-11 Chapter 11. Of Man’s Apostasy, or Fall.

1-11 Chapter 11. Of Man’s Apostasy, or Fall. In the former argument, we treated the first part of
the special government of Men, which consists in
prescribing a Law: the other part follows,
in ordering the Event.

1. In ordering the Event as to Man, there are two things to be considered, ἀpοστασίv and ἀpοκαταστάσiς,181 Man’s Fall and his restoring, Romans 5:19; 1 Corinthians 15:21 [text in footnote 3 below].
2. In the Angels there was preservation of some, and Apostasy by others, but no ἀποκαταστάσiς, restoring of those who apostatized. But in Man there could not be both preservation and apostasy together; this is because all men were created in one Adam in the beginning, root and head; but being in one and the same Adam, some men could not be preserved from the Fall, and others Fall.
3. In the Angels there was no ἀποκαταστάσiς or Restoring. First, because they Fell from the highest top of Excellency. Secondly, because in the Fall of Angels, the entire Angelic nature did not perish; but by the sin of the first Man, all mankind perished.182
4. The Apostasy of Man is his Fall from the obedience owed to God, or a transgression of the Law prescribed by God.
5. In this Fall, two things are to be considered. 1. Committing the transgression. 2. Propagating it [chap. 17].
6. COMMITTING the transgression was accomplished in eating the forbidden Fruit, which was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; but the first motion or degree of this disobedience necessarily went before that outward act of eating,183 so that it may truly be said that Man was a sinner before he had finished that outward act of eating. This is why the very desire which carried Eve toward the forbidden Fruit seems to be noted as some degree of her sin. Genesis 3:6, When the Woman saw that the Fruit of the Tree was good for food, and most delightful to the Eyes, and the Fruit of the Tree was to be desired to get knowledge, she took and ate.
7. Therefore the first degree and motion of this disobedience was an inordinate desire for some Excellency, by lifting up the mind;184 which, that she might attain this, — the forbidding of God being laid aside through unbelief — she would test whether the forbidden Fruit had some power to confer such an Excellency.
8. From this was the grievousness of this sin, which not only contained pride, ingratitude, and unbelief, but also by violating that most solemn Sacrament, it showed as it were, a general profession of disobedience, and a contempt for the whole covenant. This was made all the more foul by how much more perfect the condition of this sinner was.
9. In committing this transgression, two things are to be considered: the causes, and the consequences of it [chap. 12].
10. The CAUSES were one principal cause, and the others were adjuvant.185
11. The PRINCIPAL cause was man himself, by the abuse of his free-will, Ecclesiastes 7:29.186 For he had received that righteousness and grace by which he might have persisted in obedience if he willed. That righteousness and grace was not taken from him before he had sinned; although that strengthening and confirming grace by which the act of sinning would have been actually hindered, and by which the contrary act of obedience brought forth, was not granted to him — and that was by the certain, wise, and just counsel of God. God therefore was in no way the cause of man’s Fall; nor did God lay upon man a necessity to fall; but man of his own accord freely fell from God.
12. The ADJUVANT causes were the Devil, and the Woman.
13. The first sin of the Devil was pride.187 From pride soon follows envy towards God, and God’s image in Man. For because the Devil had lost an orderly Excellency by having an affection out of order,188 the Excellency of others grieved him, and he was maliciously bent to oppose it. But the Devil was not the compelling cause, nor the cause of sufficient, direct, necessary, or certain efficacy in procuring that sin; but only the counseling and persuading cause, by tempting, which is why the Devil has the name of tempter, Matthew 4:3.189
14. The tempting of the Devil is presenting a fallacy, or a sophistical argument,190 whereby under a pretense of what is true and good, the Devil labors to seduce man to believe that which is false, and to induce man to do that which is evil.
15. In this temptation, the good which the Devil propounded and promised was shown to be the greatest; the way to be used to attain that good was propounded to be easy and light — but that greatest evil which hung over Man’s head was hidden from him.
16. The Devil is in the habit of going the same way in all his temptations with which he ensnares mankind. Yet in this temptation, a certain special cunning is to be observed, which contains many crafts, and those are very subtle.
17. The first of them was in choosing a Serpent for his instrument, which had a certain natural aptness that the Devil knew how to abuse.
18. The second sleight191 was in dealing with the Woman, 1 Timothy 2:14.192 Whether it was in the presence or absence of her husband, the Scripture is silent.193
19. The third sleight was that he said nothing upon his first speaking; but only propounded a certain question to the Woman, as if he were ignorant of those matters. Has God indeed said...?
20. The fourth was that his question had much ambiguity in it, for it might be understood as not asking about God’s command, but about the sense or meaning of that command, perhaps not sufficiently understood by Man. If the question is understood to be about the command itself, then he might seem to have asked whether God had forbidden them to eat of any Tree; or as the Woman herself answered, whether God had forbidden them the use of that one Tree, and so had not simply given them leave for all.
21. The fifth was that having first called the command of God into doubt by that question, he so artificially extenuated its sanction, or the adjoining commination,194 in the conceit195 of the Woman who was now wavering, that she would deny either its truth, or at least its necessity.
22. The sixth was that, after he had weakened the Commandment and its sanction, he opposes to it a quite contrary prediction [of its effect].196
23. The seventh was that, to confirm the prediction, he both abuses the Name of God, and the Name which God had imposed on the Tree. Genesis 3:5, God knows that on the day you eat of it, your Eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing Good and Evil.
24. This is why the Devil is called a Serpent, a Liar, a Seducer, a Man-slayer, Revelation 12:9; John 8:44; Revelation 20:10.197
25. With this tempting of the Devil there was joined the tempting of God, whereby the Devil so ordered that business, that what was in Man might be made manifest. But this tempting of God was neither Evil, nor tending to Evil.198
26. A third tempting followed these; namely, of Man towards God, in which in a certain way, Man tested the truth and Grace of God, in testing whether God would preserve him, even though he did not cling to God; or whether God would certainly do what he had threatened.
27. A fourth temptation of Eve accompanied that; namely towards herself, whereby she received the temptation or suggestion of the Devil into herself, and applied her own ruin to herself.
28. From that arose a fifth whereby the Woman, serving the Devil as his instrument, tempted Adam; and from that proceeded a sixth, whereby Adam tempted himself when, with a certain purpose, he consented to the Woman and the Devil.
29 Either all or most of these temptations are also found in every Man’s sins.
30. And so that sin was consummated as touching the Fall of Mankind in Adam; for Adam was properly the beginning of Mankind, not Eve — unless as Eve was made for Adam, and with him, she made one and the same beginning. This is why we read in Scripture of a second Adam,199 but not of a second Eve.