Part 26

upon God's entertaining the mediator, for the covenant of works discovered no such thing as repentance or pardon. Now these general rules are to be the interpreters of particular cases, so that predictions of good are not to be counted absolute, if men return to evil ; nor predictions of evil, if men be thereby reduced to a repentance of their crimes.

ready in the bow.* Though Jonah proclaimed destructionwith out declaring any hopes of an arrest of judgment, yet their natural notions of God afforded some natural hopes of relief, if they did their duty, and spurned not against

the prophet's message ; and therefore, saith one, God did not always ex press this condition, because it was needless ; his own rule revealed in

Scripture was sufficient to some, and the natural notion all men had of God's goodness upon their repentance made it not absolutely necessary to declare it ; and, besides, saith he, it is bootless, the expressing it can do but little good ; secure ones will repent never the sooner, but rather presume upon

their hopes of God's forbearance, and linger out their repentance till it be too late ; and to work men to repentance, whom he hath purposed to spare, he threatens them with terrible judgments, which, by how much the more terrible and peremptory they are, are likely to be more effectual for the end God in his purpose designs them, viz. to humble them under a sense of their demerit, and an acknowledgment of his righteous justice, and therefore, though they be absolutely denounced, yet they are to be conditionally in terpreted, with a reservation of repentance. As for that answer which one gives, that by forty days was not meant forty natural days, but forty pro phetical days, that is, years, a day for year ; and that the city was destroyed

forty years after by the Medes ; the expression of God's repenting upon their humiliation puts a bar to that interpretation. God repented, that is, he did not bring the punishment upon them according to those days the prophet had expressed, and therefore forty days are to be understood ; and if it were meant of forty years, and they were destroyed at the end of that term, how could God be said to repent, since, according to that, the punish ment threatened was, according to the time fixed, brought upon them ? And the destruction of it forty years after will not be easily evinced, if Jonah lived in the time of Jeroboam the Second, king of Israel, as he did, 2 Kings xiv. 25 ; and Nineveh was destroyed in the time of Josiah, king of Judah. But the other answer is plain : God did not fulfil what he had threatened, because they reformed what they had committed. When the threatening

was made, they were a fit object for justice ; but when they repented, they

* Sanderson's Sermon, part. ii. p. 157, 158.

404 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GIL 26,

were a fit object for a merciful respite. To threaten when sins are high, is

a part of God's justice ; not to execute when sins are revoked by repentance, is a part of God's goodness. And in the case of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 1, 5, Isa. xxxviii. 1, 5, Isaiah comes with a message from God, that he should

* set his house in order, for he shall die ;' that is, the disease was mortal, and no outward applications could in their own nature resist the distemper.

* Behold I will add to thy days fifteen years ; I will heal thee.' It seems to me to be one entire message, because the latter part of it was so suddenly after the other committed to Isaiah, to be delivered to Hezekiah ; for he was

not gone out of the king's house before he was ordered to return with the news of his health, by an extraordinary indulgence of God against the power

of nature and force of the disease : ' Behold, I will add to thy life,' noting it an extraordinary thing. He was in the second court of the king's house when this word came to him, 2 Kings xx. 4 ; the Hng1s house having three

courts, so that he was not gone above half-way out the palace. God might send this message -of death, to prevent the pride Hezekiah might swell with for his deliverance from Sennacherib : as Paul had a messenger of Satan to buffet him, to prevent his lifting up, 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; and this good man was subject to this sin, as we find afterwards in the case of the Baby lonish ambassadors ; and God delayed this other part of the message to humble him, and draw out his prayer ; and, as soon as ever he found Hezekiah in this temper, he sent Isaiah with a comfortable message of recovery, so that the will of God was to signify to him the mortality of his distemper, and afterwards to relieve him by a message of an extraordinary recovery.

Prop. 5. God is not changed, when of loving to any creatures he be comes angry with them, or of angry he becomes appeased. The change in these cases is in the creature ; according to the alteration in the creature, it stands in a various relation to God ; an innocent creature is the object of his kindness, , an offending creature is the object of his anger; there is a change in the dispensation of God, as there is a change in the creature, making himself capable of such dispensations. God always acts according to the immutable nature of his holiness, and can no more change in his

affections to good and evil, than he can in his essence. When the devils

now fallen stood as glorious angels, they were the objects of God's love, because holy. When they fell, they were the objects of God's hatred, be cause impure ; the same reason which made him love them while they were pure, made him hate them when they were criminal. The reason of his various dispensations to them was the same in both, as considered in God, his immutable holiness, but as respecting the creature different ; the nature of the creature was changed, but the divine holy nature of God remained the same. ' With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure, and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward,' Ps. xviii. 26. He is a refreshing light to those that obey him, and a consuming fire to those that resist him. Though the same angels were not always loved, yet the same reason that moved him to love them, moved him to hate them. It had argued a change in God, if he had loved them alway, in whatsoever posture they were towards him. It could not be counted love, but a weakness and impotent fondness ; the change is in the object, not in the affection of God. For the object loved before is not beloved now, because that which was the motive of love, is not now in it. So that the creature having a different state from what it had, falls under a different affection or dispensation.

It had been a mutable affection in God, to love that which was not worthy of love, with the same love wherewith he loved that which had the greatest

PS. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 405

resemblance to himself. Had God loved the fallen angels in that state and for that state, he had hated himself, because he had loved that which was contrary to himself and the image of his own holiness, which made them appear before good in his sight. The will of God is unchangeably set to love righteousness and hate iniquity, and from this hatred to punish it. And if a righteous creature contracts the wrath of God, or a sinful creature

hath the communications of God's love, it must be by a change in themselves. Is the sun changed when it hardens one thing and softens another, accord ing to the disposition of the several subjects ? or when the sun makes a flower more fragrant, and a dead carcass more noisome ? There are diverse effects, but the reason of that diversity is not in the sun, but in the subject ; the sun is the same, and produceth those different effects, by the same quality of heat. So if an unholy soul approach -to God, God looks angrily upon him ; if a holy soul come before him, the same immutable perfection in God draws out his kindness towards him. As some think, the sun would rather refresh than scorch us, if our bodies were of the same nature and substance with that luminary.

As the will of God for creating the world was na new, but an eternal will, though it manifested itself in time, so the will of God for the punish ment of sin, or the reconciliation of the sinner, was no new will, though his wrath in time break out in the effects of it upon sinners, and his love flows out in the effects of it upon penitents. Christ by his death reconciling God to man, did not alter the will of God, but did what was consonant to his eternal will. He came not to change his will, but to execute his will :

' Lo I come to do thy will, 0 God,' Heb. x. 7. And the grace of God in Christ was not a new grace, but an old grace in a new appearance ; ' the grace of God hath appeared,' Titus ii. 11.

Prop. 6. A change of laws by God • argues no change in God, when God abrogates some laws which he had settled in the church, and enacts others. I spake of this something the last day ; I shall only add this, God commanded one thing to the Jews, when the church was in an infant state, and removed those laws when the church came to growth. The elements of the world were suited to the state of children, Gal. iv. 3. A mother feeds not the infant with the same diet as she doth when it is grown up. Our Saviour acquainted not his disciples with some things at one time which he did at another, because they were not able to bear them. Where was the change,

in Christ's will, or in their growth from a state of weakness to that of strength ? A physician prescribes not the same thing to a person in health, as he doth to one conflicting with a distemper ; nor the same thing in the beginning, as he doth in the state or declination of the disease. The

physician's will and skill are the same, but the capacity and necessity of the patient for this ,or that medicine or method of proceeding are [not] the same.

When God changed the ceremonial law, there was no change in the divine will, but an execution of his will. For when God commanded the observance of the law, he intended not the perpetuity of it ; nay, in the prophet he declares the cessation of it ; he decreed to command it, but he decreed to command it only for such a time ; so that the abrogation of it was no less an execution of his decree, than the establishment of it for a season was. The commanding of it was pursuant to his decree for the appointing of it, and the nulling of it was pursuant to his decree of continuing it only for such a season. So that in all this there was no change in the will of God.

The counsel of God stands sure ; what changes soever there are in the world, are not in God or his will, but in the events of things, and the dif-

406 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GIL 26, 27.

ferent relations of things to God ; it is in the creature, not in the Creator. The sun alway remains of the same hue, and is not discoloured in itself, because it shines green through a green glass, and blue through a blue glass ; the different colours come from the glass, not from the sun. The change is alway in the disposition of the creature, not in the nature of God or his will.

V. Use 1. For information.

1. If God be unchangeable in his nature, and immutability be a property of God, then Christ hath a divine nature. This in the psalm is applied to Christ in the Hebrews, Heb. i. 11, where he joins the citation out of this psalm with that out of Ps. xlv. 6, 7, « Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever : thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity : therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows ; and

thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth,' &c. As the first must necessarily be meant of Christ the mediator, — and therein he is distinguished from God, as one anointed by him, — so the other must be meant of Christ, whereby he is made one with God in regard of the crea tion and dissolution of the world, in regard of eternity and immutability. Both the testimonies are linked together by the copulative and : ' AND thou Lord,' declaring thereby that they are both to be understood of the same person, the Son of God. The design of the chapter is to prove Christ to be

God ; and such things are spoken of him as could not belong to any creature, no, not to the most excellent of angels. The same person that is said to

be anointed above his fellows, and is said to lay the foundation of the earth

and heavens, is said to be * the same,' that is, the same in himself. The prerogative of sameness belongs to that person, as well as creation of heaven and earth.

The Socinians say it is spoken of God, and that God shall destroy the heavens by Christ ; if so, Christ is not a mere creature, not created when he was incarnate ; for the same person that shall change the world, did create the world. If God shall change the world by him, God also created the world by him. He was then before the world was ; for how could God create the world by one that was not ? that was not in being till after the creation of the world ? The heavens shall be changed, but the person who is to change the heavens is said to be the same, or unchangeable, in the crea tion as well as the dissolution of the world. This sameness refers to the whole sentence.

The psalm wherein the text is,* and whence this in the Hebrews is cited, is properly meant of Christ, and redemption by him, and the completing of it at the last day, and not of the Babylonish captivity. That captivity was not so deplorable as the state the psalmist describes. Daniel and his com panions flourished in that captivity. It could not reasonably be said of them,

* that their days were consumed like smoke,' their ' heart withered like grass ;' that they ' forgot to eat their bread,' as it is, ver. 3, 4 ; besides, he complains of shortness of life, ver. 11. But none had any more reason to complain of that in the time of the captivity, than before and after it, than at any other time. Their deliverance would contribute nothing to the natural

length of their lives ; besides, when Sion should be built, the ' heathen should fear the name of the Lord' (that is, worship God), * and all the kings of the earth his glory,' ver. 15. The rearing the second temple after the deliverance did not proselyte the nations ; nor did the kings of the earth wor ship the glory of God ; nor did God appear in such glory at the erecting tho

* Placeus de Deitate Christi.

PS. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OP GOD. 407

second temple. The second temple was less glorious than the first, for it wanted some of the ornaments which were the glory of the first. But it is

said of this state, that ' when the Lord should build up Sion, he should appear in his glory,' ver. 16, his proper glory, and extraordinary glory. Now that God, who shall appear in glory and build up Sion, is the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world ; he builds up the church, he causes the nations to fear the Lord, and the kings of the earth his glory. He broke down the partition wall, and opened a door for the entrance of the Gentiles.

He struck the chains from ofl' the prisoners, and ' loosed those that were appointed to death' by the curse of the law, ver. 20. And to this person is ascribed the creation of the world ; and he is pronounced to remain the same in the midst of an infinite number of changes in inferior things. And it is likely the psalmist considers not only the beginning of redemption, but the completing of it at the second coming of Christ ; for he complains of those evils which shall be removed by his second coming, viz., the shortness of life, persecutions, and reproaches, wherewith the church is afflicted in, this world ; and comforts not himself with those attributes which are directly opposed to sin, as the mercy of God, the covenant of God, but with those that are opposed to mortality and calamities, as the unchangeableness and eternity of God ; and from thence infers a perpetual establishment of

believers : ' The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee,' ver. 28 ; so that the psalm itself seems to aim in the whole discourse at Christ, and asserts his divinity, which the apostle, as an interpreter, doth fully evidence ; applying it to him, and manifesting his deity by his immutability as well as eternity. While all other things lose their forms, and pass through multitudes of variations, he constantly

remains the" same, and shall be the same, when all the empires of the world shall slide away, and a period be put to the present motions of the creation.* And as there was no change made in, his being by the creation of things, so neither shall there be by the final alteration of things ; he shall see them finish, as he saw them rise up into being, and be the same after their reign

as he was before their original ; he is « the first and the last,' Rev. i. 17.

2. Here is ground and .encouragement for worship. An atheist will make another use of this. If God be immutable, why should we worship him, why should we pray to him ? Good will come if he wills it, evil can not be averted by all our supplications, if he hath ordered it to fall upon us.

But certainly, since unchangeableness in knowing, and willing goodness is a perfection, an adoration and admiration is due to God, upon the account of this excellence. If he be God, he is to be reverenced, and the more highly reverenced, because he cannot but be God.

Again, what comfort could it be to pray to a god, that, like the chameleon, changed colours every day, every moment ? What encouragement could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day, and of another mind to-morrow ? Who would put up a petition to an earthly prince that were so mutable as to grant a petition one day, and deny it another, and change his own act ? But if a prince promise this or that thing upon such or such a condition, and you know his promise to be as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, would any man reason thus ; — because it is unchangeable, we will not seek to him, we will not perform the condition upon which the fruit of the proclamation is to be enjoyed ? — Who would not count such an inference ridiculous? What blessings hath not God pro mised upon the condition of seeking him ? Were he of an unrighteous nature, or changeable in his mind, this would be a bar to our seeking him,

* Daille, Melang. des Sermons, part ii. sect. i. p. 8-10, &c.

408 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.

and frustrate our hopes. But since it is otherwise, is not this excellency of his nature the highest encouragement to ask of him the blessings he hath promised, and a beam from heaven to fire our zeal in asking ? If you desire things against his will, which he hath declared he will not grant, prayer then would be an act of disobedience, an injury to him, as well as an act of folly in itself ; his unchangeableness then might stifle such desires. But if we ask according to his will, and according to our reasonable wants, what ground have we to make such a ridiculous argument ? He hath willed everything that may be for our good, if we perform the condition he hath required ; and hath put it upon record, that we may know it and regulate our desires and supplications according to it. If we will not seek him, his immutability cannot be a bar, but our own folly is the cause ; and by our neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us, and either imply that he is not sincere, and means not as he speaks ; or that he is as changeable as the wind, sometimes this thing, sometimes that, and not at all to be con fided in. If we ask according to his revealed will, the unchangeableness of his nature will assure us of the grant ; and what a presumption would it be in a creature dependent upon his sovereign, to ask that which he knows he has declared his will against, since there is no good we can want but he hath promised to give, upon our sincere and ardent desire for it.

God hath decreed to give this or that to man, but conditionally, and by the means of inquiring after him, and asking for it : Ezek. xxxvi. 37, Mat.

vii. 7, ' Ask, and you shall receive ;' as much as to say, You shall not receive unless you ask. When the highest promises are made, God expects they shall be put in suit. Our Saviour joins the promise and the petition together, the promise to encourage the petition, and the petition to enjoy the promise. He doth not say, perhaps it shall be given, but it shall, that is, it certainly shall ; your heavenly Father is unchangeably willing to give you those things. We must depend upon his immutability for the thing, and submit to his wisdom for the time. Prayer is an acknowledgment of our dependence upon God, which dependence could have no firm foundation without unchangeableness. Prayer doth not desire any change in God, but is offered to God that he would confer those things which he hath immu tably willed to communicate ; but he willed them not without prayer as the means of bestowing them. The light of the sun is ordered for our comfort, for the discovery of visible things, for the ripening the fruits of the earth ; but withal fcit is required that we use our faculty of seeing, that we employ our industry in sowing and planting, and expose our fruits to the view of the sun, that they may receive the influence of it. If a man shuts his eyes, and complains that the sun has changed into darkness, it would be ridiculous ; the sun is not changed, but we alter ourselves. Nor is God changed in not giving us the blessings he hath promised, because he hath promised in the way of a due address to him, and opening our souls to receive his influence ; and to this, his immutability is the greatest encouragement.

3. This shews how contrary man is to God, in regard of his inconstancy. What an infinite distance is there between the immutable God and mutable man, and how should we bewail this flittingness in our nature !

There is a mutability in us as creatures, and a creature cannot but be mutable by nature, otherwise it were not a creature, but (rod. The establish ment of any creature is from grace and gift. Naturally we tend to nothing,

as we come from nothing. This creature -mutability is not our sin, yet it should cause us to lie down under a sense of our own nothingness in the presence of the Creator. The angels, as creatures, though not corrupt, cover their faces before him. And the arguments God uses to humble Job,

PS. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 409

though a fallen creature, are not from his corruption, for I do not remember that he taxed him with that, but from the greatness of his majesty, and excellency of his nature declared in his works, Job xxxviii.-xli. And there fore men that have no sense of God, and humility before him, forget that they are creatures, as well as corrupt ones.

How great is the distance between God and us in regard of our incon stancy in good, which is not natural to us by creation ! For the mind and affections were regular, and by the great Artificer were pointed to God as the object of knowledge and love. We have the same faculties of under standing, will, and affection as Adam had in innocence ; but not with the same light, the same bias, and the same ballast. Man, by his fall, wounded his^head and heart ; the wound in his head made him unstable in the truth, and that in his heart unstedfast in his affections. He changed himself from the image of God to that of the devil, from innocence to corruption, and

from an ability to be stedfast to a perpetual inconstancy. His ' silver be came dross, and his wine was mixed with water,' Isa. i. 22. He changed,

(1.) To inconstancy in truth, opposed to the immutability of knowledge in God. How are our minds floating between ignorance and knowledge !

Truth in us is like those ephemera, creatures of a day's continuance, springs up in the morning and expires at night. How soon doth that fly away from us which we have had, not only some weak flashes of, but which we have

learned and had some relish of ! The devil « stood not in the truth,' John viii. 44, and therefore manages his engines to make us as unstable as him self. Our minds reel, and corrupt reasonings oversway us ; like sponges we suck up water, and a light compression makes us spout it out again. Truths are not engraven upon our hearts, but writ as in dust, defaced by the

next puff of wind: 'carried about with every wind of doctrine,' Eph. iv. 14, like a ship without a pilot and sails, at the courtesy of the next storm ; or like clouds, that are tenants to the wind and sun, moved by the wind, and melted by the sun. The Galatians were no sooner called into the grace of God, but they were removed from it, Gal. i. 6. Some have been reported to have menstruum fidem, kept an opinion for a month, and many are like

him that believed the soul's immortality no longer than he had Plato's book of that subject in his hand.* One likens such to children ; they play with truths as children do with babies, one while embrace them, and a little after throw them into the dirt. How soon do we forget what the truth is delivered to us, and what it represented us to be ! James i. 23, 24. Is it not a thing to be bewailed, that man should be such a weather-cock, turned about with every breath of wind, and shifting aspects as the wind shifts points ?

(2.) Inconstancy in will and affections, opposed to the immutability of will in God. We waver between God and Baal ; and while we are not only resolving, but upon motion a little way, look back with a hankering after

Sodom ; sometimes lifted up with heavenly intentions, and presently cast down with earthly cares ; like a ship that by an advancing wave seems to aspire to heaven, and the next fall of the wave makes it sink down to the depths. We change purposes oftener than fashions, and our resolutions are like letters in water, whereof no mark remains. We will be as John to-day to love Christ, and as Judas to-morrow to betray him, and by an unworthy levity pass into the camp of the enemies of God; resolved to be as holy as angels in the morning, when the evening beholds us as impure as devils. How often do we hate what before we loved, and shun what before we longed for ! And our resolutions are like vessels of crystal, which break at the

* Sedgwick, Christ's Counsel, p. 230.

410 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. Oil. 26, 27.

first knock, are dashed in pieces by the next temptation. Saul resolved not to persecute David any more, but you soon find him upon his old game. Pharaoh more than once promised, and probably resolved, to let Israel go ; but at the end of the storm his purposes vanish, Exod. viii. 27, 32. When an affliction pincheth men, they intend to change their course, and the next news of ease changes their intentions ; like a bow, not fully bent in their inclinations, they cannot reach the mark, but live many years between reso lutions of obedience and affections to rebellion, Ps. Ixxviii. 17 ; and what promises men make to God are often the fruit of their passion, their fear, not of their will. The Israelites were startled at the terrors wherewith the law was delivered, and promised obedience, Exod. xx. 19 ; but a month after forgat them, and made a golden calf, and in the sight of Sinai call for and dance before their gods, Exod. xxxii. Never people more inconstant. Peter, who vowed an allegiance to his Master, and a courage to stick to him, forswears him almost with the same breath. Those that cry out with

a zeal, ' The Lord he is God,' shortly after return to the service of their idols, 1 Kings xviii. 39. That which seems to be our pleasure this day, is our vexation to-morrow. A fear of a judgment puts us into a religious pang, and a love to our lusts reduceth us to a rebellious inclination ; as soon as the danger is over, the saint is forgotten. Salvation and damnation present themselves to us, touch us, and engender some weak wishes, which are dissolved by the next allurements of a carnal interest. No hold can be taken of our promises, no credit is to be given to our resolutions.

(3.) Inconstancy in practice. How much beginning in the Spirit and ending in the flesh ; one day in the sanctuary, another in the stews ; clear in the morning as the sun, and clouded before noon ; in heaven by an excellency

of gifts, in hell by a course of profaneness ! Like a flower, which some mention, that changes its colour three times a day, one part white, then purple, then yellow. The spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh

quickly triumphs over the spirit. In a good man, how often is there a spiritual lethargy ! Though he doth not openly defame God, yet he doth not always glorify him; he doth not forsake the truth, but he doth not always make the attainment of it, and settlement in it, his business. This

levity discovers itself in religious duties : « When I would do good, evil is present with me,' Rom. vii. 21. Never more present than when we have a mind to do good, and never more present than when we have a mind to do the best and greatest good. How hard is it to make our thoughts and affec tions keep their stand ! Place them upon a good object, and they will be frisking from it, as a bird from one bough, one fruit to another. We vary

postures according to the various objects we meet with. The course of the world is a very airy thing, suited to the uncertain motions of that prince of the power of the air which works in it, Eph. ii. 2.

This ought to be bewailed by us. Though we may stand fast in the truth, though we may spin our resolutions into a firm web, though the spirit may triumph over the flesh in our practice, yet we ought to bewail it, because inconstancy is our nature, and what fixedness we have in good is from grace. What we find practised by most men, is natural to all.* * As face answers to face in a glass, so doth heart to heart,' Prov. xxvii. 19 ; a face in the glass is not more like a natural face, whose image it is, than one man's heart is naturally like another.

First, It is natural to those out of the church. Nebuchadnezzar is so

affected with Daniel's prophetic spirit, that he would have none accounted the true God, but the God of Daniel, Dan. ii. 47. How soon doth this

* Lawrence of Faith, p. 262.

PS. OIL 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 411

notion slip from him, and an image must be set up for all to worship, upon

pain of a most cruel, painful death ! Daniel's God is quite forgotten. The miraculous deliverance of the three children for not worshipping his image, makes him settle a decree to secure the honour of God from the reproach of his subjects, Dan. iii. 29 ; yet a little while after, you have him strutting in his palace, as if there were no God but himself.

Secondly, It is natural to those in the church. The Israelites were the only church God had in the world, and a notable example of inconstancy. After the miracles of Egypt, they murmured against God, when they saw Pharaoh marching with an army at their heels. They desired food, and soon nauseated the manna they were before fond of. When they came into Canaan, they sometimes worshipped God, and sometimes idols, not only the idols of one nation, but of all their neighbours. In which regard God calls this his heritage a speckled bird, Jer. xii. 9, a peacock, saith Jerome, incon stant, made up of varieties of idolatrous colours and ceremonies.

This levity of spirit is the root of all mischief : it scatters our thoughts in the service of God ; it is the cause of all revolts and apostasies from him ; it makes us unfit to receive the communications of God ; whatsoever we hear is like words writ in sand, ruffled out by the next gale ; whatsoever is put into us is like precious liquour in a palsy hand, soon spilt. It breeds dis trust of God ; when we have an uncertain judgment of him, we are not like to confide in him. An uncertain judgment will be followed with a distrust ful heart. In fine, where it is prevalent, it is a certain sign of ungodliness ; to be driven with the wind like chaff, and to be ungodly, is all one in tha judgment of the Holy Ghost : Ps. i. 4, « The ungodly are like the chaff which

the wind drives away,' which signifies not their destruction, but their dispo sition, for their destruction is inferred from it, ver. 5, « Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judgment.'

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 !

4. If God be immutable, it is 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 ; it is 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 wicked ness 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 was changeable by the crime of man

violating it, yet it was unchangeable in regard of God's justice vindicat ing 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. Though there were no more rational creatures in being but

412 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GIL 26, 27.

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 unchangeable as that in the first, only repent ance is settled as the condition of the second, which was not indulged in the first ; and without repentance the sinner must irrevocably perish, or God must change his nature. There must be a change in man, there can be none in God : ' His bow is bent, his arrows are ready, if the wicked do not

turn,' Ps. vii. 12. There is not an atheist, an hypocrite, a profane person, that ever was upon the earth, but God's soul abhorred him as such, and the like he will abhor for ever. While any therefore continue so, they may sooner expect the heavens should roll as they please, the sun stand still at their order, the stars change their course at their beck, than that God should change his nature, which is opposite to profaneness and vanity : * Who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered ?' Job ix. 4. Use 2. Of comfort.

The immutability of a good God is a strong ground of consolation. Sub jects wish a good prince to live for ever, as being loath to change him, but

care not how soon they are rid of an oppressor. This unchangeableness of

God's will shews him as ready to accept any that come to him as ever he was, so that we may with confidence make our addresses to him, since he cannot change his affections to goodness. The fear of change in a friend hinders a full reliance upon him; an assurance of stability encourages hope and confidence. This attribute is the strongest prop for faith in all our addresses; it is not a single perfection, but the glory of all those that belong

to his nature ; for he is ' unchangeable in his love,' Jer. xxxi. 8 ; ' in his truth,' Ps. cxvii. 2. The more solemn revelation of himself in this name Jehovah, which signifies chiefly his eternity and immutability, was to sup

port the Israelites' faith, in expectation of a deliverance from Egypt, that he had not retracted his purpose, and his promise made to Abraham for giving Canaan to his posterity. Exod. iii. 14-17. Herein is the basis and strength of all his promises ; therefore saith the psalmist, ' Those that know thy name will put their trust in thee,' Ps. ix. 10 ; those tha^ are spiritually acquainted with thy name Jehovah, and have a true sense of it upon their hearts, will put their trust in thee. His goodness could not be distrusted, if his unchangeableness were well apprehended and considered. All distrust would fly before it as darkness before the sun ; it only gets advantage of us when we are not well grounded in his name ; and if ever we trusted God, we have the same reason to trust him for ever : Isa. xxvi. 4, * Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength,' or as it is in the Hebrew, ' a rock of ages ; ' that is, perpetually unchangeable. We find the traces of God's immutability in the creatures; he has by his peremptory decree set bounds to the sea : * Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,' Job xxxviii. 11. Do we fear the sea overflowing us in this island ? No, because of his fixed decree. And is not his promise in his word as unchangeable as his word concerning inanimate things, as good a ground to rest upon ?

1. The covenant stands unchangeable. Mutable creatures break their

leagues and covenants, and snap them asunder like Samson's cords, when they are not accommodated to their interests. But an unchangeable God keeps his : ' The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed ; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, nor shall the covenant of my

peace be removed,' Isa. liv. 10. The heaven and earth shall sooner fall asunder, and the strongest and firmest parts of the creation crumble to dust,

PS. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 418

sooner than one iota of my covenant shall fail. It depends upon the unchangeableness of his will, and the unchangeableness of his word, and therefore is called ' the immutability of his counsel,' Heb. vi. 17. It is the fruit of the everlasting purpose of God, whence the apostle links purpose and grace together, 2 Tim. i. 9. A covenant with a nation may be change able, because it may not be built upon the eternal purpose of God to put

his fear in the heart, but with respect to the creature's obedience. Thus God chose Jerusalem as the place wherein he would dwell for ever, Ps. cxxxii. 14, yet he threatens to depart from them, when they had broken covenant with him, and ' the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of

the city to the mountain on the east side,' Ezek. xi. 23. The covenant of grace doth not run, « I will be your God, if you will be my people ; ' but ' I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' Hosea ii. 19, &c., « I will betroth thee to me for ever ; I will say, Thou art my people ; and they

shall say, Thou art my God.' His everlasting purpose is to write his laws in the hearts of the elect. He puts a condition to his covenant of grace, the condition of faith, and ho resolves to work that condition in the hearts of the elect ; and therefore believers have two immutable pillars for their support, stronger than those erected by Solomon at the porch of the temple, 1 Kings vii. 21, called Jachin and Boaz, to note thejfirmness of that building dedicated to God : these are election, or the standing counsel of

God, and the covenant of grace. He will not revoke the covenant, and blot the names of his elect out of the book of life.

2. Perseverance is ascertained. It consists not with the majesty of God

to call a person effectually to himself to-day, to make him fit for his eternal love, to give him faith, and take away that faith to-morrow ; his effectual call is the fruit of his eternal election, and that counsel hath no other foun dation but his constant and unchangeable will ; a foundation that stands sure, and therefore called the foundation of God, and not of the creature ;

1 the foundation of God stands sure, the Lord knows who are his,' 2 Tim. ii. 19. It is not founded upon our own natural strength, it may be then subject to change, as all the products of nature are ; the fallen angels had

created grace jn their innocency, but lost it by their fall.* Were this the foundation of the creature, it might soon be shaken, since man after his

revolt can ascribe nothing constant to himself but his own inconstancy; but the foundation is not in the infirmity of nature, but the strength of grace, and of the grace of God who is immutable, who wants not virtue to be able, nor kindness to be willing, to preserve his own foundation. To what purpose

doth our Saviour tell his disciples their * names were written in heaven,' Luke x. 20, but to mark the infallible certainty of their salvation by an opposition to those things which perish and have their names written in the earth, Jer. xvii. 18, or upon the sand, where they may be defaced ? And why should Christ order his disciples to rejoice that their names were written in heaven, if God were changeable to blot them out again ? Or why should the apostle assure us that though God had rejected the greatest part of the Jews, he had not therefore rejected his people elected according to his pur pose and immutable counsel, because there are none of the elect of God but

will come to salvation ; for, saith he, ' the election hath obtained it,' Eom. xi. 7 ; that is, all those that are of the election have obtained it, and the others are hardened. Where the seal of sanctification is stamped it is a

testimony of God's election, and that foundation shall stand true. ' The foundation of the Lord stands sure, having this seal, the Lord knows who

are his ;' that is, the foundation, the ' naming the name of Christ,' or believ-

* Turretine, Ser. p. 322.

414 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.

ing in Christ and * departing from iniquity,' is the seal.* As it is impos sible when God calls those things that are not, but that they should spring up into being and appear before him, so it is impossible but that the seed of God by his eternal purpose should be brought to a spiritual life ; and that

calling cannot be retracted, for that * gift and calling is without repentance,' Rom. xi. 29. And when repentance is removed from God in regard of some works, the immutability of those works is declared ; and the reason of that immutability is their pure dependence on the eternal favour and unchange

able grace of God, ' purposed in himself,' Eph. i. 9, 11, and not upon the mutability of the creature. Hence their happiness is not as patents among men, quamdiu bene se gesserint, so long as they behave themselves well, but they have a promise, that they shall behave themselves so as never wholly

to depart from God : Jer. xxxii. 40, ' I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good ; but I

will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.' God will not turn from them, to do them good, and promiseth that they shall not turn from him for ever or forsake him. And the bottom of it is the everlasting covenant, and therefore believing and sealing, for security, are linked together, Eph. i. 13. And when God doth inwardly teach us his

law, he puts in a will not to depart from it : Ps. cxix. 102, « I have not departed from thy judgments.' What is the reason ? « For thou hast

taught me.' 3. By this, eternal happiness is ensured. This is the inference made from the eternity and unchangeableness of God in the verse following the text : ver. 28, ' The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.' This is the sole conclusion drawn from those perfections of God solemnly asserted before. The children which the prophets and apostles have begotten to thee, shall be totally delivered from the relics of their apostasy and the punishment due to them, and rendered

partakers of immortality with thee, as sons to dwell in their Father's house for ever. The Spirit begins a spiritual life here, to fit for an immutable life in glory hereafter, where believers shall be placed upon a throne that cannot be shaken, and possess a crown that shall not be taken off their heads for ever.

Use 3. Of exhortation. 1. Let a sense of the changeableness and uncertainty of all other things beside God be upon us. There are as many changes as there are figures in the world. The whole fashion of the world is a transient thing ; every man

may say as Job, ' Changes and war are against me,' Job x. 17. Lot chose the plain of Sodom, because it was the richer soil ; he was but a little time there before he was taken prisoner, and his substance made the spoil of his enemy. That is again restored ; but a while after, fire from heaven devours his wealth, though his person was secured from the judgment by a special providence. We burn with a desire to settle ourselves, but mistake the way, and build castles in the air, which vanish like bubbles of soap in water.

And therefore,

(1.) Let not our thoughts dwell much upon them. Do but consider those souls that are in the possession of an unchangeable God, that behold his never-fading glory. Would it not be a kind of hell to them, to have their thoughts starting out to these things, or find any desire in themselves to the changeable trifles of the earth ? Nay, have we not reason to think that they cover their faces with shame, that ever they should have such a weakness of

spirit when they were here below, as to spend more thoughts upon them than * Cocceius.

PS. GIL 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 415

were necessary for this present life, much more that they should, at any time, value and court them above an unchangeable good ? Do they not disdain themselves, that they should ever debase the immutable perfections of God, as to have neglecting thoughts of him at any time, for the entertainment of such a mean and inconstant rival ?

(2.) Much less should we trust in them or rejoice in them. The best things are mutable, and things of such a nature are not fit objects of confi dence. Trust not in riches ; they have their wanes as well as increases. They rise sometimes like a torrent, and flow in upon men ; but resemble also a torrent in as sudden a fall and departure, and leave nothing but slime behind them. Trust not in honour ; all the honour and applause in the world is no better than an inheritance of wind, which the pilot is not sure of, but shifts from one corner to another, and stands not perpetually in the same point of the heavens. How in a few ages did the house of David, a

great monarch, and a man after God's own heart, descend to a mean condi tion, and all the glory of that house shut up in the stock of a carpenter !

David's sheep-hook was turned into a sceptre, and the sceptre, by the same hand of providence, turned into a hatchet in Joseph his descendant.

Rejoice not immoderately in wisdom ; that and learning languish with age. A wound in the head may impair that which is the glory of a man. If an

organ be out of frame, folly may succeed, and all a man's prudence be wound up in an irrecoverable dotage. Nebuchadnezzar was no fool, yet by a sudden hand of God he became, not only a fool or a madman, but a kind of brute. Rejoice not in strength ; that decays, and a mighty man may live to see his

strong arm withered, and a ' grasshopper to become a burden,' Eccles. xii. 5. ' The strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders shall cease because they are few,' ver. 8. Nor rejoice in children ; they are like birds upon a tree, that make a little chirping music, and presently fall into the fowler's net. Little did Job expect such sad news as the loss of all his progeny at a blow, when the messenger knocked at his gate. And such changes happen oftentimes, when our expectations of comfort, and a contentment in them, are at the highest. How often doth a string crack when the musician hath wound it up to a just height for a tune, and all his pains and delight marred in a moment ! Nay, all these things change while we are using them, like ice that melts between our fingers, and flowers that wither while we are smelling to them. The apostle gave them a good title, when he called them

* uncertain riches,' and thought it a strong argument to dissuade them from trusting in them, 1 Tim. vi. 17. The wealth of the merchant depends upon the winds and waves, and the revenue of the husbandman upon the clouds ; and since they depend upon those things which are used to express the most changeableness, they can be no fit object for trust. Besides, God sometimes

' kindles a fire under all a man's glory,' Isa. x. 16, which doth insensibly consume it ; and while we have them, the fear of losing them renders us not very happy in the fruition of them. We can scarce tell whether they are contentments or no, because sorrow follows them so close at the heels. It

is not an unnecessary exhortation for good men ; the best men have been apt to place too much trust in them. David thought himself immutable in his prosperity ; and such thoughts could not be without some immoderate outlets of the heart to them, and confidences in them. And Job promised

himself to 'die in his nest,' and ' multiply his days as the sand,' without any interruption, Job xxix. 18, 19, &c. ; but he was mistaken and disappointed.

Let me add this : trust not in men, who are as inconstant as anything else, and often change their most ardent affections into implacable hatred ; and though their affections may not be changed, their power to help you may.

416 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GIL 26, 27.

Hainan's friends, that depended on him one day, were crest-fallen the next, when their patron was to exchange his chariot of state for an ignominious

gallows.

(3.) Prefer an immutable God before mutable creatures. Is it not a hor rible thing to see what we are, and what we possess, daily crumbling to dust,

and in a continual flux from us, and not seek out something that is perma nent, and always abides the same, for our portion ? In God, or Wisdom, which is Christ, there is substance, Prov. viii. 21, in which respect he is opposed to all the things in the world, that are but shadows, that are shorter or longer, according to the motion of the sun ; mutable also, by every little body that intervenes. God is subject to no decay within, to no force without ; nothing in his own nature can change him from what he is, and there is no power above can hinder him from being what he will to the soul. He is an ocean of all perfection. He wants nothing without himself to render him blessed, which may allure him to a change. His creatures can want nothing out of him to make them happy, whereby they may be enticed

to prefer anything before him. If we enjoy other things, it is by God's donation, who can as well withdraw them as bestow them ; and it is but a reasonable as well as a necessary thing to endeavour the enjoyment of the immutable Benefactor rather than his revocable gifts.

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 unchange able 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, Dan. xi. 35 ; it is not in the power of the sufferer's will to shorten it, nor in the power of the enemy's will to lengthen it. Whatsoever doth happen hath been decreed by God : Eccles. vi. 10, ' That which hath been is named already ;' therefore to murmur, or be discontented, is to contend with God, who is mightier than we to maintain his own pur poses. God doth act all things conveniently for that immutable end in tended by himself, and according to the reason of his own divine will, in the true point of time most proper for it and for us, not too soon or too slow, because he is unchangeable in knowledge and wisdom. God doth not act anything barely by an immutable will, but by an immutable wisdom and an unchangeable rule of goodness ; and therefore we should not only acquiesce in what he works, but have a complacency in it ; and by having our wills thus knitting themselves with the immutable will of God, we attain some degree of likeness to him in his own unchangeableness. When, therefore, God hath manifested his will in opening his decree to the world by his work of providence, we must cease all disputes against it, and with Aaron hold

our peace, though the affliction be very smart, Lev. x. 3 : 'All flesh must be silent before God,' Zech. ii. 13 ; for whatsoever is his counsel shall stand,

PS. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OP GOD. 401

event which was not foreseen, or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the thing which was acted by the person repenting. But God is so wise that he cannot err, so holy he cannot do evil, and his certain prescience or foreknowledge secures him against any unexpected events. God doth not act but upon clear and infallible reason. And a change upon passion is accounted by all so great a weakness in man, that none can entertain so unworthy a conceit of God. Where he is said to repent, Gen. vi. 6, he is also said to grieve ; now no proper grief can be imagined to be in God. As repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight, so is grief no less incon

sistent with undefiled blessedness : « God is blessed for ever,' Bom. ix. 8, and therefore nothing can befall him that can stain that blessedness ; his blessedness would be impaired and interrupted, while he is repenting,

though he did soon rectify that which is the cause of his repentance : ' God

is of one mind, and who can turn him ? what his soul desires, that he doth,' Job xxiii. 13.

2. But God accommodates himself in the Scripture to our weak capacity. God hath no more of a proper repentance than he hath of a real body : though he, in accommodation to our weakness, ascribes to himself the members of our bodies to set out to our understanding the greatness of his perfections, we must not conclude him a body like us ; so, because he is said to have anger and repentance, we must not conclude him to have pas sions like us. When we cannot fully comprehend him as he is, he clothes himself with our nature in his expressions, that we may apprehend him as we are able, and, by an inspection into ourselves, learri something of the nature of God ; yet those human ways of speaking ought to be understood in a manner agreeable to the infinite excellency and majesty of God, and are only designed to mark out something in God which hath a resemblance with some thing in us. As we cannot speak to God as gods, but as men, so we cannot

understand^ him speaking to us as a God, unless he condescends to speak to us like a man. God therefore frames his language to our dulness, not to his own state, and informs us, by our own phrases, what he would have us learn of his nature, as nurses talk broken language to young children. In all such expressions, therefore, we must ascribe the perfection we conceive in them to God, and lay the imperfection at the door of the creature.

8. Therefore repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct, according to his infallible foresight and immutable will. He changes the

way of his providential proceeding according to the carriage of the creature, without changing his will, which is the rule of his providence. When God speaks of his repenting that he had made man, Gen. vi. 6, it is only his chang ing his conduct from a way of kindness to a way of severity, and is a word suited to our capacities, to signify his detestation of sin and his resolution to punish it, after man had made himself quite another thing than God had made him. ' It repents me,' that is, I am purposed to destroy the world, as he that repents of his work throws it away ; * as if a potter cast away the vessel he had framed, it were a testimony that he repented that ever he took pains about it ; so the destruction of them seems to be a repentance in God that ever he made them, it is a change of events, not of counsels. Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact, and a changing of our course in it. Grief is not in God,f but his repentance is a willing a thing should not be as it was, which will was fixed from eternity ; for, God foreseeing man would fall, and decreeing to permit it, he could not be said to repent in time of what he did not repent from eternity ; and, therefore, if there were no repentance in God from eternity, there could be none in time ; but

* Mercer in loc. t Petayius Theol. Dogmat VOL. I. 0 C

402 ' CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GIL 26, 27.

God is said to repent when he changes the disposition of affairs without himself; as men when they repent alter the course of their actions, so God alters things extra se, or without himself, but changes nothing of his own purpose within himself ; it rather notes the action he is about to do than

anything in his own nature, or any change in his eternal purpose. God's repenting of his kindness is nothing but an inflicting of punishment, which the creature, by the change of his carriage, hath merited ; as his repenting

of the evil threatened is the withholding the punishment denounced, when the creature hath humbly submitted to his authority and acknowledged his

crime.

Or else we may understand those expressions of joy, and grief, and re

pentance to signify thus much,* that the things declared to be the objects of joy, and grief, and repentance are of that nature that if God were capable of our passions he would discover himself in such cases as we do ; as when the prophets mention the joys and applaudings of heaven, earth, and the sea, they only signify that the things they speak of are so good, that, if the heavens and the sea had natures capable of joy, they would express it upon that occasion in such a manner as we do ; so would God have joy at the obedience of men, and grief at the unworthy carriage of men, and repent of his kindness when men abuse it, and repent of his punishment when men reform under his rod, were the majesty of his nature capable of such affections.

Prop. 4. The not fulfilling of some predictions in Scripture, which seem to imply a changeableness of the divine will, do not argue any change in it. As when he reprieved Hezekiah from death, after a message cent by the prophet Isaiah that he should die, 2 Kings xx. 1, 5, Isa. xxxviii. 1, 5, and when he made an arrest of that judgment he had threatened by Jonah against Nineveh, Jonah iii. 4, 10.

There is not, indeed, the same reason of promises and threatenings alto gether, for in promising the obligation lies upon God, and the right to de mand is in the party that performs the condition of the promise ; but in

threatenings the obligation lies upon the sinner, and God's right to punish is declared thereby ; so that, though God doth not punish, his will is not changed, because his will was to declare the demerit of sin, and his right to punish upon the commission of it, though he may not punish, according to the strict letter of the threatening, the person sinning, but relax his own law for the honour of his attributes, and transfer the punishment from the offender to a person substituted in his room ; this was the case in the first threatening against man, and the substituting a surety in the place of the malefactor.

But the answer to these cases is this,f that where we find predictions in Scripture declared and yet not executed, we must consider them not as absolute, but conditional, or, as the civil law calls it, an interlocutory sentence. God declared what would follow by natural causes, or by the de merit of man, not what he would absolutely himself do ; and in many of those predictions, though the condition be not expressed, yet it is to be understood ; so the promises of God are to be understood with the condi

tion of perseverance in well-doing, and threatenings with a clause of revoca tion annexed to them, provided that men repent. And this God lays down as a general case, alway to be remembered as a rule for the interpreting his threatenings against a nation, and the same reason will hold in threaten ings against a particular person : Jer. xviii. 7-10, * At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up,

* Daille, in Sermon on 2 Peter iii. 9, p. 60. t Rivet in Genes, exercita. 51, p. 213.

PS. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 403

and pull down, and destroy it ; if that nation against whom I have pro nounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do

unto them ; ' and so, when he speaks of planting a nation, if they do evil he will repent of the good, &c. It is a universal rule by which all particular

cases of this nature are to be tried, so that when man's repentance arrives, God remains firm in his first will, always equal to himself, and it is not he that changes, but man ; for since the interposition of the mediator, with an eye to whom God governed the world after the fall, the right of punishing was taken off if men repented, and mercy was to flow out, if, by a conversion, men returned to their duty, Ezek. xviii. 20, 21. This I say is grounded

So Nineveh shall be destroyed, that is, according to the general rule, unless the inhabitants repent, which they did ; they manifested a belief of the threatening, and gave glory to God by giving credit to the prophet ; and they had a notion of this rule God lays down in the other prophets, for they had an apprehension that, upon their humbling themselves, they might escape the threatened vengeance, and stop the shooting those arrows that were ready in the bow.* Though Jonah proclaimed destruction without declaring any hopes of an arrest of judgment, yet their natural notions of God afforded some natural hopes of relief, if they did their duty, and spurned not against

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