miracles had been demonstrations of his settled will to deliver them. Let nothing snatch our hearts to a contradiction to him, but let us fear and give glory to him, when the hour of judgment, which he has appointed, is come, Rev. xiv. 7; that is, comply with the unchangeable will of his precept, the more he declares the immutable will of his providence: we must not think, God must disgrace his nature and change his proceedings for us: better the creature should suffer, than God be impaired in any of his perfections. If God changed his purpose he would change his nature. Patience is the way to perform the immutable will of God, and a means to attain a gracious immutability for ourselves by receiving the promise. "Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise," Heb. x. 36.

[3.] This doctrine will teach us to imitate God in this perfection by striving to be immovable in goodness. God never goes back from himself, he finds nothing better than himself for which he should change; and can we find any thing better than God to allure our hearts to a change from him? The sun never declines from the ecliptic line, nor should we from the paths of holiness. A steadfast obedience is encouraged by an unchangeable God to reward it: "Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord," 1 Cor. xv. 58. Unsteadfastness is the note of a hypocrite, Psal. lxxviii. 37. Steadfastness is that which is good, is the mark of a saint; it is the character of a righteous person to keep the truth, Isa. xxvi. 2; and it is as positively said, that he that abides not in the doctrine of Christ has not God, but he that does, has both the Father and the Son, 2 John 9. So much of uncertainty as there is, so much of nature; so much of firmness in duty, so much of grace. We can never honour God unless we finish his work; as Christ did not glorify God but in finishing the work God gave him to do, John xvii. 4. The nearer the world comes to an end, the more is God's immutability seen in his promises and predictions, and the more must our unchangeableness be seen in our obedience: "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering:-and so much the more as ye see the day approaching," Heb. x. 23, 25. The Christian Jews were to be the more tenacious of their faith, the nearer they saw the day approaching, the day of Jerusalem's destruction prophesied by Daniel, Dan. ix. 26; which accomplishment must be a great argument to establish the Christian Jews in the profession of Christ to be the Messiah; because the destruction of the city was not to be before the cutting off the Messiah. Let us be therefore constant in our profession

and service of God, and not suffer ourselves to be driven from him by the ill usage, or flattered from him by the caresses of of the world.

It is reasonable. If God be unchangeable in doing us good, it is reason we should be unchangeable in doing him service; if he assure us that he is our God, our "I am," he would also that we should be his people. His we are. If he declare himself constant in his promises, he expects we should be so in our obedience. As a spouse, we should be unchangeably faithful to him as a Husband; as subjects, have an unchangeable allegiance to him as our Prince. He would not have us faithful to him for an hour or a day, but to the death, Rev. ii. 10. And it is reason we should be his: and if we be his children, imitate him in his constancy of his holy purposes.

It is our glory and interest. To be a reed shaken with every wind, is no commendation among men, and it is less a ground of praise with God. It was Job's glory, that he held fast his integrity: "In all this Job sinned not," Job i. 22. In all this, which whole cities and kingdoms would have thought ground enough of high exclamations against God. And also against the temptation of his wife, he retained his integrity: "Dost thou still retain thine integrity?" Job ii. 9. The devil, who by God's permission stripped him of his goods and health, yet could not strip him of his grace. As a traveller, when the wind and snow beat in his face, wraps his cloak more closely about him to preserve that and himself. Better we had never made profession, than afterwards to abandon it; such a withering profession serves for no other use than to aggravate the crime, if any of us fly like a coward or revolt like a traitor. What profit will it be to a soldier, if he has withstood many assaults and turn his back at last? If we would have God crown us with an immutable glory, we must crown our beginnings with a happy perseverance: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," Rev. ii. 10. Not as though this were the cause to merit it, but a necessary condition to possess Constancy in good is accompanied with an immutability of glory.

By an unchangeable disposition to good we should begin the happiness of heaven upon earth. This is the perfection of blessed spirits, those that are nearest to God, as angels and glorified souls; they are immutable, not indeed by nature, but by grace; yet not only by a necessity of grace, but a liberty of will. Grace will not let them change; and that grace does animate their wills that they would not change; an immutable God fills their understandings and affections, and gives satisfaction to their desires. The saints when they were below, tried other things and found them deficient. But now, they are so fully

satisfied with the beatific vision, that if Satan should have entrance among the angels and sons of God, it is not likely he should have any influence upon them; he could not present to their understandings any thing that could, either at the first glance or upon a deliberate view, be preferable to what they enjoy and are fixed in.

Well then, let us be immovable in the knowledge and love of God. It is the delight of God to see his creatures resemble him in what they are able. Let not our affections to him be as Jonah's gourd, growing up one night and withering the next. Let us not only fight a good fight, but do so till we have finished our course, and imitate God in an unchangeableness of holy purposes; and to that purpose, examine ourselves daily what fixedness we have arrived unto; and to prevent any temptation to a revolt, let us often possess our minds with thoughts of the immutability of God's nature and will, which like fire under water, will keep a good matter boiling up in us, and make it both retain and increase its heat.

Let this doctrine teach us to have recourse to God, and aim at a near conjunction with him. When our spirits begin to flag, and a cold anguish temper is drawing upon us, let us go to him, who only can fix our hearts, and furnish us with a ballast to render them steadfast. As he only is immutable in his nature, so he is the only principle of immutability as well as being in the creature. Without his grace, we shall be as changeable in our appearances as a chameleon, and in our turnings as the wind. When Peter trusted in himself, he changed to the worse: it was his Master's recourse to God for him that preserved in him a reducing principle, which changed him again for the better and fixed him in it, Luke xxii. 32.

It will be our interest to be in conjunction with him, that moves not about with the heavens, nor is turned by the force of nature, nor changed by the accidents in the world; but sits in the heavens, moving all things by his powerful arm, according to his infinite skill. While we have him for our God, we have his immutability as well as any other perfection of his nature for our advantage; the nearer we come to him, the more stability we shall have in ourselves; the further from him, the more liable to change. The line that is nearest to the place where it is first fixed, is least subject to motion; the further it is stretched from it, the weaker it is, and more liable to be shaken. Let us also affect those things which are nearest to him in this perfection; the righteousness of Christ that shall never wear out, and the graces of the Spirit that shall never burn out; by this means what God is infinitely by nature, we shall come to be finitely by grace immutable, as far as the capacity of a creature can contain.

DISCOURSE VII.

ON GOD'S OMNIPRESENCE.

JER. xxiii. 24.-Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?

saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.

THE occasion of this discourse begins ver. 16, where God admonishes the people not to hearken to the words of the false prophets which spake a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They made the people vain by their insinuations of peace, when God had proclaimed war and calamity; and uttered the dreams of their fancies, and not the visions of the Lord; and so turned the people from the expection of the evil day which God had threatened: "They say still unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you," ver. 17. And they invalidate the prophecies of those whom God had sent: "Who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word and heard it?" "Who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord?" ver 18. Are they acquainted with the secrets of God more than we? Who have the word of the Lord, if we have not? Or, it may be a continuation of God's admonition :-Believe not those prophets; for who of them have been acquainted with the secrets of God? or by what means should they learn his counsel? No; assure yourselves, "a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked," ver. 19. A whirlwind shall come from Babylon, it is just at the door, and shall not be blown over, it shall fall with a witness upon the wicked people, and the deceiving prophets, and sweep them together into captivity. For ver. 20 says, "The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart." My fury shall not be a childish fury that quickly languisheth, but shall accomplish whatsoever I threaten; and burn so hot, as not to be cool till I have satisfied my vengeance; "in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly," ver. 20; when the storm shall beat upon you, you shall then know, that the calamities shall answer the words you have heard. When the conqueror shall waste your grounds, demolish your houses, and manacle your hands, then shall you consider it, and have the wishes of fools, that you had had your eyes in your heads before; you

shall then know the falseness of your guides, and the truth of my prophets, and discern who stood in the counsel of the Lord, and shall subscribe to the messages I have sent you.

Some understand this not only of the Babylonish captivity, but refer it to the time of Christ, and the false doctrine of men's own righteousness in opposition to the righteousness of God; understanding this verse to be partly a threatening of wrath, which shall end in an advantage to the Jews, who shall in the latter time consider the falseness of their notions about a legal righteousness. Thus they make it a promise; they shall then know the intent of the Scripture, and in the latter days, the latter end of the world, when time shall be near the rolling up, they shall reflect upon themselves; they shall look upon him whom they have pierced; and till these latter days, they shall be hardened, and believe nothing of evangelical truths.

Now God denies that he sent those prophets; "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied," ver. 21. They have intruded themselves without a commission from me, whatsoever their brags are. The reason to prove it is, if they had stood in my counsel, if they had been instructed and inspired by me, they would have caused my people to hear my words; they would have regulated themselves according to my word, and have turned them from their evil way, ver. 22: that is, endeavoured to shake down their false confidences of peace, and make them sensible of their false notions of me and my ways. Now because those false prophets could not be so impudent as to boast, that they prophesied in the name of God, when they had not commission from him, unless they had some secret sentiment, that they and their intentions were hid from the knowledge and eye of God; he adds, "Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? ver. 23, 24. Have I not the power of seeing and knowing what they do, what they design, what they think? Why should I not have such a power, since I fill heaven and earth by my essence? "Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off?" He excludes here the doctrine of those that excluded the providence of God from extending itself to the inferior things of the earth; which error was ancient, as ancient as the time of Job, as appears by their opinion, that God's eyes were hoodwinked and muffled by the thickness of the clouds, and could not pierce through their dark and dense body: "Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not," Job. xxii. 14. Some refer it to time.1 Do you imagine me a God new framed like your idols, beginning a little time ago, and not existing before the foundation of the world; yea, from eter

1 Munster, Vatablus, Castalio, Oecolamp.