This is out of order from the original, as thematically it is tangential and confusing. Reverend Law here is responding to the Midrash, which most Christians are unfamiliar with, except perhaps as hearsay or at best having read John Milton's great poem, Paradise Lost, also heavily based on it.
The link for Paradise Lost takes you not to the poem but to the SparksNotes of it so you can read the highlights of it and see if you want to take up a full study of it. Like Dante's Inferno, it is a big poem and a real undertaking, but again, worth the time and effort.
Reverend Law uses Milton, at the time it was widely read or least popularly known, because his audience compromises not only of lapsed or even unknowing Christians (like academics), but also Jews who neither understand how Christian theology is indebted to the Old Testament as part of their Holy Bible nor realize the importance of the tie.
The Midrash is Jewish commentary on the 5 Books of Law (i.e. the first five books of the Old Testament commonly referred as the "Torah" or the "Law". The Midrash explains the logic and underpinnings to Jewish rabbinical students. All religious Jewish males are required to be at some time in their life a rabbinical
student, not only so that they all understand the Law but can also explain it to
their families thoroughly or for that matter fill in if a rabbi (i.e. Jewish for teacher) is missing. Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, makes the same requirement of his followers, except this time he included the word "all" including both male and females to be students of his Teachings.
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Pryr-1.1-6] First, the Sin and Fall of Adam was that he had only committed a single Act of Disobedience, which was disobey the Command of God, not to lust after, nor eat of the forbidden Tree.
This was not an arbitrary Command of God, given at Pleasure, or as a mere Trial of Man's Obedience; but was a most kind and loving Information given by the God of Love to his new-born Offspring, concerning the State He was in, with Regard to the outward World. It was a Warning him to withdraw all Desire of entering into Sensibility of its Good and Evil; because such Sensibility could not be had, without his immediate dying to that Divine and heavenly Life which he then enjoyed.
"Eat not," says the God of Love, "of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for in the Day thou eatest thereof you will surely die."
Of course he did not mean right then and there, either. He was talking that instead of living eternally, Adam would be living a "mortal" and shortened life.
But now the Angels, they were another thing.
While previous they were great and powerful Spirits, endowed with the Riches and Powers of their Creator and While they stood in Meekness and Resignation, under their Creator, nothing was impossible to them; there was no End of their glorious Powers throughout their whole Kingdom. There were Perpetual Scenes of Light, and Glory, and Beauty, rising and changing throughout all the Heights and Depths of this glassy Sea, merely at their Will and Pleasure.
But soon they began to admire and adore themselves, thinking that there was some Infinity of Power hidden in they themselves, that was being repressed and suppressed, by their
Subjection to God. After mulling this over and over, they Fired themselves up, and grew intoxicated with this proud and haughty Imagination, and soon became resolved, to take their rightful Kingdom, with all its Glories, for themselves and oust God out.
No sooner did their Desires fly in this Direction of this Revolt but like a Swiftness of Thought, Heaven was lost to them. It took no action, just their resolve and suddenly they found themselves as dark Spirits, stripped of all their Light and Glory and instead of Rising up and above God (as they had hoped) now no end of their eternal Sinking into new Depths of Slavery.
So like a Wheel going down an endless Mountain, these newly lost spirits, seemed to be in freefall and instead of reaching a bottom, they found that they must continually keep descending whirled down by the Impetuosity of their own wrong turned Will, and remaining in a continual Descent from the Fountain of all Glory, into the bottomless Depths of their own dark, fiery, working Powers.
There was no Hell, but what their own natural Strength had awakened; there were no Chains, just their own unbending, hardened Pride made by their renouncing their Subjection and loyalty to God. Ignoring His will and feeling that their Will and Desire was enough.
And so too their glassy Sea, by the wrathful rebellious Workings of these apostate Spirits was broken all into Pieces, and now was a black Lake, a horrible Chaos of Fire and
Wrath, Thickness and Darkness, a Height and Depth of the confused, divided, fighting Properties of Nature.
If this Revolt of Angels had not brought forth this disordered Chaos, no such Materiality as this outward World is made of had ever been known. Gross stones and compacted Earth, (mountains), wrathful Fire (volcanoes) here, dead Water (the
Dead Sea and the Great Salt Sea) there, fighting (poisonous and deadly) Elements, with all their Vegetables and Animals, all Things that were never known in Eternity, but now were known and part of this mundane world..
Because it was the
Spirit of Fire which had awakened by these rebel Creatures, so at last Fire, kindled by Word, thoroughly destroyed and purged the Floor of this Eden so that it was no more. And in those purifying Flames, the
Sun, the Stars, the Air, the Earth and Water, parted from their Dross and instead of seeing a picture of what is, now they saw only illusions of transitory Things; like an Image in a Glass, that seems to have a Reality, but does not.
No longer will your life be such that Days and Years, like in Eternity have any Distinction from each other but Instead it will be a a life such as Animals and Insects, without a Divine Sense, Capacity, or Feeling. And so like theirs, your Nature will have nothing in them, but Chaos.
And so it was into this illusionary world that now Adam found himself, having to know for himself what was real and what was not and having without a guide, to have to learn through strife which was the right path to take.
