Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

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 days 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 ⟨p. 232⟩stood not in the Truth, ^*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. 4.14. 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^*; Some have been reported to have menstruam fidem, kept an Opinion for a Month; and many are like him that believed the Souls Immortality, no longer than he had Plato's Book of that Subject in his hand^*: 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^*? 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?

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 days 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