Apostasy is any defection from him to whom we owe and have performed subjection, or a failing from that lord to whom we owe fealty.
I am sure, in religious matters, it importeth a defection from our right and proper Lord.
Thus the devil is an apostate, because he abode not in his first estate: Jude 6, ‘And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,' &c.; ‘abode not in the truth;' John viii. 44, ‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth;' that is, forsook his obedience to God, and so became the ringleader of all rebellious creatures.
So it is true of our first parents. They were apostates, they did revolt from God and their obedience to him. Therefore it is said, Rom. v. 19, ‘By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.'
So of their posterity; their apostasy is described by ‘turning back from following the Lord,' Zeph. i. 6, and ‘departing from God,' that is, his worship and service; Isa. lix. 13, ‘In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God.'
Let us then be agreed of this notion of apostasy, which is evident, that it is a falling off from the obedience which we owe to our rightful Lord.
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