cont.

Max. cap. 12.
Jun, in Jud.

Greg. de Val. q.

14. punct. 1. Aquin. 1. p. q. Etiamsi ab initio tales conditi fuissent quales Dunc

forth evil fruit; therefore evil could not arise from the nature of angels, and the angels could not sin of themselves: it is answered by the forementioned father, that though a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, yet good ground may bring forth evil plants; out of the same soil may grow both thorns and vines; and though from the good act of the will sin cannot arise, yet out of the same nature may sprout and arise a will either good or evil. Nor was there any beginning from whence at first a sinful will should arise, but from the intellectual nature which was created good. Nor does this defectibility of the intellectual creature at all countenance the profane cavils of those who hence would needs infer, that God might have made the world better than he did; and that he had done so, if he had made the intellectual creature free from all possibility of sinning. For, (1.) It is a question, (though perhaps too curious,) and by some learned among the schoolmen diversely dist. 23. q. Ambr. maintained, whether it was possible for 13. de Fid. ad any creature to have been made impecsola substantia di cable by nature, or free from all possibility of sinning. Some of them indeed determine it affirmatively; but herein they oppose the fathers, Ambrose, Augustine, and Hierom. The two former of whom teach, that, because it is said that God only has immortality, it follows, that he only has immutability, and so by consequence, only by nature impeccability. The same argument is also used by the learned Junius, who denies that simply God could have made the angels better than they are by nature, because then they should have been most constant in per gratiam con- their own perfect goodness by themselves, which can only be attributed to God. Also to the forecited fathers agree the schoolmen of the greatest note, among whom Estius asserts, that nus naturale diri supposing that the angels had been from ipsa natura datum their beginning created such as they esset, et in natura are now made to be by the grace of contamen natura, at- firmation, yet even so they had not been posset auferri. So impeccable, or free from a possibility of lus Deus est qui sinning by the condition of nature, but piam, sed natura by the gift of grace; which although it may be termed natural, as given with and implanted in their nature, yet it might have been taken away and reRes de qua agitur moved without the destruction of their possibilium. In- nature. And he saith, It is no derogation from the power of God, that a creaquod creatum est, ture cannot be made by nature impecductum, deficere cable; for the thing spoken of is not non potest Dens in the number of possibilities; and it is ex natura impec- a contradiction to say, that a creature, cabilem, quia fa- that is, a thing made of nothing, should creatura non sit not be able to change; and that therecreatura. Siqui fore God cannot make a creature by nacreata est, detecti- ture immutable, because he cannot bilis est, Deo po- make that a creature should not be a vel esse vel ope- creature, which, as such, is defectible, operationis recti- God being always able to withdraw its manifestum est, being, or the operation of its being, or non negatione,sed the rectitude of its operation. Whereby, saith he, it is manifest, that not by denying, but by granting that a creature may be impeccable by nature, we derogate from the power of God. But, (2.) I answer with Aquinas, p. 1. q. 36. a. 2. that God appointing an inequality in the things which he created, hereby made the world after the best The perfection of the whole requires that

firmationis facti sunt, nec sic tamen ex conditione naturæ impeccabiles essent, sed ex dono gratiæ; quod etsi hacte

posset, quia cuin

insitum, eadem

que essentia salva,

non gratia cujus

sua, non potest, nec potuit, nec poterit peccare. Aug. 1. 3. cont. Max. c. 12.

non est de numero

cludit enim contradictionem, ut

i. e. ex nihilo pronon possit. Ideo

facere creaturam

cere non potest ut

dem eo ipso quo

tente subtrahere

rari, vel ipsius

tudinem, ex quo

positione creaturæ per naturam impeccabilis derogari potentiæ Dei. Est. in 2. Sent. dist. 7.9 9.

manner.

there should be an inequality in the several creatures, that so there might be all degrees of goodness made up and this is one degree of goodness, that something be so good, that there should be an impossibility for it ever to swerve from its goodness; and another degree of goodness is, that some things should be made defectible, and in a possibility of leaving their goodness. And as the perfection of the world requires that there be not only incorruptible, but also corruptible creatures; so likewise that there should be some things defectible from goodness. If angels might have been made more excellent in themselves, yet not in relation to that goodly order and admirable beauty which God has caused in the world, by making them in that capacity wherein they were created. A captain, a colonel, are better than a common soldier in an army; but yet it is better, for the order and beauty of the army, that some should be common soldiers, and commanded, than that all should be officers and commanders. And God, as Augustine saith, thought it bet- 27. Melius juditer to bring good out of that which was bene facere, quam evil, than not at all to suffer evil to be. mala nulla esse For he that is perfectly good would not suffer evil in his works, unless he were so omnipotent as to bring good out of that evil.

Aug. Ench. c. 11. cavit de malis

permittere.

Some falsely expounding Gen. vi. 2, Philo, Orig. Jose"The sons of God saw the daughters of phus, Irenæus, men that they were fair, and they took Apol. pro Chr. them wives," &c., imagined that the Clem. Alex. gels being taken with the love of tul. 1. de hab. women, sinned by lust. Strange it is, that so many learned men among the ancients should embrace an opinion so flatly opposite to Scripture and reason. For, not to speak of the spiritual nature of angels, whereby they are incapable of carnal and sensible pleasures, or of the different nature of their, by some supposed, bodies from ours, theirs being, if they be at all, not compounded of the elements, but so pure and thin that it is impossible they should be fit for generation; the Scripture plainly teaches that the angels fell from their integrity before there were any daughters of men in being; besides, Christ tells us that the angels in heaven "neither marry, nor are given in marriage," Matt. xxii. 30. Others conceive that the first sin of the angels was hatred of God; the adhering of the angels to God being by love, their departure from God, they odium omne ex say, must needs be by hatred; but this scitur odium Dei opinion seems false, because hatred of bentis amantem God must needs proceed from inordinate ab eo quod est love of something else, God being hated in 2.1. Sent. dist. because he hinders the creature from 6.9 2. something which it loves inordinately. Hatred therefore could not be the first sin, but the irregular affecting of something else; or some other sin.

amore est. Na

tanquam prohi

dinate amat. Est.

Superbiendo invi

A third opinion is of those who hold, that the first sin of these angels was envying the dignity of man in being created after the image of God; but this is confuted by Augustine, who saith, that pride must needs go before envy; and that envy was not the cause of pride, but pride the dus, non inviden cause of envy; for none can by envy perbus est. Aug. hate another's excellency, unless by pride he first inordinately loves his own, which he apprehends to be impaired by another's.

do quisquain su

A fourth, to add no more, and the most probable opinion, is, of those who hold that the first sin of these angels was pride. And this is the opinion most received and commonly embraced by the fathers; and after them received generally by the schoolmen