3. The Decrees of God are cemented with Immutability. Aristotle by the light of Nature saw the Simplicity of God's Nature, and from thence rationally concluded the Simplicity of God's pleasure. The Eternal and Immanent Acts of his Understanding and Will are ever immovably the same, or else infinite Simplicity could not take pleasure in them. God saith of himself, Mal. 3. 6. I am the Lord, I change not. Should he change, he would lose his Name, I am that I am. I know (saith the wise Preacher) that whatsoever God doth, it shall be for ever, Eccl. 3. 14. ⟨p. 15⟩His Decrees are Unchangeable. The Apostle speaking of the Decree of Election, saith, The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, 2 Tim. 2. 19. Every word hath its weight: Election is not a structure upon Faith, but a foundation; humane foundations may be destroyed, but this is the foundation of God, laid by him, nay in him in the bosom of the divine Will; there is no standing, much less sure standing, in the flux of Time and Matter; but this foundation, because of God, and in God, standeth sure; it standeth in God's Eternity, which is Nunc stans; it is sure in God's Immutability, which is ever the same; and the seal upon all this, is God's unerrable and infallible Knowledge, including within it unvariable and unchangeable Love to his people: God is the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning, James 1. 17. The visible corporeal Sun rides circuit round the World; but whilst he salutes one Hemisphere, in the turn he leaves a dark shadow on the other: but God is an immutable and supercelestial Sun, there can be no shadow in his eternal and unconvertible Light. Neither are the various ⟨p. 16⟩changes among the Creatures, shadows cast by any turn in God or his Will, but events ordered and disposed by him. And because the Apostle speaks in this Verse of perfect gifts, and in the next of Regeneration by God's. Will, therefore there is a further sense in it, That if the Father of Lights purpose to make the Day-star arise in any poor Soul, his gracious purpose never turns away from that Soul, nor leaves it in the dark shadow of Death. The Names of the Elect are all indelibly written in God's Book; and if the Scripture cannot be dissolved, Joh. 10. 35. surely the Book of life must be irrasible.
3. The Decrees of God are cemented with Immutability. Aristotle by the light of Nature saw the Simplicity of God's Nature, and from thence rationally concluded the Simplicity of God's pleasure. The Eternal and Immanent Acts of his Understanding and Will are ever immoveably the same, or else infinite Simplicity could not take pleasure in them. God saith of himself, Mal. 3. 6. I am the Lord, I change not. Should he change, he would lose his Name, I am that I am. I know (saith the wise Preacher) that whatsoever God doth, it shall be for ever, Eccl. 3. 14. ⟨p. 15⟩His Decrees are Unchangeable. The Apostle speaking of the Decree of Election, saith, The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, 2 Tim. 2. 19. Every word hath its weight: Election is not a structure upon Faith, but a foundation; humane foundations may be destroyed, but this is the foundation of God, laid by him, nay in him in the bosom of the divine Will; there is no standing, much less sure standing, in the flux of Time and Matter; but this foundation, because of God, and in God, standeth sure; it standeth in God's Eternity, which is Nunc stans; it is sure in God's Immutability, which is ever the same; and the seal upon all this, is God's unerrable and infallible Knowledge, including within it unvariable and unchangeable Love to his people: God is the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning, James 1. 17. The visible corporeal Sun rides circuit round the World; but whilest he salutes one Hemisphear, in the turn he leaves a dark shadow on the other: but God is an immutable and supercelestial Sun, there can be no shadow in his eternal and unconvertible Light. Neither are the various ⟨p. 16⟩changes among the Creatures, shadows cast by any turn in God or his Will, but events ordered and disposed by him. And because the Apostle speaks in this Verse of perfect gifts, and in the next of Regeneration by God's. Will, therefore there is a further sence in it, That if the Father of Lights purpose to make the Day-star arise in any poor Soul, his gracious purpose never turns away from that Soul, nor leaves it in the dark shadow of Death. The Names of the Elect are all indelibly written in God's Book; and if the Scripture cannot be dissolved,
