attention to something in him faintly analogous to something in us.

All such expressions refer rather to the visible acts of his government in regard to his intelligent creatures, than to his own nature. Thus, when God is said to repent-to repent of having made man on the earth, while it implies the very strongest abhorrence of sin, it signifies a changing of his conduct from kindness to severity. His providence assumed an awful aspect towards mankind, and soon brought on them the deluge which destroyed the world of the ungodly. As we, when we repent, alter the course of our actions, so repentance in God does not imply any change of purpose, but an alteration of a threatening denounced, or the substitution of merited punishment, for abused kindness. When joy and grief, anger and repentance, are ascribed to God, we are to understand that the things declared to be the objects of joy and grief, anger and repentance, are of that nature, that if God were capable of our passions, he would feel and discover himself in such cases as we do. Thus, when the prophets mention the joys and applaudings of heaven, earth, and sea, of the mountains and the valleys, and the trees of the forest, they only signify that the things they speak of are so excellent, that the whole inanimate creation, if capable of joy, would express it on such an occasion: so would God have joy at the obedience, and feel grief at the disobedience of men, and repent of his kindness when abused, and of his punishment when men reform under it, were the majesty of his nature capable of such affections.

It is in this way that we are to understand God's

turning from the execution of a threatening denounced. Isaiah was sent with two messages to Hezekiah, the one reversing the other. His message was, when first sent, "Thus saith the Lord, set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live:" it was, when sent the second time, "Go, and say to Hezekiah, thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: behold I will add unto thy days fifteen years." The judgment threatened by Jonah against Nineveh, was in like manner arrested. But of these, and of all similar cases, it may be said, that the execution of the threatened judgment is conditional, whether the condition be fully expressed, or only understood. The rule which regulates the divine procedure, in the reversing either a threatening of evil, or a promise of good, is laid down by the prophet Jeremiah. "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and pull down, and destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them." When a change takes place in man from good to evil, it is just in God not only to threaten, but to execute; and when he indicates a change from evil to good by repentance, the goodness of God averts the judgment. Let it be remarked, that the promises and threatenings of future good and misery are all absolute, and shall therefore be surely fulfilled. There is nothing conditional in the promise of eternal life to him that believeth; and there is nothing conditional in the threatening of everlasting destruction to those who know not God, and who obey not the Gospel. He is unchangeable in his abhorrence of all sin, and in his love of holiness; and towards every one who is not redeemed from all iniquity, that abhorrence and displeasure must unalterably and for ever be expressed.

IV. The eternity and immutability of God furnish ground and encouragement for his worship. Were he mutable, or capable of change, we could have little encouragement to pray to him. His unchangeableness is a pledge to us, that if he has at any time constituted prayer our duty, it is always a duty; if he has said of himself that he is the hearer of prayer, he remains immutably its hearer and answerer. It is this attribute that peculiarly fits him to be the proper object of worship; since we know that the same excellences, the same gracious purposes which he possessed formerly, he possesses now, and will possess for ever; and whatever promises were at any time made to encourage our hopes, are as unalterable as if we heard them renewed at every approach to his throne. How erroneous, then, is it to suppose, that because God is immutable, we need not worship him, nor pray to him; since good will surely come if he wills it, and since evil cannot be averted by all our supplications, if he has ordered it to fall upon us. We should not reason so absurdly in regard to a fellow-creature. Were a prince to make us a promise of some great good on the condition that we would often ask its fulfilment, would we decline making the request because we knew the word of the prince to be like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unalterable? God has given us the promise of a rich variety of blessings, but then, it is on the condition that we make supplication for them; and if we comply with the condition, the unchangeableness of his nature renders it impossible we should miss the obtaining of the blessings. The immutability of his nature renders the rule according to which he bestows the good that we need, of unspeakable importance. "Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened."

Prayer neither implies nor requires mutability in God, but only asks him to bestow that which he has immutably willed to bestow on those who will use the means for obtaining it. The unchangeableness of God is seen throughout nature in its fixed and permanent order; but this is so far from operating as a discouragement to the efforts of man, that it is a most powerful incentive to active and well-directed exertion. The sun will surely give his light, but we must open our eyes to see it; and it is the ordinance of heaven, that while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease; but the husbandman will expect in vain to fill his barns without industry and continued attention. In like manner, God, in addition to a variety of other blessings, has promised through the Saviour, life everlasting; and he is immutable in

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his promises, in his mercifulness, in his disposition to hear and to answer prayer; but yet these blessings cannot be obtained without prayer, and the use of the means which God has appointed. He is unchangeable in his willingness to do us good; but he is unchangeable also as to the way in which he bestows it; and we may take encouragement from his immutability to believe, that if we come to him in this way, he will give us more than we can either ask or think. He is the same now as when he blessed the Patriarchs and Prophets, as when he gave to the Apostles and early Christians the abundance of his grace; he is as willing to communicate to us as to them, and he has the same power to do so. The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man that he should repent. We cannot ask too frequently, we cannot ask too largely, since he is unchangeable in his purpose to bestow the greatest blessings on sinful men through the atonement and the mediation of his own Son. His ways are not as our ways, neither are his thoughts like our thoughts, and therefore are the wicked exhorted and encouraged to return to the Lord who will have mercy upon them, and to our God who will abundantly pardon.

V. The eternity and immutability of God bear the most awful aspect towards impenitent sinners. The infinitude of all the divine perfections, and of the God against whom all sin is committed, gives to every transgression an inconceivable extent of guilt and of aggravation. It is an attempt to change the truth of God into a lie, -to sully all his perfections, and especially his immutability and eternity and to act