Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

If the Creatures had a sufficient virtue in themselves to ravish our thoughts and engross our Souls; yet when we take a prospect of a fixed and unchangeable Being, what beauty, what strength have any of those things to vie with him? How can they bear up and maintain their interest against a lively thought and sense of God? All the Glory of them would fly before him like that of the Stars before the Sun: They were once nothing, they may be nothing again; as their own nature brought them not out of nothing, so their Nature secures them not from being reduced to nothing. What an unhappiness is it, to have our affections set upon that which retains something of its non esse with its esse, its not being with its being; that lives indeed, but in a continual Flux, and may lose that pleasurableness to morrow which charms us to day?

If the Creatures had a sufficient vertue in themselves to ravish our thoughts and engross our Souls; yet when we take a prospect of a fixed and unchangeable Being, what beauty, what strength have any of those things to vie with him? How can they bear up and maintain their interest against a lively thought and sense of God? All the Glory of them would fly before him like that of the Stars before the Sun: They were once nothing, they may be nothing again; as their own nature brought them not out of nothing, so their Nature secures them not from being reduced to nothing. What an unhappiness is it, to have our affections set upon that which retains something of its non esse with its esse, its not being with its being; that lives indeed, but in a continual Flux, and may lose that pleasureableness to morrow which charms us to day?

2. This Doctrine will teach us Patience under such Providences as declare his unchangeable Will. The rectitude of our Wills consists in conformity to the Divine, as discovered in his Words and manifested in his Providence, which are the effluxes of his immutable Will. The time of trial is appointed by his immutable Will^*; 'tis not in the Power of the Sufferer's Will to shorten it, nor in the Power of the Enemies Will to lengthen it. Whatsoever doth happen, hath been decreed by God, (