Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

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 my self: He depends upon no other in his 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, Mat. 5.48. 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.

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,