Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

How contrary is this to the unchangeable God, who is always the same, and would have us the same, in our religious Promises and Resolutions for good?

How contrary is this to the unchangeable God, who is alwayes the same, and would have us the same, in our religious Promises and Resolutions for good?

4. If God be immutable, 'tis sad news to those that are resolved in wickedness, or careless of returning to that duty he requires. Sinners must not expect, that God will alter his will, make a breach upon his nature, and violate his own Word to gratify their lusts: No, 'tis not reasonable God should dishonour himself to secure them, and cease to be God, that they may continue to be wicked, by changing his own nature, that they may be unchanged in their vanity. God is the same, goodness is as amiable in his sight, and Sin as abominable in his eyes now, as it was at the beginning of the world: Being the same God, he is the same Enemy to the Wicked as the same Friend to the Righteous; He is the same in Knowledge, and cannot forget sinful acts; He is the same in Will, and cannot approve of unrighteous Practices: Goodness cannot but be alway the Object of his Love, and Wickedness cannot but be alway the Object of his Hatred: And as his aversion to Sin is alway the same, so as he hath been in his Judgments upon Sinners, the same he will be still; for the same perfection of Immutability belongs to his Justice for the punishment of Sin, as to his Holiness for his disaffection to Sin. Though the Covenant of Works ⟨p. 234⟩was changeable by the crime of man violating it; yet it was unchangeable in regard of Gods justice vindicating it, which is inflexible in the punishment of the breaches of his Law. The Law had a preceptive part, and a minatory part; When man changed the observation of the Precept, the righteous nature of God could not null the execution of the threatening: He could not upon the account of this perfection neglect his just word and countenance the unrighteous transgression. Tho there were no more rational Creatures in being but Adam and Eve, yet God subjected them to that death he had assured them of: and from this immutability of his Will, ariseth the necessity of the suffering of the Son of God, for the relief of the apostate Creature. His Will in the second Covenant is as uncaeable, as that in the first, only repentance is settled as the condition of the second, which was not indulged in the first; and without repentance the sinner must ivobly prish or God must change his nature: There must be a change in man, there can be ne in God; his bow is bent his, arrows are ready, if the wicked do not turn.