the knowledge of God. When a thing is past, God hath no more distinct
knowledge of it after it is past, than he had when it was to come; all
things were all in their circumstances of past, present, and to come;
seen by his understanding, as they were determined by his will.[601]
Besides, to know a day to be past or future, is only to know the state
of that day in itself, and to know its relation to that which follows,
and that which went before. This day wherein we are, if we consider it
in the state wherein it was yesterday, it was to come, it was future;
but if we consider it in that state wherein it will be to‑morrow, we
understand it as past. This in man cannot be said to be a different
knowledge of the thing itself, but only of the circumstance attending
a thing, and the different relation of it. As I see the sun this
day, I know it was up yesterday, I know it will be up to‑morrow; my
knowledge of the sun is the same; if there be any change, it is in the
sun, not in my knowledge; only I apply my knowledge to such particular
circumstances. How much more must the knowledge of those things in
God be unchangeable, who knows all those states, conditions, and
circumstances, most perfectly from eternity; wherein there is no
succession, no past or future, and therefore will know them forever!
He always beholds the same thing; he sees, indeed, succession in
things, and he sees a thing to be past which before was future. As
from eternity he saw Adam as existing in such a time; in the first
time he saw that he would be, in the following time he saw that he had
been; but this he knew from eternity; this he knew in the same manner;
though there was a variation in Adam, yet there was no variation in
God’s knowledge of him, in all his states; though Adam was not present
to himself, yet in all his states he was present to God’s eternity.
5th. Consider, that the knowledge of God, in regard of the manner of
it, as well as the objects, is incomprehensible to a finite creature.
So that though we cannot arrive to a full understanding of the manner
of God’s knowledge, yet we must conceive so of it, as to {a325} remove
all imperfection from him in it. And since it is an imperfection to be
changeable, we must remove that from God; the knowledge of God about
things past, present and future, must be inconceivably above ours:
“His understanding is infinite” (Ps. cxlvii. 5). There is no number
of it; it can no more be calculated or drawn into an account by us,
than infinite spaces, which have no bounds and limits, can be measured
by us. We can no more arrive, even in heaven, to a comprehensive
understanding of the manner of his knowledge, than of the infinite
glory of his essence; we may as well comprehend one as the other. This
we must conclude, that God being not a body, doth not see one thing
with eyes, and another thing with mind, as we do; but being a spirit,
he sees and knows only with mind, and his mind is himself, and is as
unchangeable as himself; and therefore as he is not now another thing
than what he was, so he knows not anything now in another manner than
as he knew it from eternity; he sees all things in the glass of his
own essence; as, therefore, the glass doth not vary, so neither doth
his vision.
3. God is unchangeable in regard of his will and purpose. A change
in his purpose is, when a man determines to do that now which before
he determined not to do, or to do the contrary; when a man hates
that thing which he loved, or begins to love that which he before
hated; when the will is changed, a man begins to will that which he
willed not before, and ceaseth to will that which he willed before.
But whatsoever God hath decreed, is immutable; whatsoever God hath
promised, shall be accomplished: “The word that goes forth of his
mouth shall not return to him void, but it shall accomplish that
which he pleaseth” (Isa. lv. 11); whatsoever “he purposeth, he will
do” (Isa. xlvi. 11; Numb. xxiii. 19); his decrees are therefore called
“mountains of brass” (Zech. vi. 1): brass, as having substance and
solidity; mountains, as being immovable, not only by any creature, but
by himself; because they stand upon the basis of infallible wisdom,
and are supported by uncontrollable power. From this immutability
of his will, published to man, there could be no release from the
severity of the law, without satisfaction made by the death of a
Mediator, since it was the unalterable will of God, that death should
be the wages of sin; and from this immutable will it was, that the
length of time, from the first promise of the Redeemer to his mission,
and the daily provocations of men, altered not his purpose for the
accomplishment of it in the fulness of that time he had resolved upon;
nor did the wickedness of former ages hinder the addition of several
promises as buttresses to the first. To make this out, consider,
(1.) The will of God is the same with his essence. If God had a will
distinct from his essence, he would not be the most simple Being. God
hath not a faculty of will distinct from himself; as his understanding
is nothing else but _Deus intelligens_, God understanding; so his will
is nothing else but _Deus volens_, God willing; being, therefore, the
essence of God; though it is considered, according to our weakness,
as a faculty, it is as his understanding and wisdom, eternal and
immutable; and can no more be changed than his essence. The {a326}
immutability of the Divine counsel depends upon that of his essence;
he is the Lord Jehovah, therefore he is true to his word (Mal. iii. 6;
Isa. xliii. 13): “Yea, before the day I am he, and there is none that
can deliver out of my hand.” He is the same, immutable in his essence,
therefore irresistible in his power.
(2.) There is a concurrence of God’s will and understanding in
everything. As his knowledge is eternal, so is his purpose. Things
created had not been known to be, had not God resolved them to be
the act of his will; the existence of anything supposeth an act of
his will. Again, as God knows all things by one simple vision of
his understanding, so he wills all things by one act of volition;
therefore the purpose of God in the Scripture is not expressed by
counsels in the plural number, but counsel; showing that all the
purposes of God are not various, but as one will, branching itself
out into many acts towards the creature; but all knit in one root,
all links of one chain. Whatsoever is eternal is immutable; as his
knowledge is eternal, and therefore immutable, so is his will; he
wills or nills nothing to be in time, but what he willed and nilled
from eternity; if he willed in time that to be that he willed not
from eternity, then he would know that in time which he knew not from
eternity; for God knows nothing future, but as his will orders it to
be future, and in time to be brought into being.
(3.) There can be no reason for any change in the will of God. When
men change in their minds, it must be for want of foresight; because
they could not foresee all the rubs and bars which might suddenly
offer themselves; which if they had foreseen, they would not have
taken such measures: hence men often will that which they afterwards
wish they had not willed when they come to understand it clearer,
and see that to be injurious to them which they thought to be good
for them; or else the change proceeds from a natural instability
without any just cause, and an easiness to be drawn into that which is
unrighteous; or else it proceeds from a want of power, when men take
new counsels, because they are invincibly hindered from executing the
old. But none of those can be in God.
1st. It cannot be for want of foresight. What can be wanting to an
infinite understanding? How can any unknown event defeat his purpose,
since nothing happens in the world but what he wills to effect, or
wills to permit; and therefore all future events are present with him?
Besides, it doth not consist with God’s wisdom to resolve anything,
but upon the highest reason; and what is the highest and infinite
reason, cannot but be unalterable in itself; for there can be no
reason and wisdom higher than the highest. All God’s purposes are not
bare acts of will, but acts of counsel. “He works all things according
to the counsel of his own will” (Eph. i. 11): and he doth not say so
much that his will, as that “his counsel shall stand” (Isa. xlvi. 10).
It stands, because it is counsel; and the immutability of a promise
is called the “immutability of his counsel” (Heb. vi. 17), as being
introduced and settled by the most perfect wisdom, and therefore to
be carried on to a full and complete execution; his purpose, then,
cannot be changed for want of foresight; for this would be a charge
of weakness.
{a327} 2d. Nor can it proceed from a natural instability of his will,
or an easiness to be drawn to that which is unrighteous. If his will
should not adhere to his counsel, it is because it is not fit to be
followed, or because it will not follow it; if not fit to be followed,
it is a reflection upon his wisdom; if it be established, and he will
not follow it, there is a contrariety in God, as there is in a fallen
creature, will against wisdom. That cannot be in God which he hates
in a creature, viz. the disorder of faculties, and being out of their
due place. The righteousness of God is like a “great mountain” (Ps.
xxxvi. 6). The rectitude of his nature is as immovable in itself,
as all the mountains in the world are by the strength of man. “He is
not as a man, that he should repent or lie” (Numb. xxiii. 19); who
often changes, out of a perversity of will, as well as want of wisdom
to foresee, or want of ability to perform. His eternal purpose must
either be righteous or unrighteous; if righteous and holy, he would
become unholy by the change; if not righteous nor holy, then he
was unrighteous before the change; which way soever it falls, it
would reflect upon the righteousness of God, which is a blasphemous
imagination.[602] If God did change his purpose, it must be either
for the better,――then the counsel of God was bad before; or for the
worse,――then he was not wise and good before.
3d. Nor can it be for want of strength. Who hath power to control him?
Not all the combined devices and endeavors of men can make the counsel
of God to totter (Prov. xix. 21): “There are many devices in a man’s
heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand;” that,
and that only shall stand. Man hath a power to devise and imagine,
but no power to effect and execute of himself. God wants no more power
to effect what he will, than he wants understanding to know what is
fit. Well, then, since God wanted not wisdom to frame his decrees,
nor holiness to regulate them, nor power to effect them, what should
make him change them? since there can be no reason superior to
his, no event unforeseen by him, no holiness comparable to his, no
unrighteousness found in him, no power equal to his, to put a rub in
his way.
4th. Though the will of God be immutable, yet it is not to be
understood so, as that the things themselves so willed are immutable.
Nor will the immutability of the things willed by him, follow upon the
unchangeableness of his will in willing them; though God be firm in
willing them, yet he doth not will that they should alway be. God did
not perpetually will the doing those things which he once decreed to
be done; he decreed that Christ should suffer, but he did not decree
that Christ should alway suffer; so he willed the Mosaical rites for
a time, but he did not will that they should alway continue; he willed
that they should endure only for a time; and when the time came for
their ceasing, God had been mutable if he had not put an end to them,
because his will had fixed such a period. So that the changing of
those things which he had once appointed to be practised, is so far
from charging God with changeableness, that God would be mutable if
he did not take them away; since he decreed as well their abolition at
such a time, as their continuance till such a {a328} time; so that the
removal of them was pursuant to his unchangeable will and decree. If
God had decreed that such laws should alway continue, and afterwards
changed that decree, and resolved the abrogation of them, then indeed
God had been mutable; he had rescinded one decree by another; he
had then seen an error in his first resolve, and there must be some
weakness in the reason and wisdom whereon it was grounded.[603] But it
was not so here; for the change of those laws is so far from slurring
God with any mutability, that the very change of them is no other
than the issue of his eternal decree; for from eternity he purposed
in himself to change this or that dispensation, though he did decree
to bring such a dispensation into the world. The decree itself
was eternal and immutable, but the thing decreed was temporary and
mutable. As a decree from eternity doth not make the thing decreed to
be eternal, so neither doth the immutability of the decree render the
thing so decreed to be immutable: as for example, God decreed from all
eternity to create the world; the eternity of this decree did not make
the world to be in being and actually created from eternity; so God
decreed immutably that the world so created should continue for such
a time; the decree is immutable if the world perish at that time,
and would not be immutable if the world did endure beyond that time
that God hath fixed for the duration of it: as when a prince orders a
man’s remaining in prison for so many days; if he be prevailed with to
give him a delivery before those days, or to continue him in custody
for the same crime after those days, his order is changed; but if he
orders the delivery of him just at that time, till which he had before
decreed that he should continue in prison, the purpose and order of
the prince remains firm, and the change in the state of the prisoner
is the fruit of that firm and fixed resolution: so that we must
distinguish between the person decreeing, the decree itself, and
the thing decreed. The person decreeing, viz., God, is in himself
immutable, and the decree is immutable; but the thing decreed may be
mutable; and if it were not changed according to the first purpose,
it would argue the decree itself to be changed; for while a man wills
that this may be done now, and another thing done afterwards, the same
will remains; and though there be a change in the effects, there is no
change in the will.
5th. The immutability of God’s will doth not infringe the liberty
of it. The liberty of God’s will consists with the necessity of
continuing his purpose. God is necessarily good, immutably good; yet
he is freely so, and would not be otherwise than what he is. God was
free in his first purpose; and purposing this or that by an infallible
and unerring wisdom, it would be a weakness to change the purpose. But,
indeed, the liberty of God’s will doth not seem so much to consist
in an indifferency to this or that, as in an independency on anything
without himself: his will was free, because it did not depend upon the
objects about which his will was conversant. To be immutably good is
no point of imperfection, but the height of perfection.
4. As God is unchangeable in regard of essence, knowledge, purpose,
{a329} so he is unchangeable in regard of place. He cannot be changed
in time, because he is eternity; so he cannot be changed in place,
because he hath ubiquity: he is eternal, therefore cannot be changed
in time; he is omnipresent, therefore cannot be changed in place: he
doth not begin to be in one place wherein he was not before, or cease
to be in a place wherein he was before. He that fills every place in
heaven and earth, cannot change place; he cannot leave one to possess
another, that is equally, in regard of his essence, in all: “He fills
heaven and earth” (Jer. xxiii. 24). The heavens that are not subject
to those changes to which sublunary bodies are subject, that are not
diminished in quantity or quality; yet they are alway changing place
in regard of their motion; no part of them doth alway continue in the
same point: but God hath no change of his nature, because he is most
inward in everything; he is substantially in all spaces, real and
imaginary; there is no part of the world which he doth not fill; no
place can be imagined wherein he doth not exist. Suppose a million of
worlds above and about this, encircling one another; his essence would
be in every part and point of those worlds; because it is indivisible,
it cannot be divided; nor can it be contained within those created
limits of millions of worlds, when the most soaring and best coining
fancy hath run through all creatures to the highest sphere of the
heavens, and imagined one world after another, till it can fancy
no more: none of these, nor all of these, can contain God; for the
“heaven of heavens cannot contain him” (1 Kings viii. 27); “He is
higher than heaven, deeper than hell” (Job xi. 8), and possesses
infinite imaginary spaces beyond created limits. He who hath no cause
of being, can have no limits of being;[604] and though by creation he
began to be in the world, yet he did not begin to be where the world
is, but was in the same imaginary space from all eternity; for he was
alway in himself by his own eternal _ubi_. Therefore observe, that
when God is said to draw near to us when we draw near to him (James
iv. 8), it is not by local motion or change of place, but by special
and spiritual influences, by exciting and supporting grace. As we
ordinarily say, the sun is come into the house when yet it remains in
its place and order in the heavens, because the beams pierce through
the windows and enlighten the room, so when God is said to come down
or descend (Gen. xi. 5; Exod. xxxiv. 5), it is not by a change of
place, but a change of outward acts, when he puts forth himself in
ways of fresh mercy or new judgments, in the effluxes of his love
or the flames of his wrath. When good men feel the warm beams of his
grace refreshing them, or wicked men feel the hot coals of his anger
scorching them. God’s drawing near to us is not so much his coming to
us, but his drawing us to him;[605] as when watermen pull a rope that
is in one end fastened to the shore, and the other end to the vessel;
the shore is immovable, yet it seems to the eye to come to them,
but they really move to the shore. God is an immovable rock; we are
floating and uncertain creatures; while he seems to approach to us, he
doth really make us to approach to him; he comes not to us by {a330}
any change of place himself, but draws us to him by a change of mind,
will, and affections in us.
II. The second thing propounded, is the reasons to prove God
immutable. The heathens acknowledged God to be so: Plato[606] and the
Pythagoreans called God, or the stable good principle, αὐτόν, _idem_:
the evil principle, ἕτερον, another thing, changeable; one thing one
time, and another thing another time[607] (Dan. vi. 26): “He is the
living God, and steadfast forever.”
1. The name Jehovah signifies this attribute (Exod. iii. 14): “I am
that I am; I am hath sent me to you.” It signifies his immutability
as well as eternity. I am, signifies his eternity; that, or the same
that I am, his immutability:[608] as it respects the essence of God,
it signifies his unchangeable being from eternity to eternity; as it
respects the creature, it signifies his constancy in his counsels and
promises, which spring from no other cause but the unchangeableness
of his nature.[609] The reason why men stand not to their covenant,
is because they are not always the same; I am, that is, I am the same,
before the creation of the world, and since the creation of the world;
before the entrance of sin, and since the entrance of sin; before
their going into Egypt, and while they remain in Egypt. The very
name Jehovah[610] bears, according to the grammatical order, a mark
of God’s unchangeableness; it never hath anything added to it, nor
anything taken from it; it hath no plural number, no affixes――a custom
peculiar to the eastern languages; it never changes its letters as
other words do. That only is a true being which hath not only an
eternal existence, but stability in it: that is not truly a being,
that never remains in the same state.[611] All things that are changed
cease to be what they were, and begin to be what they were not, and
therefore cannot have the title truly applied to them, they are; they
are, indeed, but like a river in a continual flux, that no man ever
sees the same; let his eye be fixed upon one place of it, the water
he sees, slides away, and that which he saw not succeeds in its place;
let him take his eye off but for the least moment, and fix it there
again, and he sees not the same that he saw before. All sensible
things are in a perpetual stream; that which is sometimes this and
sometimes that, is not, because it is not always the same; whatsoever
is changed, is something now which it was not alway; but of God it
is said, I am, which could not be if he were changeable; for it may
be said of him, he is not, as well as he is, because he is not what
he was; if we say not of him, he was, nor he will be, but only he is,
whence should any change arrive? He must invincibly remain the same,
of whose nature, perfections, knowledge and will, it cannot be said it
was, as if it were not now in him; or it shall be, as if it were not
yet in him; but he is, because he doth not only exist, but doth alway
exist the same. I am, that is, I receive from no other what I am in
myself; he depends upon no other in his {a331} essence, knowledge,
purposes, and therefore hath no changing power over him.
2. If God were changeable, he could not be the most perfect Being.
God is the most perfect Being, and possesses in himself infinite and
essential goodness (Matt. v. 48): “Your heavenly Father is perfect.”
If he could change from that perfection, he were not the highest
exemplar and copy for us to write after. If God doth change, it
must be either to a greater perfection than he had before, or to a
less, _mutatio perfectiva vel amissiva_; if he changes to acquire a
perfection he had not, then he was not before the most excellent Being;
necessarily, he was not what he might be; there was a defect in him,
and a privation of that which is better than what he had and was; and
then he was not alway the best, and so was not alway God; and being
not alway God, could never be God; for to begin to be God is against
the notion of God; not to a less perfection than he had; that were to
change to imperfection, and to lose a perfection which he possessed
before, and cease to be the best Being; for he would lose some good
which he had, and acquire some evil which he was free from before.
So that the sovereign perfection of God is an invincible bar to any
change in him; for which way soever you cast it for a change, his
supreme excellency is impaired and nulled by it: for in all change
there is something from which a thing is changed, and something to
which it is changed; so that on the one part there is a loss of what
it had, and on the other part there is an acquisition of what it had
not. If to the better, he was not perfect, and so was not God; if to
the worse, he will not be perfect, and so be no longer God after that
change. If God be changed, his change must be voluntary or necessary;
if voluntary, he then intends the change for the better, and chose
it to acquire a perfection by it; the will must be carried out to
anything under the notion of some goodness in that which it desires.
Since good is the object of the desire and will of the creature, evil
cannot be the object of the desire and will of the Creator. And if he
should be changed for the worse, when he did really intend the better,
it would speak a defect of wisdom, and a mistake of that for good
which was evil and imperfect in itself; and if it be for the better,
it must be a motion or change for something without himself; that
which he desireth is not possessed by himself, but by some other.
There is, then, some good without him and above him, which is the end
in this change; for nothing acts but for some end, and that end is
within itself or without itself; if the end for which God changes be
without himself, then there is something better than himself: besides,
if he were voluntarily changed for the better, why did he not change
before? If it were for want of power, he had the imperfection of
weakness; if for want of knowledge of what was the best good, he had
the imperfection of wisdom, he was ignorant of his own happiness; if
he had both wisdom to know it, and power to effect it, it must be for
want of will; he then wanted that love to himself and his own glory,
which is necessary in the Supreme Being. Voluntarily he could not be
changed for the worse, he could not be such an enemy {a332} to his
own glory; there is nothing but would hinder its own imperfection
and becoming worse. Necessarily he could not be changed, for that
necessity must arise from himself, and then the difficulties spoken
of before will recur, or it must arise from another; he cannot be
bettered by another, because nothing hath any good but what it hath
received from the hands of his bounty, and that without loss to
himself, nor made worse; if anything made him worse, it would be sin,
but that cannot touch his essence or obscure his glory, but in the
design and nature of the sin itself (Job xxxv. 6, 7): “If thou sinnest,
what dost thou against him? or if thy transgressions be multiplied,
what dost thou unto him? if thou be righteous, what givest thou him;
or what receives he at thy hand?” He hath no addition by the service
of man, no more than the sun hath of light by a multitude of torches
kindled on the earth; nor any more impair by the sins of men, than
the light of the sun hath by men’s shooting arrows against it.