(2.) Immutability belongs, in the most proper sense, to God alone; so that _as he only_ is said _to have immortality_, 1 Tim. vi. 16. that is, such as is underived and independent, he alone is unchangeable; other things are rendered immutable by an act of his will and power, but immutability is an essential perfection of the divine nature; creatures are dependently immutable, God is independently so. (3.) The most perfect creatures, such as angels and glorified saints, are capable of new additions to their blessedness; new objects may be presented as occasions of praise, which tend perpetually to increase their happiness: the angels know more than they did before Christ’s incarnation; for they are said to know _by the church_, that is, by the dealings of God with his church, _the manifold wisdom of God_, Eph. iii. 10. and to _desire to look into_ the account the gospel gives of the _sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow_, 1 Pet. i. 11, 12. and they shall have farther additions to their blessedness, when all the elect are joined to their assembly in the great day; so that the happiness of the best creatures is communicated in various degrees; but God’s perfections and blessedness can have no additions made to them, therefore he is immutable in a sense as no creature is. 2. We shall now prove that God is immutable in his being and all his perfections. (1.) That he is immutable in his being; this belongs to him as God, and, consequently to him alone. All other beings once were not; there has been, if I may so express it, a change from a state of non-existence, to that of being; and the same power that brought them into being, could reduce them again to their first nothing. To be dependent, is to be subject to change at the will of another; this is applicable to all finite things; for it is said, _As a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed_: but God being opposed to them as independent, is said to be _the same_, Psal. cii. 26, 27. _1st_, He did not change from a state of non-existence to being, inasmuch as he was from everlasting, and therefore necessarily existent; and consequently he cannot change from a state of being to that of non-existence, or cease to be; and because his perfections are essential to him, and underived, in the same sense as his being is, therefore there can be no change therein. _2dly_. He cannot change from a state of greater to a state of less perfection, or be subject to the least diminution of his divine perfections. To suppose this possible, is to suppose he may cease to be infinitely perfect; that is, to be God: nor can he change from a state of less perfection to a state of greater; for that is to suppose him not to be infinitely perfect before this change, or that there are degrees of infinite perfection. Nor,