Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

The Creatures are in a perpetual Flux; something is acquired, or something lost every day. A Man is the same in regard of Existence when he is a Man, as he was when he was a Child; but there is a new succession of quantities and qualities in him; every day he acquires something till he comes to his maturity; every day he loseth ⟨p. 185⟩something till he comes to his Period. A Man is not the same at night that he was in the morning; something is expired, and something is added; every day there is a change in his age, a change in his substance, a change in his accidents: But God hath his whole Being in one and the same point, or moment of Eternity; He receives nothing as an Addition to what he was before; He looseth nothing of what he was before; He is always the same excellency and perfection in the same infiniteness as ever; His years do not fail, ^*his years do not come and go as others do; there is not this day, to morrow or yesterday with him: As nothing is past or future with him in regard of Knowledge, but all things are present; so nothing is past or future in regard of his Essence; He is not in his Essence this day what he was not before, or will be the next day and year what he is not now;^* All his perfections are most perfect in him every moment, before all ages, after all ages; As he hath his whole Essence undivided in every place, as well as in an immense space; so he hath all his Being in one moment of time, as well as in infinite intervals of time.^* Some illustrate the difference between Eternity and Time, by the similitude of a Tree, or a Rock standing upon the side of a River, or Shore of the Sea; the Tree stands always the same and unmoved, while the waters of the River glide along at the foot; The Flux is in the River, but the Tree acquires nothing but a diverse respect and relation of presence to the various parts of the River as they flow; The waters of the River press on, and push forward one another, and what the River had this minute, it hath not the same the next: So are all sublunary things in a continual Flux. And though the Angels have no substantial change, yet they have an accidental; for the actions of the Angels this day, are not the same individual actions which they performed yesterday: But in God there is no change, He always remains the same.