To ask therefore, why the fallen angels continue in their state, is to ask, why darkness is not made to be light? For the root and ground of nature is unchangeable; it keeps its own nature, or it could not be the ground; it must stand always in its own place, and be only the ground and root; it cannot rise higher than the root, no more than the root of the tree can be its branches and fruit. The angels, therefore, being fallen into the ground and root of nature, have only the working life of the ground and root of nature in them; and therefore seem to be as unchangeable, and incapable of having any other, as the root itself is. |