[2.] Their obstinacy in sinning. They are fallen so as they cannot rise again, they are called ' wickednesses,' Eph. vi. 12, as sinning with much malice and obstinacy ; as if you should say luickedness itself. The devil's sin is as ' the sin against the Holy Ghost ; ' a malicious, ob- stinate, spiteful opposition against the kingdom of Christ, such a hatred against God and Christ that they will not repent and be saved ; their despair begetteth despite, and being hopeless of relief, are without pur- pose of repentance. They do, foolish creatures, add sin to sin, and harden themselves in an evil way, which is as a chain to hold them in God's prison, till their final damnation ; see 2 Thes. ii. 11, 12, where error and wilful persisting in disobedience is made to be God's prison, wherein reprobate creatures are held till their punishment be consummate.
[3.] Utter despair of deliverance ; they are held under their torment by their own thoughts, as a distressed conscience is said to be bound up, Isa. Ixi. 1 ; to them there remaineth nothing but ' a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation,' Heb. x. 27 ; release they cannot look for, more judgment they do expect : Mat. viii. 29, ' Art thou come to torment us before our time ? ' Their prison door is locked with God's own key, and as long as God sitteth upon the throne they cannot wrest the key out of his hands.
[4.] God's power and providence, by which the angelical strength is bridled and overmastered, so as they cannot do what they would. Thus Rev. XX. 2, Satan is said to be ' bound up for a thousand years,' that is, in the chains of God's power, which are sometimes straiter and sometimes looser. The devil was fain to ask leave to enter into the herd of swine, Mat. viii.
[5.] The chains of God's eternal decree. As there is a golden chain, the chain of salvation, which is carried on from link to link, till the purposes of eternal grace do end in the possession of eternal glory, so there is an iron chain of reprobation, which begins in God's own voluntary preterition, and is carried on in the creature's voluntary apostasy, and endeth in their just damnation ; and when once we are shut up under these bars, ' there is no opening/ Job xii. 14.
2. These chains are eternal chains, because the wicked angels stand guilty for ever, without hope of recovery or redemption. Every natural man is in chains, but there is hope to many of the prisoners. Christ saith, ' Go forth ; ' but those chains upon the evil angels arp for ever and ever : now ad custodiam, to keep them and hold them in their lost estate ; hereafter ad poenam, they are continued upon them as a part of their final punishment, when much of the liberty which now they have shall be abridged.
From hence observe these practical inferences : — ■
Veil 6.] upon the epistle of jude. 203
1. That sins are as it were bonds and chains. A wicked man is in bondage here and hereafter ;i now in snares and then in chains, here 'taken captive' by Satan in his snares, 2 Tim. ii. 26, and hereafter bound up with him in chains. Sin itself is a bondage, and hell a prison. Were there nothing in sin but the present slavery, it is enough to dissuade us ; but alas ! tliis is not all, there are not only snares but chains. In the fall of the angels, how many notions are there offered to us to discover the evil of sin ! They ' left their be- ginning,' and ' lost their habitation,' and then ' chains of darkness.' He that hath a mind to be a beast or a devil let him be a sinner. If you mean to quench your reason, to eclipse the glory of your creation, to disturb the quiet of your spirits, and instead of calmness and serenity of conscience, to bring in horror and confusion ; if you mean to enthral and captivate your souls to every base affection, and to be at the command of every corrupt desire, then go on freely, as you do, in sinning against God. But alas ! the present thraldom is nothing to what is future ; all the sins that you commit will be as so many chains, binding you over to an eternal and just damnation. The good angels are at liberty to serve God, when the evil angels are shut up in the prison of their own obstinacy and wickedness. Eemember this when you are convinced of a sin which you cannot leave, and fear lest it prove a chain of everlasting darkness.
2. Those chains and bonds can never be broken by us. The angels cannot break them themselves, and Christ will not, for their day of grace is past. Every one's chains would be eternal if Christ did not loose them, and 'open the prison-door to poor captives,' Isa. Ixi. 1. This is our advantage above the angels, that a year of liberty is pro- claimed to us, and ' an opening of the prison to them that are bound.' Christ himself was bound with our chains. The prophet saith, Isa. liii. 8, ' He was taken from prison and from judgment' He was in prison that we might go free.' If 'the judge had given us up to the officer, and the officer had cast us into prison,' how long would it have been ere we had ' payed the utmost farthing' ? Luke xii. 58. Others that reject the mercy offered in Christ can never wrest themselves out of the hands of justice, but do for ever remain under the power and wrath of the living God, Heb. x. 31.