Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

4. God were not eternal if he were mutable. In all change there is something that perishes, either substantially or accidentally. All change is a kind of death, or imitation of death; that which was, dies, and begins to be what it was not. The Soul of Man, though it ceaseth not to be and exist; yet when it ceaseth to be in quality what it was, is said to die. Adam died when he changed from Integrity to Corruption, though both his Soul and Body were in being^*; and the Soul of a regenerate Man is said to die to Sin, when it is changed from Sin to Grace^*. In all change there is a resemblance of death: So the Notion of Mutability is against the Eternity of God. If any thing be acquired by a change, then that which is acquired was not from Eternity, and so he was not wholly eternal; If any thing be lost which was from Eternity, he is not wholly everlasting: If he did decrease by the change, something in him which had no beginning would have an end; if he did increase by that change, something in him would have a beginning that might have no end.^* What is changed doth not remain, and what doth not remain is not eternal. Though God alway remains in regard of Existence, he would be immortal and live alway; yet if he should suffer any change, he could not properly be eternal, because he would not alway be the same, and would not in every part be eternal; For all change is finished in Time, one moment preceding, another moment following; but that which is before Time cannot be changed by Time. God cannot be eternally what he was, that is, he cannot have a true Eternity, if he had a new Knowledge, a new Purpose, a new Essence; if he were sometimes this and sometimes that, sometimes know this and sometimes know that, sometimes purpose this and afterwards hath a new purpose; he would be partly temporary and partly eternal, not truly and universally eternal: He that hath any thing of newness, hath not properly and truly an entire Eternity. Again, by the same reason that God could in the least cease to be what he was, he might also cease wholly to be; and no reason can be rendered, why God might not cease wholly to be, as well as cease to be entirely and uniformly what he was: All changeableness implies a corruptibility.