1. The free will Milton explains in this section of Book III is a free will of obedience or disobedience to God. Satan's plan, which attempts to persuade man to disobey God, is the very medium in which God allows man to use free will. When man chooses to obey God over believing the empty promises of Satan, man reveals an intense sense of love and trust in God. Without free will, God would never truly be able to distinguish between men who love him or want to be him.
2. The "first-sort" that Milton refers to in the context of the Fall are the fallen angels who chose in their free will to attempt to take God's place. The free will enacted here is filled with pure selfishness in an attempt to become their own god. The second sort refers to man. Their free will is whether they choose to follow the temptation of the "first-sort" or to trust and worship in God's greater plan. The guilt of man is more of a guilty by assimilation rather than a direct rebellion against God.
3. Milton demonstrates a definite perspective on free will through his metaphors fabricated in his work. The black-and-white view of free will is demonstrated through the motivation of will presented by Satan and explicated by God. Because God is omniscient, he sees free will as a means of choosing between eternal life and eternal death. Satan on the other hand, who has limited visibility and a distorted understanding, sees a choice of enslavement to God or the opportunity to become God. Similarly, free will of man chooses between these two choices.
4. Lines 152-154 refer to the idea of free will in the context of God's eternal love. It is not by God's choice that man in damned. Rather, God provides man with the option to fail if he so chooses, corrupted by his own fraudulent will. It is only just that man, if he choose death, be joined with death. God's justice isn't out of pure wrath toward man, rather wrath toward sin and death, but love toward obedience and man.
5. Milton through Book III tries to explain how condemnation is a just and loving act by God. He explains that because of Satan's plan to corrupt man, men are in danger of being corrupted by sin. What makes men vulnerable to corruption, since they shouldn't be since they are creatures of God, is the ability to choose freely. To save man from his own potentially poor choices, God gives consequences for them. In a further demonstration of his love for man, he works to send a divine being (the Son) to Earth to persuade man away from Satan's lies.
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