the creature; "The foundation of God standeth sure-The Lord knoweth them that are his," 2 Tim. ii. 19. It is not founded upon our own natural strength, it may be then subject to change, as all the products of nature are: the fallen angels had created grace in their innocency, but lost it by their fall. Were this the foundation of the creature, it might soon be shaken; since man after his revolt can ascribe nothing constant to himself, but his own inconstancy.' But the foundation is not in the infirmity of nature, but the strength of grace, and of the grace of God who is immutable, who wants not virtue to be able, nor kindness to be willing to preserve his own foundation. To what purpose does our Saviour tell his disciples their names were written in heaven, Luke x. 20, but to mark the infallible certainty of their salvation, by an opposition to those things which perish and have their names written in the earth, Jer. xvii. 13, or upon the sand, where they may be defaced? And why should Christ order his disciples to rejoice that their names were written in heaven, if God were changeable to blot them out again? Or why should the apostle assure us, that though God had rejected the greatest part of the Jews, he had not therefore rejected his people elected according to his purpose and immutable counsel, because there are none of the elect of God but will come to salvation? for, says he, "the election hath obtained it," Rom. xi. 7; that is, all those that are of the election have obtained it, and the others are hardened. Where the seal of sanctification is stamped, it is a testimony of God's election, and that foundation shall stand sure. "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his:" that is the foundation, the naming the name of Christ, or believing in Christ; and departing from iniquity is the seal. As it is impossible, when God calls those things that are not, but that they should spring up into being and appear before him; so it is impossible, but that the seed of God by his eternal purpose, should be brought to a spiritual life: and that calling cannot be retracted; for that gift and calling is without repentance, Rom. xi. 29. And when repentance is removed from God in regard to some works, the immutability of those works is declared: and the reason of that immutability is their pure dependence on the eternal favour and unchangeable grace of God, "purposed in himself," Eph. i. 9. 11, and not upon the mutability of the creature. Hence their happiness is not as patents among men, quam diu bene se gesserint, so long as they behave themselves well; but they have a promise, that they shall behave themselves so as never wholly to depart from God: "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put 1 Turretin Ser. p. 322.

2 Cocceius.

my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me," Jer. xxxii. 40. God will not turn from them, to do them good, and promises that they shall not turn from him for ever or forsake him. And the bottom of it is the everlasting covenant; and therefore believing and sealing, for security, are linked together, Eph. i. 13. And when God doth inwardly teach us his law, he puts in a will not to depart from it: "I have not departed from thy judgments;" what is the reason? "for thou hast taught me," Psal. cxix. 102.

[3.] By this, eternal happiness is insured. This is the inference made from the eternity and unchangeableness of God in the verse following the text, "The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee," ver. 28. This is the sole conclusion drawn from those perfections of God solemnly asserted before. The children which the prophets and apostles have begotten to thee, shall be totally delivered from the relics of their apostasy and the punishment due to them, and rendered partakers of immortality with thee, as sons to dwell in their Father's house for ever. The spirit begins a spiritual life here, to fit for an immutable life in glory hereafter; where believers shall be placed upon a throne that cannot be shaken, and possess a crown that shall not be taken off their heads for ever.

(3.) Of exhortation.

[1] Let a sense of the changeableness and uncertainty of all things except God be upon us. There are as many changes as there are figures in the world. The whole fashion of the world is a transient thing; every man may say as Job, "Changes and war are against me," Job x. 17. Lot chose the plain of Sodom, because it was the richer soil; he was but a little time there before he was taken prisoner, and his substance made the spoil of his enemy: that is again restored, but a while after fire from heaven devours his wealth, though his person was secured from the judgment by a special providence. We burn with a desire to settle ourselves; but mistake the way, and build castles in the air, which vanish like bubbles of soap in

water.

And therefore,

Let not our thoughts dwell much upon them. Do but consider those souls that are in the possession of an unchangeable God, that behold his never-fading glory! Would it not be a kind of hell to them to have their thoughts starting out to these things, or find any desire in themselves to the changeable trifles of the earth? Nay, have we not reason to think that they cover their faces with shame, that ever they should have such a weakness of spirit when they were here below, as to spend more thoughts upon them than were necessary for this

present life, much more that they should at any time value and court them above an unchangeable good? Do they not disdain themselves that they should ever debase the immutable perfections of God, as to have neglecting thoughts of him at any time, for the entertainment of such a mean and inconstant rival?

Much less should we trust in them or rejoice in them. The best things are mutable, and things of such a nature are not fit objects of confidence. Trust not in riches, they have their wane as well as increase; they rise sometimes like a torrent and flow in upon men, but resemble also a torrent in as sudden a fall and departure, and leave nothing but slime behind them. Trust not in honour; all the honour and applause in the world is no better than an inheritance of wind, which the pilot is not sure of, but shifts from one corner to another, and stands not perpetually in the same point of the heavens. How in a few ages did the house of David, a great monarch, and a man after God's own heart, descend to a mean condition, and all the glory of that house shut up in the stock of a carpenter! David's sheephook was turned into a sceptre, and the sceptre by the same hand of Providence turned into a hatchet in Joseph his descendant.

Rejoice not immoderately in wisdom; that and learning languish with age. A wound in the head may impair that which is the glory of a man. If an organ be out of frame, folly may succeed, and all a man's prudence be wound up in an irrecoverable dotage. Nebuchadnezzar was no fool, yet by a sudden hand of God he became not only a fool or a madman, but a kind of brute. Rejoice not in strength; that decays, and a mighty man may live to see his strong arm withered, and a grasshopper to become a burthen, Eccles. xii. 5. "The strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few," verse 3. Nor rejoice in children; they are like birds upon a tree, that make a little chirping music, and presently fall into the fowler's net. Little did Job expect such sad news as the loss of all his progeny at a blow, when the messenger knocked at his gate: and such changes happen oftentimes, when our expectations of comfort and a contentment in them are at the highest. How often does a string crack when the musician has wound it up to a just height for a tune, and all his pains and delight marred in a moment! Nay, all these things change while we are using them, like ice that melts between our fingers, and flowers that wither while we are smelling them. The apostle gave them a good title, when he called them uncertain riches, and thought it a strong argument to dissuade men from trusting in them, 1 Tim. vi. 17. The wealth of the merchant depends upon the winds and VOL. I.-51

waves, and the revenue of the husbandman upon the clouds; and since they depend upon those things which are used to express the most changeableness, they can be no fit object for trust. Besides, God sometimes kindles a fire under all a man's glory, which does insensibly consume it, Isa. x. 6; and while we have them, the fear of losing them renders us not very happy in the fruition of them; we can scarce tell whether they are contentments or no, because sorrow follows them so close at the heels. It is not an unnecessary exhortation for good men; the best men have been apt to place too much trust in them. David thought himself immutable in his prosperity; and such thoughts could not be without some immoderate outlets of the heart to them, and confidences in them. And Job promised himself to die in his nest, and multiply his days as the sand without any interruption, Job xxix. 18, 19, &c.; but he was mistaken and disappointed.

Let me add this; trust not in men, who are as inconstant as any thing else, and often change their most ardent affections into implacable hatred; and though their affections may not be changed, their power to help you may. Haman's friends that depended on him one day, were crestfallen the next, when their patron was to exchange his chariot of state for an ignominious gallows.

Prefer an immutable God before mutable creatures. Is it not a horrible thing to see what we are, and what we possess, daily crumbling to dust, and in a continual flux from us; and not seek out something that is permanent, and always besides the same, for our portion? In God, or Wisdom, which is Christ, there is substance, Prov. viii. 21; in which respect he is opposed to all the things in the world, that are but shadows, that are shorter or longer according to the motion of the sun; mutable also by every little body that intervenes. God is subject to no decay within, to no force without; nothing in his own nature can change him from what he is, and there is no power above can hinder him from being what he will to the soul. He is an ocean of all perfection; he wants nothing without himself to render him blessed, which may allure him to a change; his creatures can want nothing out of him to make them happy, whereby they may be enticed to prefer any thing before him. If we enjoy other things, it is by God's donation, who can as well withdraw them as bestow them; and it is but a reasonable as well as a necessary thing, to endeavour the enjoyment of the immutable Benefactor, rather than his revocable gifts.

If the creatures had a sufficient virtue in themselves to ravish our thoughts and engross our souls; yet when we take a prospect of a fixed and unchangeable Being, what beauty, what

strength have any of those things to vie with him? How can they bear up and maintain their interest against a lively thought and sense of God? All the glory of them would fly before him like that of the stars before the sun. They were once nothing, they may be nothing again; as their own nature brought them not out of nothing, so their nature secures them not from being reduced to nothing. What an unhappiness is it, to have our affections set upon that which retains something of its non esse with its esse, its not being with its being; that lives indeed, but in a continual flux, and may lose that pleasureableness to-morrow which charms us to-day!

[2.] This doctrine will teach us patience under such providences as declare his unchangeable will. The rectitude of our wills consists in conformity to the Divine, as discovered in his words, and manifested in his providence, which are the effluxes of his immutable will. The time of trial is appointed by his immutable will, Dan. xi. 35; it is not in the power of the sufferer's will to shorten it, nor in the power of the enemy's will to lengthen it. Whatsoever does happen, has been decreed by God; ("That which hath been is named already, Eccl. vi. 10;) therefore to murmur or be discontented, is to contend with God, who is mightier than we to maintain his own purposes. God does act all things conveniently for that immutable end intended by himself, and according to the reason of his own Divine will, in the true point of time most proper for it and for us, not too soon or too slow, because he is unchangeable in knowledge and wisdom. God does not act any thing barely by an immutable will, but by an immutable wisdom, and an unchangeable rule of goodness; and therefore we should not only acquiesce in what he works, but have a complacency in it; and by having our wills thus knitting themselves with the immutable will of God, we attain some degree of likeness to him in his own unchangeableness. When therefore God has manifested his will in opening his decree to the world by his work of providence, we must cease all disputes against it, and with Aaron hold our peace, though the affliction be very smart, Lev. x. 3. All flesh must be silent before God, Zech. ii. 13; for whatsoever is his counsel shall stand, and cannot be recalled; all struggling against it is like a brittle glass contending with a rock; for "if he cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder him?" Job xi. 10. Nothing can help us, if he has determined to afflict us; as nothing can hurt us, if he has determined to secure us. The more clearly God has evinced this or that to be his will, the more sinful is our struggling against it. Pharoah's sin was the greater in keeping Israel, by how much the more God's