[438] So it was also with the angels, their judgment was likewise decreed. Probably they thought it would be degradation and misery to be ministers to a creature of an inferior nature, whom God was about to create, and subjects and servants to one in that nature, not knowing particularly how it was to be, God having only in general revealed it to them. They thought it would be best for themselves to resist, and endeavour to be independent of God’s government and ordering; and, having an appetite to their own honour, it overcame holy dispositions, which when once overcome, immediately wholly left them to the full and unrestrained rage of the principles that overcome, and their holy inclination to subjection was greatly damped by their opinion of God, as though he intended to deal unbecomingly by them in subjecting them to one of such a nature, and so it was the more easily overcome.
[320] Devils. It seems to me probable that the temptation of the angels, which occasioned their rebellion, was, That when God was about to create man, or had first created him, God declared his decree to the angels that one of that human nature should be his Son, his best beloved, his greatest favourite, and should be united to his eternal Son, and that he should be their Head and King, that they should be given to him, and should worship him, and be his servants, attendants, and ministers: and God having thus declared his great love to the race of mankind, gave the angels the charge of them as ministering spirits to men. Satan, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub, being the archangel, one of the highest of the angels, could not bear it, thought it below him, and a great debasing of him. So he conceived rebellion against the Almighty, and drew away a vast company of the heavenly hosts with him. But he was cast down from the highest pitch of glory to the lowest hell for it. and himself was made an occasion of bringing that to pass which his spirit so rose against, yea, his spite and malice was made an occasion of it, and that same act of his by which he thought he had entirely overthrown the design, and that same person in human nature which they could not bear should rule over them in glory, and should he their King and Head, to communicate happiness to them, by this means proves their King in spite of them, and becomes their Judge; and though they would not be his willing subjects, they shall be his unwilling captives, he shall be their sovereign to make them miserable and pour out his wrath upon them; and mankind whom they so envied and so scorned, are by occasion of them advanced to higher glory and honour, and greater happiness, and more nearly united to God; and though they disdained to be ministering spirits to them, yet now they shall be judged by them as assessors with Jesus Christ.
[833] Occasion of the fall of the angels. Christ had his delegated dominion over the world committed to him as soon as the creation of the world was finished; for though Christ did not actually begin the work and business of a Mediator till man had fallen, yet the world, even in its very creation, was designed to be for the use of Christ in the great affair of redemption, and his purpose in that work was the end of the creation, and of all God’s providences in it from the beginning. Therefore the government of the world was committed into his hands from the very beginning; for even the very creation was committed into his hands for that reason, as the apostle intimates, Eph. iii. 9, 10..Much more have we reason to think that the disposal of it was committed into his hands when it was made, because it was created for his disposal and use. It was therefore most fit that it should be committed to him, not only in the actual accomplishment of that great work of his, the work of redemption, but also in those antecedent dispensations that were preparatory to it during that short space of time that was taken up in the preparation before the work of redemption actually began. It was most meet that Christ should have the disposal of those things that were to prepare the way for his own work, otherwise the work would not wholly be in his hands; for the accomplishing of the work itself, so as best to suit his own purpose and pleasure, depends in a great measure on the preparation that was made for it, and so there is the same reason that the preparation should be in his hands as the work itself. There is the same reason, that those things that are without the limits of the work itself, as to time, should be in the hands of Christ, because of the relation they have to that work, as that those things that are without the limits of the work itself, as to place, and nature, and order of being, should be in his hands; as the angels in heaven, and indeed all the works of God that were before the fall of man, were parts of the work of preparation for the work of redemption. The creation itself was so; and for this reason the creation of the world was committed into his hands; and there is no reason to suppose that one part of this work of preparation was committed into Christ’s hands, because it was a preparation for his work, and not other parts of the preparation for the same work. All things are for Christ, for his use; and therefore God left it with him to prepare all things for his own use, that in every thing he might have the pre-eminence, and that in him might all fulness dwell, a perfect sufficiency every way for the design that he had to accomplish; and therefore by the will and disposition of the Father, all things were made by him, and all things consist by him, and he was made Head over all things to the church, and for the purposes of the work of redemption that he was to accomplish for the church.Colos. i. 16, 17, 18, 19. “For by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things are created by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.” Eph. i. 22. “And hath put all things under his feet, and given him to be head over all things to the church. “It is manifest by these things that not only the creation of the world, but the upholding and government of the world, were committed into the hands of Christ, and doubtless it was so from the beginning. As Christ’s delegated dominion over the world will not be at an end till his use of it is finished, and he has completed that work, in which its great use consists, and has fully obtained his end of it, which will be at the end of the world, when he will deliver up THATkingdom to the Father. So doubtless the delegated dominion over the world began when his use of it began, which was at the beginning of the world, or as soon as the world was finished, and then the kingdom was committed to him of the Father.