dence follows his perfect immutability and incorruptibility. For there is no will or power, either in himself or in any other being, which can alter his existence, seeing it is not subject to any will or power," it being certain that, as he was not produced by another, so he was not himself the cause of his existence. "No will or power, therefore, can possibly produce any alteration in his existence either by adding or taking away, or in any respect making it other than what it is. When there is no cause, there cannot be an effect: but of an alteration or change in God there is no possible cause, and therefore this effect, namely, a change in his existence, is impossible; and to say that this is possible would be as absurd as to assert that he might be the cause of nimself, or might arise out of nothing. There is no cause of a change; and nothing is as incapable of producing one effect as another, can no more annihilate or alter existence than produce it."

The immutability of God may be proved from the perfect simplicity of his essence. There is no mixture or composition in it, and consequently there can be no addition, or subtraction, or transposition of parts, by which changes are effected in bodies. This, it may be said, is undeniable, since he is an immaterial being: but we add, that even in other immaterial beings, there is something which may be called composition, but which has no place in the Divine essence. Certain qualities are indeed inseparable from their essence, as invisibility, indivisibility, incorruptibleness, and thought, but others they may or may not possess, as wisdom and holiness. The history of creatures which are immaterial, as angels and human spirits, shews that such qualities may be lost, without destroying their nature, and consequently that they are superadded, and not essential. The perfections of God cannot be considered as in this sense distinct from his essence. By necessity of nature he is what he is; and it would be as express a contradiction to suppose him to be divested of any of his attributes, or to possess them in a less or a greater degree, as it would be to suppose a thing to be and not to be at the same time. The essences in fact of all things are immutable. They may be annihilated by the power which created them; but as long as they continue in existence, they must continue what they are: a change of any kind would be the destruction of their essence. Now, God is essentially perfect, and is therefore incapable of change, fixed and immoveable from eternity to eternity.

Once more, this doctrine may be illustrated in a plainer and more popular manner. Every change is to the worse, or to the better; it is the loss of some good already possessed, or the attainment of a greater degree of excellence. We have already taken notice of the deterioration of created beings. To say nothing of the decay and dissolution of vegetable and animal substances, intelligent creatures of the highest order have fallen from their primitive innocence and glory; man has lost the image of God, the noblest ornament of his nature, and sunk into the degradation of sin; the wise and virtuous often relapse into folly and vice; genius sometimes expires like a candle burnt down to the socket; and the old man experiences a second time the mental and corporeal debility of childhood. But no cause can be conceived for a similar change in that great Being, who is not subject to the action of any external power, and contains in himself no principle of corruption. Among the wild and impious imaginations, which are daily passing through the mind, no man in his senses ever supposed that the knowledge of the Deity might be diminished, his arm might be enfeebled, his benevolence might be exhausted, or his love of truth and justice might be exchanged for a disregard of moral distinctions. We revolt from the idea with horror. It is too impious even for the atheist himself; for if he believed in a God, he would exempt him from all the infirmities of limited and dependent beings.

Creatures often undergo a change to the better. The seed ripens into a

plant, and the embryo becomes a perfect animal. The body of man advances from the feebleness of infancy to the full stature of manhood; and his opening mind admits the increasing light of knowledge, and gradually develops its powers. A similar progress takes place in the spiritual life. Existence which had a beginning is continued by a succession of moments; and endowments which were originally limited, may receive gradual accessions, and rise step by step to the summit of the scale. We have already remarked, that there is reason to believe that the state of happy beings in the world to come will be progressive; as we cannot conceive them ever to arrive at a point in eternity, beyond which there will be nothing more to be known and enjoyed. But, between finite beings and Him who is infinite, there is no analogy. Possessed, by the supposition, of all possible perfection, he cannot become wiser, holier, more powerful, and more benevolent than he is. In his nature, all greatness and all goodness are united. He is the standard of excellence to all orders of creatures, who are more or less perfect according to their degrees of resemblance to Him. To Him there is no standard. In the universe he sees nothing equal to himself, and his infinite understanding can conceive nothing more excellent.

This reasoning, which is frequently employed to prove the Divine immutability, is of ancient date, and occurs in the second book of Plato's work De Republica. It is in the form of a dialogue, and this is the substance of what is said by the speakers. "If any change should take place in God, it is plain that it would be effected by himself. Whether then would he change himself into something better and fairer, or something worse and baser than himself? It is necessary, that if he is changed, it should be into something worse; for we will not say that God is in any respect deficient in beauty or virtue. This is right; and such being the case, can it be thought that any being, whether God or man, would voluntarily make himself worse? It is impossible; and it is therefore impossible that God should will to change himself; but as it seems, being the fairest and the best, he always remains simply in his own form." He expresses himself in this manner, because he refers to the tales of the poets, who represented the gods as appearing in a variety of shapes.

By this general reasoning we prove the immutability of God. It is from the condition of creatures, who are subject to perpetual fluctuation, that we acquire the notion of change; but it is equally absurd to transfer it to God, as to ascribe to him other human infirmities. The Divine nature is not affected by any of the causes which alter the state and qualities of dependent beings. Let us proceed to inquire in what respect God is immutable.

it

First, He is immutable in his existence. He never began to be, and he will never cease to be; and in this view his immutability coincides with his eternity, which has been already demonstrated. At every point of infinite duration may be said to him, “Thou art." There was a time, for so we must speak, when there were no created beings, but then He was; there will be a time when, it may be, this visible creation shall be annihilated, but then He will be. To the immutable duration of the Divine nature, our Saviour alluded in these remarkable words, which the adversaries of his Deity have used so many dishonest arts to explain away, but which remain unaffected by their criticisms, "Before Abraham was, I am."* The sentence is at variance with the laws of grammar; the present time is represented as preceding the past. From this apparent confusion, there is no possibility of extricating the words, but by the sublime and mysterious doctrine of the immutable existence of the speaker in his superior nature. "I AM" is the name of God; and it imports, that in his existence the distinctions of past, present, and to come, have no place. Hence our Lord did not say, I was before Abraham, for in this manner

* John viii. 58.

any angel might have spoken of himself; but I AM, intimating that in reference to his duration, the two thousand years which had elapsed since the days of the patriarch were annihilated. The existence of creatures is successive, and may be compared to a stream in perpetual motion, of which one part is past, and another is to come. The present moment only is our own, and it is gone while we are speaking of it. What we call the present, is the swift passage of fugitive instants. But the existence of God, as we endeavoured lately to shew, is totally different. Far as the subject is above our comprehension, yet it seems to be an unavoidable conclusion, that in duration absolutely eternal there is no succession, and that a duration measured by days and years, must have had a beginning. The terms young and old are inapplicable to Him who always is, and serve merely to express the different stages in a series, advancing farther and farther from the point at which it commenced. The title, Ancient of days, is not intended to signify that he is old, but that he existed from eternity, before all the generations of men. All the distinctions of time are set aside by the declaration of the Apostle, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." It is when the sacred writer in describing the transitory nature of creatures, their tendency to decay, and their final dissolution, that he takes occasion to attribute immutability to God, in a passage formerly quoted, intimating that time, which affects all other beings, has no influence upon him, and that his existence is independent of it. "They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end."t

Secondly, He is immutable in knowledge. We are so ignorant of superior beings, that we cannot speak positively and particularly concerning them; but while we conceive them to have been endowed with a large measure of knowledge from their origin, we are certain that it was not infinite, and that it therefore admitted of increase, and has since been progressive. Man comes into the world altogether destitute of knowledge. He has no innate ideas, but merely is endowed with the capacity of acquiring knowledge, which is excited by his senses, and by the other means employed for the improvement of his intellectual faculties. Thus creatures are always undergoing a change in their mental state, rising higher and higher in attainments. And this is not the only change experienced by men, who lose as well as gain knowledge, and are subject to frequent revolutions of sentiment, from right to wrong, and from wrong to right. They are misled by hasty and partial observation, imposed upon by sophistry, and reclaimed from error by more correct information, and more exact inquiry. The knowledge of God is infinite as his essence. He knows himself; he knows all things which now are, which have been, and which shall be. He knows all possible things, or all things which his power could create, and his wisdom could arrange. The whole system of creation is constantly before him, because he is intimately present with it; he can have no discoveries to make, who is already in every place where there exists any object of knowledge. "Thou compassest my path, and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways." When a man travels into a foreign country where the aspect of nature, the form of the buildings, and the manners of the inhabitants, differ much from those of his native land, we say that he acquires a stock of new ideas; but nothing is new to Him who fills heaven and earth. The language of Scripture is figurative, when it represents him as looking down, or coming down to see what men are doing upon earth; and nothing is intended but to teach us that he has a perfect knowledge of their proceedings. It cannot be doubted that the Maker of the universe is thoroughly acquainted with his own work; that as he furnished its inhabitants * 2 Peter iii. 8. Ps. cxxxix, 3.

VOL. I.-26

† Ps. cii. 26, 27.

with their faculties and principles of action, he knows beforehand what they can, and will do; and that since he upholds them by his power, and arranges their circumstances, he distinctly foresees every event in their history. As his knowledge is universal, so it is infallible. The objects of his contemplation are not appearances, but realities. Every thing presents itself to Him as it is in itself, and in all its connections and consequences. He perceives the essences of things on which their qualities are founded. He cannot be mistaken, because the whole case is before him; he cannot be disappointed, because no unexpected cause will disturb the order of events; analogy, conjecture, and calculation, must not be attributed to an understanding which sees the future as distinctly as the present. To some, indeed, it has seemed impossible to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with the free agency of man, and they have chosen rather to deny the Divine prescience, than to infringe human liberty. Hence they have not hesitated to represent Him as ignorant of the future volitions of men and of the events depending upon them, as looking forward with anxiety to their determinations, and as compelled to change his procedure when the result does not accord with the plan which he had previously formed; and those passages of Scripture which ascribe to him fear, desire, expectation, disappointment, and repentance, they have understood literally, as indicating the same emotions in his mind which are caused in ours by our ignorance of futurity. But such a mode of interpretation is unworthy of any person who makes a pretension to common sense, because it rests upon expressions manifestly figurative, to the neglect of the plainest and most explicit declarations in other places, of the foreknowledge of God. The predictions of Scripture afford complete demonstration, that future events are known to him as certainly as those which are present; and at the same time, that the persons by whom they are fulfilled, retain their free agency, and are responsible for their actions. I shall refer only to the prophecies concerning the sufferings and death of the Messiah. The event was fixed, and the agents were appointed; but they were conscious of perfect freedom, and obeyed the inclinations of their own hearts, while they were doing what God's "hand and counsel had determined before to be done." "Known to him were all his works from the beginning of the world."* The whole train of events, from the creation to the general judgment, was present to his mind from eternity. In the shifting scenes of human affairs, he sees only the evolution of his own plan. Experience is daily teaching us; but to his eye, all things were open and manifest from the commencement of time. "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, hath taught him? with whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?" He is immutable in knowledge; it is independent and underived, and always perfect.

In the third place, He is immutable in his counsels or decrees. This is a necessary inference from the immutability of his knowledge. Men change their designs, because by reflection or experience they find them to be impracticable, there being obstacles in the way which they had not taken into the calculation; or because they have discovered that they would be productive of evil instead of good, or at least would not realize the advantages which they expected from them; or because some new plan has been suggested, from which greater and more numerous benefits will result; and sometimes because they cannot long fix their attention upon a particular object, and are happy only when they are roving from one pursuit to another. But none of these causes can have any influence upon him whose knowledge is comprehensive and perfect. Among all possible ends having selected the best, and Acts iv. 28. and xv. 18. + Isa. xl. 13, 14.

fixed upon the most proper means of accomplishing them, he cannot be induced to deviate from his choice. No new views can present themselves to his mind, nor is it possible that any change of circumstances should take place which might render the adoption of a different order of procedure expedient. The imperfection of our knowledge, the limited nature of our prospects, and the consequent mistakes into which we are betrayed, account for the fluctuations of our conduct.

The decrees of God have been the subject of controversy in every age. It will be acknowledged by every person who has attentively considered them, that they are mysterious, and are attended with difficulties, of some of which a satisfactory solution cannot be given. There is one difficulty which presses upon every system, namely, how to reconcile a fixed and prior purpose with the free agency and accountableness of man. There are disputes respecting the relation of the decrees to the foreknowledge of God; whether he foresees future things as certain because he has decreed them, or his foreknowledge is the foundation of his decrees. But in one thing all are agreed, who admit his omniscience and supreme dominion, that he has settled a plan in conformity to which the order of the world proceeds. In this plan no alteration is ever made. The notion of temporal and mutable decrees is founded on the supposition which is alike contrary to sound reason and to Scripture, that the future actions of men are not certainly foreknown. What an idea does it give us of Him, who, in the possession of infinite perfection, is independent upon the whole creation, to represent him as determining one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow; as passing from one intention to another according to the capricious movements of inferior beings, who are the sport of their own fancies, and are driven by every gust of passion.

God predetermined the number of which the human race should consist, the time when each individual should come into existence, the circumstances of his lot, the part which he should act upon the theatre of the world, and his final state throughout an eternal duration. "He worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will."* Amidst the diversity in the dispensations of providence, he is steadily carrying on his own designs. Kingdoms rise and fall; war lays the earth desolate; the bad passions of the human heart have full play, and make such inroads upon the order and happiness of soci ety, that the world may seem to be dismissed from the care of the almighty Ruler. Yet we are sure that the Lord reigns, that he directs and controls the operations of his creatures, and makes the most depraved and perverse of them subservient to his purposes. Not one of them can deviate a single step from the path marked out to him; the mightiest and most self-willed of them cannot lift his hand or move his tongue, so as to interfere with the designs of the Almighty. There is the appearance of confusion only to us, who are but a part of the extensive and complicated system, and are unable to trace its connection with the past and the future. All is order to that eye which looks at once through all space, and all duration. As there is a perfect harmony between his counsels and his works, he can with no more justice be charged with mutability, on account of the varieties in his proceedings, than it could be imputed to a man of comprehensive views and commanding influence, who, in executing a favourite scheme, should at one time employ the services of a friend, and at another take advantage of the actions of an enemy, and who, by his superior wisdom, was able to convert occurrences hostile in their tendency, into means of ultimate success. Amidst this variety of contrivances, his mind is unchanged; and the knowledge of his purpose illustrates the consistency of his conduct.

Once more, He is immutable in his moral perfections. He is essentially * Ephes. i. 11.