The divine will considered in its eternal decrees, and holy execution of them. By…

3. If the divine Decrees should change, Oh! what amazing Changes? what an horrible Tempest must needs ensue? Must not God's own dwelling-house, even his glorious Eternity, sink and fall to the ground? Non enim est vera Aeternitas, ubi oritur nova voluntas, nec est immortalis Voluntas, quae alia & alia est. Must not God's eternal Prescience fall a doubting and faltering about every Future? Seeing God cannot now know his own works, no, not a moment before their actual Existence; because even then their being may be prevented by a Change in his Will: May not eternal ⟨p. 19⟩Grace and Truth lose their glorious light, and Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, drop out of the Gospel-orb, and all the Starry Promises in the Word, and lightsome Comforts in the Saints go out in a moment, leaving all in darkness and confusion? May not the Evangelical Banquet let down to poor Worms be called back again into Heaven, and the precious Blood of Christ return again into its Veins, and his Humane Nature be cast away into nothing, and every Saint, instead of Grace and Peace in his heart, may have a Lye in his right hand, and lie down in sorrow? Nay, in such a case, must there not fall a Change upon the very Being of God himself? And seeing every Change is a kind of Death, must not the Deity suffer, and as it were die in this Mutation? All which astonishing Catastrophes being to be for ever abhorred, I conclude that God's Decrees must needs be Immutable, as long as there is any Stability in his Eternity, Infallibility in his Prescience, Sureness in his Grace and Truth, or Immortality in his Life or Essence.

3. If the divine Decrees should change, Oh! what amazing Changes? what an horrible Tempest must needs ensue? Must not God's own dwelling-house, even his glorious Eternity, sink and fall to the ground? Non enim est vera Aeternitas, ubi oritur nova voluntas, nec est immortalis Voluntas, quae alia & alia est. Must not God's eternal Prescience fall a doubting and faltring about every Future? Seeing God cannot now know his own works, no, not a moment before their actual Existence; because even then their being may be prevented by a Change in his Will: May not eternal ⟨p. 19⟩Grace and Truth lose their glorious light, and Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, drop out of the Gospel-orb, and all the Starry Promises in the Word, and lightsom Comforts in the Saints go out in a moment, leaving all in darkness and confusion? May not the Evangelical Banquet let down to poor Worms be called back again into Heaven, and the precious Blood of Christ return again into its Veins, and his Humane Nature be cast away into nothing, and every Saint, instead of Grace and Peace in his heart, may have a Lye in his right hand, and lie down in sorrow? Nay, in such a case, must there not fall a Change upon the very Being of God himself? And seeing every Change is a kind of Death, must not the Deity suffer, and as it were die in this Mutation? All which astonishing Catastrophes being to be for ever abhorred, I conclude that God's Decrees must needs be Immutable, as long as there is any Stability in his Eternity, Infallibility in his Prescience, Sureness in his Grace and Truth, or Immortality in his Life or Essence.