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16. By the justice of God in some sense, the human race was
delivered into the power of the devil; the sin of the first man passing
over originally into all of both sexes in their birth through conjugal
union, and the debt of our first parents binding their whole
posterity. This delivering up is first signified in Genesis, where,
when it had been said to the serpent, "Dust shalt thou eat," it was
said to the man, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return."
In the words, "Unto dust shalt thou return," the death of the body
is fore-announced, because he would not have experienced that either,
if he had continued to the end upright as he was made; but in that it
is said to him whilst still living, "Dust thou art," it is shown
that the whole man was changed for the worse. For "Dust thou art"
is much the same as, "My spirit shall not always remain in these
men, for that they also are flesh." Therefore it was at that time
shown, that he was delivered to him, in that it had been said to him,
"Dust shall thou eat." But the apostle declares this more clearly,
where he says: "And you who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of unfaithfulness; among whom we also had. our
conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others." The "children of unfaithfulness" are
the unbelievers; and who is not this before he becomes a believer?
And therefore all men are originally under the prince of the power of
the air, "who worketh in the children of unfaithfulness." And that
which I have expressed by "originally" is the same that the apostle
expresses when he speaks of themselves who "by nature" were as
others; viz. by nature as it has been depraved by sin, not as it was
created upright from the beginning. But the way in which man was thus
delivered into the power of the devil, ought not to be so understood as
if God did this, or commanded it to be done; but that He only
permitted it, yet that justly. For when He abandoned the sin ner,
the author of the sin immediately entered. Yet God did not certainly
so abandon His own creature as not to show Himself to him as God
creating and quickening, and among penal evils bestowing also many good
things upon the evil. For He hath not in anger shut up His tender
mercies. Nor did He dismiss man from the law of His own power, when
He permitted him to be in the power of the devil; since even the devil
himself is not separated from the power of the Omnipotent, as neither
from His goodness. For whence do even the evil angels subsist in
whatever manner of life they have, except through Him who quickens all
things? If, therefore, the commission of sins through the just anger
of God subjected man to the devil, doubtless the remission of sins
through the merciful reconciliation of God rescues man from the devil.
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