property of God, then Christ hath a Divine nature. This in the Psalm
is applied to Christ in the Hebrews (Heb. i. 11), where he joins the
citation out of this Psalm with that out of Ps. xlv. 6, 7, “Thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever; thou hast loved righteousness and hated
iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil
of gladness above thy fellows; and thou, Lord, in the beginning hast
laid the foundation of the earth,” &c. As the first must necessarily
be meant of Christ the Mediator, and therein he is distinguished
from God, as one anointed by him; so the other must be meant of
Christ, whereby he is made one with God in regard of the creation
and dissolution of the world, in regard of eternity and immutability.
Both the testimonies are linked together by the copulative _and_, “and
thou, Lord;” declaring thereby that they are both to be understood
of the same person, the Son of God. The design of the chapter is to
prove Christ to be God; and such things are spoken of him as could not
belong to any creature; no, not to the most excellent of the angels.
The same person that is said to be anointed above his fellows, and
is said to lay the foundation of the earth and heavens, is said to be
the same; that is, the same in himself; the prerogative of sameness
belongs to that person as well as creation of heaven and earth. The
Socinians say it is spoken of God, and that God shall destroy the
heavens by Christ; if so, Christ is not a mere creature, not created
when he was incarnate; for the same person that shall change the world
did create the world; if God shall change the world by him, God also
created the world by him; he was then before the world was; for how
could God create the world by one that was not; that was not in being
till after the creation of the world? The heavens shall be changed,
but the person who is to change the heavens is said to be the same, or
unchangeable in the creation as well as the dissolution of the world.
This sameness refers to the whole sentence. The Psalm wherein the
text is, and whence this in the Hebrews is cited, is properly meant
of Christ, and redemption by him, and the completing of it at the last
day, and not of the Babylonish captivity;[627] that captivity was not
so deplorable as the state of the Psalmist describes; Daniel and his
companions flourished in that captivity; it could not reasonably be
said of them, that their days were consumed like smoke, their hearts
withered like grass; that they forgot to “eat their bread” (ver. 3, 4).
Besides, he complains of “shortness of life” (ver. 11); but none had
any more reason to complain of that in the time of the captivity, than
before and after it, than at any other time: their deliverance would
contribute nothing to the natural length of their lives. Besides, when
Sion should be built, the heathen should “fear the name of the Lord”
(that is, worship God), and “all the kings of the earth his glory”
(ver. 15). The rearing the second temple after the deliverance, did
not proselyte the nations; nor did the kings of the earth worship the
glory of God; nor did God appear in such glory at the erecting the
second temple. The second temple was less glorious than the first, for
it wanted some of the ornaments which were the glory of the first; but
it is {a348} said of this state, that when the Lord should build up
Sion, he should “appear in his glory” (ver. 16); his proper glory,
and extraordinary glory. Now that God who shall appear in glory, and
build up Sion, is the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world; he builds
up the church, he causes the nations to fear the Lord, and the kings
of the earth his glory; he broke down the partition wall, and opened
a door for the entrance of the Gentiles; he struck the chains from
off the prisoners, and loosed those that were appointed to death by
the curse of the law (ver. 20): and to this person is ascribed the
creation of the world; and he is pronounced to remain the same in the
midst of an infinite number of changes in inferior things. And it is
likely the Psalmist considers not only the beginning of redemption,
but the completing of it at the second coming of Christ; for he
complains of those evils which shall be removed by his second coming,
viz., the shortness of life, persecutions and reproaches wherewith the
church is afflicted in this world; and comforts not himself with those
attributes which are directly opposed to sin, as the mercy of God,
the covenant of God, but with those that are opposed to mortality
and calamities, as the unchangeableness and eternity of God; and from
thence infers a perpetual establishment of believers. “The children
of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established
before thee” (ver. 28): so that the Psalm itself seems to aim in the
whole discourse at Christ, and asserts his divinity, which the apostle,
as an interpreter, doth fully evidence; applying it to him, and
manifesting his deity by his immutability as well as eternity.[628]
While all other things lose their forms, and pass through multitudes
of variations, he constantly remains the same, and shall be the same,
when all the empires of the world shall slide away, and a period be
put to the present motions of the creation: and as there was no change
made in his being by the creation of things, so neither shall there be
by the final alteration of things; he shall see them finish, as he saw
them rise up into being, and be the same after their reign, as he was
before their original; he is the first and the last (Rev. i. 17).
2. Here is ground and encouragement for worship. An atheist will make
another use of this; if God be immutable, why should we worship him,
why should we pray to him? good will come if he wills it; evil cannot
be averted by all our supplications, if he hath ordained it to fall
upon us. But certainly since unchangeableness is knowing, and willing
goodness is a perfection, an adoration and admiration is due to
God, upon the account of this excellence. If he be God, he is to be
reverenced, and the more highly reverenced, because he cannot but be
God. Again, what comfort could it be to pray to a God, that like the
chameleon changed colors every day, every moment? What encouragement
could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this
day and of another mind tomorrow? Who would put up a petition to an
earthly prince that were so mutable, as to grant a petition one day
and deny it another, and change his own act? But if a prince promise
this or that thing upon such or such a condition, and you know his
promise to be as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians,
would any man {a349} reason thus? because it is unchangeable we will
not seek to him, we will not perform the condition, upon which the
fruit of the proclamation is to be enjoyed. Who would not count such
an inference ridiculous? What blessings hath not God promised upon
the condition of seeking him? Were he of an unrighteous nature, or
changeable in his mind, this would be a bar to our seeking him, and
frustrate our hopes; but since it is otherwise, is not this excellency
of his nature the highest encouragement, to ask of him the blessings
he hath promised, and a beam from heaven to fire our zeal in asking?
If you desire things against his will, which he hath declared he will
not grant, prayer then would be an act of disobedience and injury to
him, as well as an act of folly in itself; his unchangeableness then
might stifle such desires: but if we ask according to his will, and
according to our reasonable wants, what ground have we to make such
a ridiculous argument? He hath willed everything that may be for
our good, if we perform the condition he hath required; and hath
put it upon record, that we may know it and regulate our desires
and supplications according to it. If we will not seek him, his
immutability cannot be a bar, but our own folly is the cause; and by
our neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us, and either
imply that he is not sincere, and means not as he speaks; or that he
is as changeable as the wind, sometimes this thing, sometimes that,
and not at all to be confided in. If we ask according to his revealed
will, the unchangeableness of his nature will assure us of the grant;
and what a presumption would it be in a creature dependent upon his
sovereign, to ask that which he knows he has declared his will against;
since there is no good we can want, but he hath promised to give, upon
our sincere and ardent desire for it? God hath decreed to give this
or that to man, but conditionally, and by the means of inquiring after
him, and asking for it: “Ask, and you shall receive” (Ezek. xxxvi. 37;
Matt. vii. 7): as much as to say, You shall not receive unless you ask.
When the highest promises are made, God expects they should be put
in suit; our Saviour joins the promise and the petition together;
the promise to encourage the petition, and the petition to enjoy
the promise: he doth not say perhaps it shall be given, but it shall,
that is, it certainly shall; your heavenly Father is unchangeably
willing to give you those things. We must depend upon his immutability
for the thing, and submit to his wisdom for the time. Prayer is an
acknowledgment of our dependence upon God; which dependence could have
no firm foundation without unchangeableness. Prayer doth not desire
any change in God, but is offered to God that he would confer those
things which he hath immutably willed to communicate; but he willed
them not without prayer as the means of bestowing them. The light
of the sun is ordered for our comfort, for the discovery of visible
things, for the ripening the fruits of the earth; but withal it
is required that we use our faculty of seeing, that we employ our
industry in sowing and planting, and expose our fruits to the view of
the sun, that they may receive the influence of it. If a man shuts his
eyes, and complains that the sun is changed into darkness, it would
be ridiculous; the sun is not changed, but we alter ourselves; nor is
God changed {a350} in not giving us the blessings he hath promised,
because he hath promised in the way of a due address to him, and
opening our souls to receive his influence, and to this, his
immutability is the greatest encouragement.
3. This shows how contrary man is to God in regard of his
inconstancy. What an infinite distance is there between the immutable
God, and mutable man, and how should we bewail this flittingness
in our nature! There is a mutability in us as creatures, and a
creature cannot but be mutable by nature, otherwise it were not a
creature but God. The establishment of any creature is from grace
and gift; naturally we tend to nothing, as we come from nothing. This
creature‑mutability is not our sin, yet it should cause us to lie
down under a sense of our own nothingness, in the presence of the
Creator. The angels as creatures, though not corrupt, cover their
faces before him: and the arguments God uses to humble Job, though
a fallen creature, are not from his corruption: for I do not remember
that he taxed him with that; but from the greatness of his majesty and
excellency of his nature declared in his works (Job xxxviii.‒xli.);
and, therefore, men that have no sense of God and humility before him,
forget that they are creatures as well as corrupt ones. How great is
the distance between God and us, in regard of our inconstancy in good,
which is not natural to us by creation: for the mind and affections
were regular, and by the great artificer were pointed to God as
the object of knowledge and love. We have the same faculties of
understanding, will, and affection, as Adam had in innocence; but
not with the same light, the same bias, and the same ballast. Man,
by his fall, wounded his head and heart; the wound in his head made
him unstable in the truth, and that in his heart unsteadfast in
his affections: he changed himself from the image of God to that of
the devil, from innocence to corruption, and from an ability to be
steadfast to a perpetual inconstancy; “his silver became dross, and
his wine was mixed with water” (Isa. i. 22). He changed,
(1.) To inconstancy in truth, opposed to the immutability of
knowledge in God. How are our minds floating between ignorance and
knowledge! Truth in us is like those ephemera, creatures of a day’s
continuance,――springs up in the morning, and expires at night. How
soon doth that fly away from us which we have had, not only some weak
flashes of, but which we have learned and have had some relish of! The
devil stood not in the truth (John viii. 44), and therefore manages
his engines to make us as unstable as himself: our minds reel, and
corrupt reasonings oversway us; like sponges we suck up water, and a
light compression makes us spout it out again. Truths are not engraven
upon our hearts, but writ as in dust, defaced by the next puff of wind,
“carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. iv. 14); like a ship
without a pilot and sails, at the courtesy of the next storm, or like
clouds that are tenants to the wind and sun, moved by the wind and
melted by the sun. The Galatians were no sooner called into the grace
of God, but they were removed from it (Gal. i. 6); some have been
reported to have _menstruam fidem_, kept an opinion for a month;
and many are like him that believed the soul’s immortality no longer
than he had Plato’s {a351} book of that subject in his hand:[629] one
likens such to children; they play with truths as children do with
babies, one while embrace them, and a little after throw them into
the dirt. How soon do we forget what the truth is delivered to us, and
what it represented us to be (James i. 23, 24). Is it not a thing to
be bewailed, that man should be such a weathercock, turned about with
every breath of wind, and shifting aspects as the wind shifts points?
(2.) Inconstancy in will, and affections opposed to the immutability
of will in God. We waver between God and Baal; and while we are
not only resolving, but upon motion a little way, look back with a
hankering after Sodom; sometimes lifted up with heavenly intentions,
and presently cast down with earthly cares, like a ship that by an
advancing wave seems to aspire to heaven, and the next fall of the
waves makes it sink down to the depths. We change purposes oftener
than fashions, and our resolutions are like letters in water, whereof
no mark remains; we will be as John to‑day to love Christ, and as
Judas to‑morrow to betray him, and, by an unworthy levity, pass into
the camp of the enemies of God; resolved to be as holy as angels in
the morning, when the evening beholds us as impure as devils. How
often do we hate what before we loved, and shun what before we longed
for! and our resolutions are like vessels of crystal, which break at
the first knock, are dashed in pieces by the next temptation. Saul
resolved not to persecute David any more, but you soon find him upon
his old game. Pharaoh more than once promised, and probably resolved,
to let Israel go, but at the end of the storm his purposes vanish
(Exod. viii. 27, 32). When an affliction pincheth men, they intend
to change their course, and the next news of ease changes their
intentions; like a bow not fully bent in their inclinations, they
cannot reach the mark, but live many years between resolutions of
obedience and affections to rebellion (Ps. lxxviii. 17): and what
promises men make to God are often the fruit of their passion, their
fear, not of their will. The Israelites were startled at the terrors
wherewith the law was delivered, and promised obedience (Exod. xx. 19),
but a month after forgot them, and make a golden calf, and in the
sight of Sinai call for, and dance before, their gods (Exod. xxxii.);
never people more unconstant. Peter, who vowed an allegiance to his
Master, and a courage to stick to him, forswears him almost with the
same breath. Those that cry out with a zeal, “The Lord he is God,”
shortly after return to the service of their idols (1 Kings xviii. 39).
That which seems to be our pleasure this day, is our vexation
to‑morrow; a fear of a judgment puts us into a religious pang, and a
love to our lusts reduceth us to a rebellious inclination; as soon as
the danger is over, the saint is forgotten: salvation and damnation
present themselves to us, touch us, and engender some weak wishes,
which are dissolved by the next allurements of a carnal interest. No
hold can be taken of our promises, no credit is to be given to our
resolutions.
(3.) Inconstancy in practice. How much beginning in the Spirit, and
ending in the flesh; one day in the sanctuary, another in the stews;
clear in the morning as the sun, and clouded before noon; {a352} in
heaven by an excellency of gifts, in hell by a course of profaneness;
like a flower, which some mention, that changes its color three times
a day, one part white, then purple, then yellow! The spirit lusts
against the flesh, and the flesh quickly triumphs over the spirit.
In a good man how often is there a spiritual lethargy; though he doth
not openly defame God, yet he doth not always glorify him; he doth
not forsake the truth, but he doth not always make the attainment of
it, and settlement in it his business. This levity discovers itself in
religious duty, “when I would do good, evil is present with me” (Rom.
vii. 21). Never more present, than when we have a mind to do good,
and never more present than when we have a mind to do the best and
greatest good. How hard is it to make our thoughts and affections keep
their stand! place them upon a good object, and they will be frisking
from it, as a bird from one bough, one fruit, to another: we vary
postures according to the various objects we meet with. The course
of the world is a very airy thing, suited to the uncertain notions of
that “prince of the power of the air,” which works in it (Eph. ii. 2).
This ought to be bewailed by us. Though we may stand fast in the truth,
though we may spin our resolutions into a firm web, though the spirit
may triumph over the flesh in our practice, yet we ought to bewail
it, because inconstancy is our nature, and what fixedness we have in
good is from grace. What we find practised by most men is natural to
all;[630] “as face answers to face in a glass, so doth heart to heart”
(Prov. xxvii. 19); a face in the glass is not more like a natural face,
whose image it is, than one man’s heart is naturally like another.
1st. It is natural to those out of the church. Nebuchadnezzar is
so affected with Daniel’s prophetic spirit, that he would have none
accounted the true God, but the “God of Daniel” (Dan. ii. 47). How
soon doth this notion slip from him, and an image must be set up for
all to worship, upon pain of a most cruel, painful death! Daniel’s God
is quite forgotten. The miraculous deliverance of the three children,
for not worshipping his image, makes him settle a decree to secure the
honor of God from the reproach of his subjects (Dan. iii. 29); yet, a
little while after, you have him strutting in his palace, as if there
were no God but himself.
2d. It is natural to those in the Church. The Israelites were the
only church God had in the world, and a notable example of inconstancy.
After the miracles of Egypt, they murmured against God, when they saw
Pharaoh marching with an army at their heels. They desired food, and
soon nauseated the manna they were before fond of. When they came into
Canaan, they sometimes worshipped God, and sometimes idols, not only
the idols of one nation, but of all their neighbors. In which regard
God calls this, his heritage; “a speckled bird” (Jer. xii. 9); a
peacock, saith Hierom, inconstant, made up of varieties of idolatrous
colors and ceremonies. This levity of spirit is the root of all
mischief; it scatters our thoughts in the service of God; it is the
cause of all revolts and apostasies from him; it makes us unfit to
receive the communications of God: whatsoever we hear is like words
writ in sand, ruffled out by the {a353} next gale; whatsoever is put
into us is like precious liquor in a palsy hand, soon spilt: it breeds
distrust of God when we have an uncertain judgment of him, we are not
like to confide in him; an uncertain judgment will be followed with
a distrustful heart. In fine, where it is prevalent, it is a certain
sign of ungodliness. To be driven with the wind like chaff, and to
be ungodly, is all one in the judgment of the Holy Ghost (Ps. i. 4);
the ungodly are “like the chaff which the wind drives away,” which
signifies not their destruction, but their disposition, for their
destruction is inferred from it (ver. 5), “therefore the ungodly shall
not stand in judgment.” How contrary is this to the unchangeable God,
who is alway the same, and would have us the same, in our religious
promises and resolutions for good!
4. If God be immutable, it is sad news to those that are resolved in
wickedness, or careless of returning to that duty he requires. Sinners
must not expect that God will alter his will, make a breach upon his
nature, and violate his own word to gratify their lusts. No, it is not
reasonable God should dishonor himself to secure them, and cease to be
God, that they may continue to be wicked, by changing his own nature,
that they may be unchanged in their vanity. God is the same; goodness
is as amiable in his sight, and sin as abominable in his eyes now, as
it was at the beginning of the world. Being the same God, he is the
same enemy to the wicked as the same friend to the righteous. He is
the same in knowledge, and cannot forget sinful acts. He is the same
in will, and cannot approve of unrighteous practices. Goodness cannot
but be alway the object of his love, and wickedness cannot but be
alway the object of his hatred: and as his aversion to sin is alway
the same, so as he hath been in his judgments upon sinners, the same
he will be still; for the same perfection of immutability belongs
to his justice for the punishment of sin, as to his holiness for his
disaffection to sin. Though the covenant of works was changeable by
the crime of man violating it, yet it was unchangeable in regard of
God’s justice vindicating it, which is inflexible in the punishment of
the breaches of his law. The law had a preceptive part, and a minatory
part: when man changed the observation of the precept, the righteous
nature of God could not null the execution of the threatening; he
could not, upon the account of this perfection, neglect his just word,
and countenance the unrighteous transgression. Though there were no
more rational creatures in being but Adam and Eve, yet God subjected
them to that death he had assured them of: and from this immutability
of his will, ariseth the necessity of the suffering of the Son of
God for the relief of the apostate creature. His will in the second
covenant is as unchangeable as that in the first, only repentance is
settled as the condition of the second, which was not indulged in the
first; and without repentance, the sinner must irrevocably perish, or
God must change his nature: there must be a change in man; there can
be none in God; his bow is bent, his arrows are ready, if the wicked
do not turn (Ps. vii. 11). There is not an atheist, an hypocrite, a
profane person, that ever was upon the earth, but God’s soul abhorred
him as such, and the like he will {a354} abhor forever; while any
therefore continue so, they may sooner expect the heavens should roll
as they please, the sun stand still at their order, the stars change
their course at their beck, than that God should change his nature,
which is opposite to profaneness and vanity; “Who hath hardened
himself against him, and hath prospered?” (Job ix. 4.)