Attributes of God - Charnock - XIX - Chapter 6 (Immutability of God) concluded

Required reading
Attributes of God by Charnock (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Conclude Chapter 6 (A discourse upon the immutability of God).

My summary
This week Charnock gives us some practical applications from the doctrine of the immutability of God.

Firstly it is useful for information:
(i) if God be unchangeable in his nature and immutability be a property of God then Christ hath a divine nature;
(ii) here is a ground and encouragement for worship;
(iii) this shews how contrary man is to God in regard of his constancy;
(iv) for if God be immutable it is sad news to those that are resolved in wickedness or careless of returning to that duty he requires.

Secondly the immutability of God is useful for comfort because:
(i) the covenant stands unchangeable;
(ii) perseverance is ascertained;
(iii) eternal happiness is ensured.

Thirdly it is useful for exhortation:
(i) let a sense of the changeableness and uncertainty of all other things beside God be upon us;
(ii) this doctrine will teach us patience under such providences as declare his unchangeable will;
(iii) this doctrine will teach us to imitate God in this perfection by striving to be immoveable in goodness;
(iv) let this doctrine teach us to have recourse to God and aim at a near conjunction with him.

What grabbed me
I love Charnock's 'uses' at the end of each chapter and today was no different.

Great encouragement not to rejoice in the mutable things of the world: '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 confidence. Trust not in riches, they have their wane as well as increase; 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. '

Trust and rejoice in the only one that is immutable, God himself!

Next week's reading
Commence Chapter 7 (A discourse upon God's omnipresence) by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'III. The third thing is, propositions for the further clearing this doctrine from any exceptions.'

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.