Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

We must observe therefore that

1. Repentance is not properly in God. He is a pure Spirit, and is not capable of ⟨p. 225⟩those Passions, which are signs of weakness and impotence, or subject to those regrets, we are subject to: Where there is a proper repentance, there is a want of foresight, an ignorance of what would succeed, or a defect in the examination of the occurrences, which might fall within consideration: All repentance of a fact, is grounded upon a mistake in the event which was not foreseen; or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the thing which was acted by the person repenting: But God is so wise that he cannot err, so holy he cannot do evil; and his certain prescience or foreknowledge, secures him against any unexpected events: God doth not act but upon clear and infallible reason: And a change upon passion is accounted by all so great a weakness in man, that none can entertain so unworthy a conceit of God. Where he is said to repent,^* he is also said to grieve; now no proper grief can be imagined to be in God: As repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight, so is grief no less inconsistent with undefiled blessedness: God is blessed for ever, ^*and therefore nothing can befall him that can stain that blessedness; his blessedness would be impaired, and interrupted, while he is repenting, tho he did soon rectify that which is the cause of his repentance: God is of one mind and who can turn him? what his Soul desires that he doth.^*

1. Repentance is not properly in God. He is a pure Spirit, and is not capable of ⟨p. 225⟩those Passions, which are signs of weakness and impotence, or subject to those regrets, we are subject to: Where there is a proper repentance, there is a want of foresight, an ignorance of what would succeed, or a defect in the examination of the occurences, which might fall within consideration: All repentance of a fact, is grounded upon a mistake in the event which was not foreseen; or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the thing which was acted by the person repenting: But God is so wise that he cannot err, so holy he cannot do evil; and his certain prescience or foreknowledge, secures him against any unexpected events: God doth not act but upon clear and infallible reason: And a change upon passion is accounted by all so great a weakness in man, that none can entertain so unworthy a conceit of God. Where he is said to repent,