SERM.changed: But God who effects all changes in VI. nature, is himself the fame, and his years shall have no end. The first of Beings uncaused by any other, exifts in a way fuperior to, and more excellent than all others; all the periods of beginningless and endless eternity are connected in him; there never was any time when he was not, and he fhall endure for ever.

As imperfect as our knowledge is of the effence and perfections of the Deity, we cannot but be convinc'd by our own reason, that immutability is imported in, or is a confequence from his eternity, as it has been explain'd, that is, from an eternal, unçaused, neceffary existence. That which had neither beginning nor cause, which is the true meaning of abfolute eternity, cannot be depriv'd of its being by any power, nor be liable to any change. Other things may continue to eternity, always depending on the pleasure of their Maker. For the power which created can annihilate their substance, as well as alter their forms. That only which has no precarious existence, and does not owe its being, nor any of its perfections to an external cause, has a fixed immutable permanence of being, in itfelf abfolutely uncapable of any alteration: and this being peculiar to the Divine nature, that it is felf-original, and depends upon no

thing,

thing, it can be subject to no power, nor everSER M. be affected by any thing. VI.

The natural perfections of the Deity, his power, and knowledge, and wisdom, not depending even upon his own will, as they are derived from no other cause, but included in his Effence itself, muft be, like it, invariable. It is impoffible they fhould ever cease to be, or fuffer any diminution, being the efsential characters whereby he is what he is; fo that they must be, as his existence, neceffary, to everlasting as well as from everlasting, liable to no influence from without, uncapable of any change within himself, impaired by no time, nor limited by any periods of eternal duration. The moral attributes indeed, fuch as Holiness, Goodness, Justice and Veracity, are of fomewhat a different confideration, and our way of thinking concerning them does not lead us to the fame notion of their immutability. We have a very clear and determinate idea of moral rectitude; but it carries in it free agency, and is in ourselves and other inferior moral agents, accompanied with a poffibility of doing wrong. How then moral perfections should be effential to any being, always free in their exercise, depending on the will, and yet fo neceffary as to be abfolutely immutable; this is hard N 4 for

SERM. for us to conceive. At the fame time, as VI. moral goodness is neceffarily high in the esteem

of the human mind, fo that we cannot account any being abfolutely perfect without it; and every property of the Divine nature, proceeding from no external cause, must belong to it in a manner which we cannot comprehend, different from the limited and derived qualities of all inferior beings; we must conclude that the moral perfections of the Supreme Being are, like his other attributes, effential, neceffary and eternal, tho' the manner of their being fo, is to us incomprehensible. And fince this does not arife from any defect of power, knowledge or wisdom, but on the contrary, from the infinite fulness of all real perfection, the unchangeableness of the Divine moral attributes does not leffen, but heighten the glory: Which is plain from this confideration, that every one will acknowledge that the more mutable any good moral character or difpofitions are, the less valuable; and the more steady any perfon is in goodness, the more excellent. It is therefore a very amiable representation which the fcripture gives us of the Juftice of God, that it is like the great mountains *ftedfaft and unmoveable; of his truth, that it endureth for ever†; and of his

* Psal, xxxvi. 6.

goodness,

+ Pfal. cxvii. 2.

VI.

goodness, that it endureth continually*; and SERM. with the Father of lights, from whom good and perfect gift cometh down, there is no variableness nor fhadow of turning †.

every

But let us confider a little farther, how our minds may be affifted in forming conceptions, (which tho' weak and inadequate yet may be ufeful,) of the immutable Divine eternity, or of duration always paffing, as it is applied to the Supreme Being, with whom there is no change. It has been already observ'd, and ought to be always remember'd, that the fubject is above our comprehenfion. How is it to be imagin'd, that a finite understanding can form an adequate idea of that which is actually and pofitively infinite? That eternity is beyond the reach of our understandings, will ftill appear more plainly, when we confider how they come by the idea of duration itself, and proceed upon it. It takes its rife from the fucceffion which we obferve in our own thoughts; it is enlarg'd, and time is measured, that is di stinguish'd into longer and shorter periods, by the regular fucceffive motion of certain bodies, fuch as the fun and the moon; but imagination draws it out beyond all we know to have actually pafs'd, or beyond all the measures convey'd to our knowledge by means of the fenfes

* Pfal. lii. 1.

+ Jam.i. 17.

or

SERM. or reflection, still with a conceived poffibility VI. of addition. So that by this method, we can only attain to a negative idea of eternity, as a duration which is indeterminable, or to which no limits can be set; just as from circumfcrib'd corporeal magnitude, we take our rise to the idea of infinite extenfion, which is negative, like the other; but our reason convinces us of fomething positive in both, which we call infinity.

Now the Divine eternity being thus incomprehenfible, we must rest satisfied with a very imperfect knowledge of it. Some have reprefented it as excluding all manner of fucceffion, which they apprehend to be inconsistent with the abfolute perfection of the Supreme Being, to whom there can be no past and future, but all things must be ever present to him with whom there is no variablenefs. Befides, they imagine there cannot be an eternal fucceffive duration, for the reafons mentioned before, fuch as that an infinite fucceffion paft seems to be inconceivable, and that this would be to fuppofe greater and leffer in infinity. Therefore they call eternity as attributed to God, a standing point, which comprehends all poffible duration, and coexifts with time and all its changes, but does not pass, like it. But this feems to be utter

ly