First; The angels were created in an estate and condition much supertor unto and more excellent than that of man; and so like- wise were their present or actual enjoyments far above his, though these also were admirable and blessed. The place of their first
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habitation, which they left, Jude 6, was the highest heaven, the most glorious receptacle of created beings; in opposition whereunto they are said to be cast into the lowest hell, 2 Pet. ii. 4: whereas man was placed in the earth; which, although then beautiful and excellently suited to his condition, yet was every way inferior unto the glory and lustre of the other, which God so had “ garnished by his Spirit,” Job xxvi. 13, and which, for its curious excellency, is called “ the work of his fingers,” Ps. viii. 3. And in these different places of their habitation,—
Secondly, Their several employments also did greatly differ. The work of angels was immediately to attend the throne of God, to minister before him, and to give glory unto him, and to execute the commands of his providence in the government of the works of his hands, Ps. Ixviii. 17; Dan. vii. 10; Ezek. i. 5-14; Heb. i. 14; Rev. y. 11;—the highest pitch of honour that a mere creature can be exalted unto. Man, during his natural life, was to be employed in tilling and dressing of the ground, Gen. ii. 15 ; a labour that would have been easy, useful, and suitable unto his condition, but yet, in honour, advantage, and satisfaction, unspeakably beneath the duty of the others.
Thirdly, Their enjoyments also greatly differed. For the angels enjoyed the immediate glorious presence of God, without any ex- ternal created resemblances of it; when man was kept at a greater distance, and not admitted unto such immediate communion with God, or enjoyment of his glorious presence.
Now, all these, and the like considerations, although on the one side they do not in the least extenuate or excuse the sin and crime of man in his apostasy, yet they greatly aggravate the wickedness, ingratitude, and pride of the angels.
Moreover, they differed in their intellectual perfections, whereby they were enabled to discern the excellencies and to know the mind of God: for although man had all that light, knowledge, and wis- dom conecreated with him, and so natural unto him, which were any way needful to enable him unto a right and due performance of the obedience required of him, in the observance whereof he should have been brought unto the enjoyment of God; yet it came far short of that excellency of understanding and that piercing wisdom which was in those spiritual beings, which they were endowed withal to fit them for that near contemplation of the glory of God whereunto they were admitted, and that ready apprehension of his mind which they were to observe. And as these were in themselves, and ought to have been improved by themselves, as blessed means of preserving them in their obedience, so, being despised and neglected, they were a great aggravation of the wickedness of their apostasy. There was likewise,—
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Fifthly, A difference in the manner of their defection. Man was circumvented by the craft and policy of the angels, who were made before him and sinned before him: and this, although he was fur- nished with an ability and power to have rejected and overcome, yet it had that influence into his sin and fall that the Holy Ghost affirms that our first parents were SEDUCED or “deceived,” 1 Tim. ii. 14, 2 Cor. xi. 8; and therefore Satan is called their “ murderer,” John viii. 44. But the angels had nothing without them to excite, provoke, or lay snares for them; but of their own voluntary choice, and mere motion of their own mind, in the exercise of that free- dom of their will which was bestowed on them for their own honour and advantage in their obedience, left their stations, and set up themselves in a way of opposition unto their Creator, who had ex- alted them above their companions, newly brought out of the same nothing with themselves, into a condition of the highest created glory imaginable. Again,—
Sixthly, Although the condition of mankind, being to be pro- pagated by natural generation from one common stock, made it necessary that our first parents should have a greater trust reposed in them, by reason of their representation of their whole posterity in that covenant wherein they stood before God, than any angel could have, seeing they stood every one only in his own name and for himself, yet they were but two persons that actually sinned at first, and those one after another, one seduced by another; whereas the angels in multitudes inconceivable, by a joint conspiracy, at the same instant combined together against the authority and law of their Creator, and, as it should seem, appointed one among them- selves for the head of their apostasy. Now, although, as was said, none of these things do, or can, in the least extenuate the sin of man, which was the product of inconceivable infidelity and ingrati- tude, yet they contain such aggravations of the sin of angels as may evidence a condecency unto divine wisdom and goodness in passing them by in their sin and misery unto eternity, and yet giving relief unto mankind.