Part 31
To conclude this, we must consider that this knowledge is of another kind than his knowledge of things that are or shall be. He sees possible things as possible, not as things that ever are or shall be. If he saw them as existing or future, and they shall never be, this knowledge would be false, there would be a deceit in it, which cannot be. He knows those things not in themselves, because they are not, nor in their causes, because they shall never be ; he knows them in his own power, not in his will ; he understands them as able to produce them, not as willing to effect them. Things pos sible he knows only in his power, things future he knows both in his power and his will, as he is both able and determined in his own good pleasure to give being to them. Those that shall never come to pass, he knows only in himself, as a sufficient cause ; those things that shall come into being he knows in himself as the efficient cause, and also in their immediate second causes.
This should teach us to spend our thoughts in the admiration of the ex cellency of God and the divine knowledge ; his understanding is infinite.
(2.) God knows all things past. This is an argument used by God him self to elevate his excellency above all the commonly adored idols : Isa.
xli. 22, « Let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may con sider them, and know the latter end of them.' He knows them as if they were now present, and not past ; for indeed in his eternity there is nothing past or future to his knowledge. This is called remembrance in Scripture,
as when God remembered Rachel's prayer for a child, Gen. xxx. 22 ; and he is said to put tears into his bottle, and write them into his book of accounts, which signifies the exact and unerring knowledge in God of the minute cir cumstances past in the world ; and this knowledge is called a ' book of remembrance,' Mai. iii. 16, signifying the perpetual presence of things past before him. There are two elegant expressions signifying the certainty and
perpetuity of God's knowledge of sins past : Job xiv. 17, * My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up my iniquity !' A metaphor taken
from men, that put up in a bag the money they would charily keep, tie the bag, sew up the holes, and bind it hard that nothing may fall out ; or a vessel wherein they reserve liquors, and daub it with pitch and glutinous stuff, that nothing may leak out, but be safely kept till the time of use. Or else, as some think, from the bags attorneys carry with them full of writings, when they are to manage a cause against a person. Thus we find God
often in Scripture calling to men's minds their past actions, upbraiding them with their ingratitude ; wherein he testifies his remembrance of his own past benefits, and their crimes. His knowledge in this regard has something of infinity in it, since though the sins of all men that have been in the world
are finite in regard of number, yet when the sins of one man in thoughts,
470 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
words, and deeds, are numberless in his own account, and perhaps in the
account of any creature, the sins of all the vast numbers of men that have
been, or shall be, are much more numberless, it cannot be less than infinite knowledge that can make a collection of them, and take a survey of them all at once.
If past things had not been known by God, how could Moses have been acquainted with the original of things ? How could he have declared the former transactions, wherein all histories are silent but the Scripture ? How
could he know the cause of man's present misery so many ages after, where with all philosophy was unacquainted ? How could he have writ the order of the creation, the particulars of the sin of Adam, the circumstances of
Cain's murder, the private speech of Lamech to his wives, if God had not revealed them ? And how could a revelation be made, if things past were forgotten by him ? Do we not remember many things done among men, as well as by ourselves, and reserve the forms of divers things in our minds, which rise as occasions are presented to draw them forth ? And shall not
God much more, who hath no cloud of darkness upon his understanding ? A man that makes a curious picture, hath the form of it in his mind before he made it ; and if the fire burn it, the form of it in his mind is not de
stroyed by the fire, but retained in it. God's memory is no less perfect than his understanding. If he did not know things past, he could not be a righteous governor, or exercise any judicial act in a righteous manner ; he could not dispense rewards and punishments according to his promises and threatenings, if things that were past could be forgotten by him ; he could not require that which is past, Eccles. iii. 15, if he did not remember that which is past.
And though God be said to forget in Scripture, and not to know his people, and his people pray to him to remember them, as if he had forgotten them,
Ps. cxix. 49, this is improperly ascribed to God.* As God is said to repent, when he changes things according to his counsel beyond the expecta tion of men, so he is said to forget, when he defers the making good his promise to the godly, or his threatenings to the wicked. This is not a defect
of memory belonging to his mind, but an act of his will. "When he is said to remember his covenant, it is to will grace according to his covenant ; when he is said to forget his covenant, it is to intercept the influences of it, whereby to punish the sin of his people ; and when he is said not to know his people, it is not an absolute forgetfulness of them, but withdrawing from them the testimonies of his kindness, and clouding the signs of his favour ; so God in pardoning is said to forget sin, not that he ceaseth to know it, but ceaseth to punish it. It is not to be meant of a simple forgetfulness, or a lapse of his memory, but of a judicial forgetfulness ; so when his people in
Scripture pray, ' Lord, remember thy word unto thy servant,' no more is to be understood, but, Lord, fulfil thy word and promise to thy servant.
(3.) He knows things present. Heb. iv. 13, « All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.' This is grounded upon the knowledge of himself; it is not so difficult to know all creatures exactly, as to know himself, because they are finite, but himself is infinite ; he knows his own power, and therefore everything through which his omni potence is diffused, all the acts and objects of it ; not the least thing that is the birth of his power can be concealed from him ; he knows his own good
ness, and therefore every object upon which the warm beams of his goodness strike ; he therefore knows distinctly the properties of every creature, be cause every property in them is a ray of his goodness ; he is not only the * Bradward.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.J GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 471
efficient, but the exemplary cause ; therefore, as he knows all that his power hath wrought, as he is the efficient, so he knows them in himself as the pattern, as a carpenter can give account of every part and passage in a house he hath built, by consulting the model in his own mind, whereby he
built it. ' He looked upon all things after he had made them, and pro nounced them good,' Gen. i. 31 ; full of a natural goodness he had endowed them with ; he did not ignorantly pronounce them so, and call them good, whether he knew them or not ; and therefore he knows them in particular, as he knew them all in their first presence. Is there any reason he should be ignorant of everything now present in the world, or that anything that derives an existence from him as a free cause, should be concealed from him ? If he did not know things present in their particularities, many things would bo known by man, yea, by beasts, which the infinite God were ignorant of; and if he did not know all things present, but only some, it is possible for the most blessed God to be deceived and be miserable. Ignorance is a calamity to the understanding. He could not prescribe laws to his creatures, unless he knew their natures, to which those laws were to be suited ; no, not natural ordinances to the sun, moon, and heavenly bodies, and inanimate creatures, unless he knew the vigour and virtue in them, to execute those ordinances ; for to prescribe laws above the nature of things, is inconsistent with the wisdom of government ; he must know how far they were able to obey, whether the laws were suited to their ability ; and for his rational creatures, whether the punishment annexed to the law were proper, and suited to the transgression of the creature.
[1.] First, He knows all creatures, from the highest to the lowest, the least as well as the greatest. He knows the ravens and their young ones, Job xxxviii. 41 ; the drops of rain and dew which he hath begotten, ver. 29, every bird in the air, as well as any man doth what he hath in a cage at home: Ps. 1. 11, 'I know all the fowls in the mountains, and the wild
beasts in the field,' which some read creeping things. The clouds are numbered in his wisdom, Job xxxviii. 37, every worm in the earth, every drop of rain that falls upon the ground, the flakes of snow, and the knots of hail, the sands upon the sea shore, the hairs upon the head ; it is no more absurd to imagine that God knows them, than that God made them ; they are all the effects of his power, as well as the stars, which he calls by their names, as well as the most glorious angel and blessed spirit ; he knows them as well as if there were none but them in particular for him to know ; the least things were framed by his art as well as the greatest ; the least things partake of his goodness as well as the greatest ; he knows his own arts, and his own goodness, and therefore all the stamps and impressions of them upon all his creatures ; he knows the immediate causes of the least, and therefore the effects of those causes. Since his knowledge is infinite, it must extend to those things which are at the greatest distance from him, to those which approach nearest to not being ; since he did not want power to create, he cannot want understanding to know everything he hath created, the dispositions, qualities, and virtues of the minutest creature.
Nor is the understanding of God imbased, and suffers a diminution by the knowledge of the vilest and most inconsiderable things. Is it not an imperfection to be ignorant of the nature of anything ? and can God have such a defect in his most perfect understanding ? Is the understanding of man of an impurer alloy by knowing the nature of the rankest poisons ? by
understanding a fly, or fc small insect, or by considering the deformity of a
toad ? Is it not generally counted a note of a dignified mind to be able to discourse of the nature of them ? Was Solomon, who knew all from the
472 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
cedar to the hyssop, debased by so rich a present of wisdom from his
Creator ? Is any glass defiled by presenting a deformed image ? Is there anything more vile than the imagination, « which are only evil, and con tinually' ? Doth not the mind of man descend to the mud of the earth, play the adulterer or idolater with mean objects, suck in the most unclean
things ? Yet God knows these in all their circumstances, in every appear ance, inside and outside. Is there anything viler than some thoughts of men, than some actions of men, their unclean beds, and gluttonous vomit ing, and Luciferian pride ? Yet do not these fall under the eye of God in all their nakedness !
The second person's taking human nature, though it obscured, yet it did not disparage the Deity, or bring any disgrace to it. Is gold the worse for being formed into the image of a fly ? Doth it not still retain the noble ness of the metal ? When men are despised for descending to the know ledge of mean and vile things, it is because they neglect the knowledge of the greater, and sin in their inquiries after lesser things, with a neglect of that which concerns more the honour of God and the happiness of them selves ; to be ambitious of such a knowledge, and careless of that of more concern, is criminal and contemptible. But God knows the greatest as well as the least ; mean things are not known by him to exclude the knowledge of the greater, nor are vile things governed by him to exclude the order of the
better. The deformity of objects known by God doth not deform him, nor defile him ; he doth not view them without himself, but within himself, wherein all things in their ideas are beautiful and comely. Our knowledge of a deformed thing is not a deforming of our understanding, but is beauti ful in the knowledge, though it be not in the object ; nor is there any fear that the understanding of God should become material by knowing material things, any more than our understandings lose their spirituality by knowing the nature of bodies ; it is to be observed therefore that only those senses of men, as seeing, hearing, smelling, which have those qualities for their objects that come nearest the nature of spiritual things, as light, sounds, fragrant odours, are ascribed to God in Scripture ; not touching or tasting, which are senses that are not exercised without a more immediate commerce with
gross matter ; and the reason maybe, because we should have no gross thoughts of God, as if he were a body, and made of matter like the things he knows.
[2.] As he knows all creatures, so God knows all the actions of creatures. He counts in particular all the ways of men : ' Doth he not see all my ways, and count all my steps?' Job xxxi. 4. He ' tells their wanderings,' as if one by one, Ps. Ivi. 8 ; ' His eyes are upon all the ways of man, and he sees all his goings,' Job xxxiv. 21, a metaphor taken from men when they look wistly, with fixed eyes upon a thing, to view it in every circumstance,
whence it comes, whither it goes, to observe every little motion of it. God's eye is not a wandering, but a fixed eye, and the ways of man are not only
' before his eyes,' but he doth exactly ' ponder' them, Prov. v. 21 ; as one that will not be ignorant of the least mite in them, but weigh and examine them by the standard of his law ; he may as well know the motions of our members as the hairs of our heads ; the smallest actions before they be, whether civil, natural, or religious, fall under his cognisance. What meaner than a man carrying a pitcher ? yet our Saviour foretells it, Luke xxii. 10.
God knows not only what men do, but what they would have done had he not restrained them-; what Abimelech would have done to Sarah had not God put a bar in his way, Gen. xx. 6 ; what a man that is taken away in his youth would have done, had he lived to a riper age ; yea, he knows the most secret words as well as actions ; the words spoken by the king of
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 473 •
Israel in his bed-chamber were revealed to Elisha, 2 Kings vi. 12 ; and indeed how can any action of man be concealed from God ? Can we view the various actions of a heap of ants or a hive of bees in a glass, without turning our eyes ; and shall not God behold the actions of all men in the world, which are less than bees or ants in his sight, and more visible to him than an ant-hill or bee-hive can be to the acutest eye of man ?
[3.] As God knows all the actions of creatures, so he knows all the thoughts of creatures. The thoughts are the most closeted acts of man, hid from men and angels, unless disclosed by some outward expressions ; but God descends into the depths and abysses of the soul, discerns the most inward contrivances ; nothing is impenetrable to him ; the sun doth not so much enlighten the earth as God understands the heart ; all thoughts are as visible to him as flies and motes enclosed in a body of transparent crystal. This man naturally allows to God. Men often speak to God by the motions of their minds and secret ejaculations, which they would not do if it were not naturally implanted in them, that God knows all their inward
motions. The Scripture is plain and positive in this : « He tries the heart and reins,' Ps. vii. 9, as men by the use of fire discern the drossy and purer parts of metals. The secret intentions and aims, the most lurking affections seated in the reins, he knows that which no man, no angel is able to know, which a man himself knows not, nor makes any particular reflection upon ;
yea, he ' weighs the spirit,' Prov. xvi. 2, he exactly numbers all the devices and inclinations of men, as men do every piece of coin they tell out of a
heap. He ' discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart,' Heb. iv. 12, all that is in the mind, all that is in the affections, every stirring and purpose,
so that not one thought can be withheld from him, Job xlii. 2 ; yea, * hell and destruction are before him, much more then the hearts of the children of
men,' Prov. xv. 11. He works all things in the bowels of the earth, and brings forth all things out of that treasure, say some; but more naturally, God knows the whole state of the dead, all the receptacles and graves of their bodies, all the bodies of men consumed by the earth, or devoured by living creatures, things that seem to be out of all being ; he knows the thoughts of the devils and damned creatures, whom he hath cast out of his care for ever into the arms of his justice, never more to cast a delightful glance towards them ; not a secret in any soul in hell (which he hath no need to know, because he shall not judge them by any of the thoughts they now have, since they were con demned to punishment) is hid from him, much more is he acquainted with the thoughts of living men, the counsels of whose hearts are yet to be mani fested in order to their trial and censure ; yea, he knows them before they spring up into actual being: Ps. cxxxix. 2, « Thou understandest my thoughts
afar off; ' my thoughts, that is, every thought, though innumerable thoughts pass through me in a day, and that in the source and fountain when it is yet in the womb, before it is our thought. If he knows them before their existence, before they can be properly called ours, much more doth he know them when they actually spring up in us ; he knows the tendency of them, where the bird will light when it is in flight ; he knows them exactly, he is therefore called a < discerner' or criticiser « of the heart,' Heb. iv. 12. As a critic discerns every letter, point, and stop, he is more intimate with us than our soul with our bodies, and hath more the possession of us than we have of ourselves ; he knows them by an inspection into the heart, not by the mediation of second causes, by the looks or gestures of men, as men may discern the thoughts of one another.
First, God discerns all good motions of the mind and will. These he puts into men, and needs must God know his own act : he knew the son of
474 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
Jeroboam to have ' some good thing in him towards the Lord God of
Israel,' 1 Kings xiv. 13, and the integrity of David and Hezekiah, the freest motions of the will and affections to him. « Lord, thou knowest that
I love thee,' snith Peter, John xxi. 17. Love can be no more restrained than the will itself can. A man may make another to grieve and desire, but none can force another to love.
Secondly, God discerns all the evil motions of the mind and will ; every
imagination of the heart,' Gen. vi. 5 ; the vanity of men's thoughts, Ps. xciv. 11 ; their inward darkness and deceitful disguises. No wonder that
God, who fashioned the heart, should understand the motions of it : Ps.
xxxiii. 13, 15, ' He looks from heaven, and beholds all the children of men : he fashioneth their hearts alike, and considers all their works.' Doth any man make a watch, and yet be ignorant of its motion ? Did God fling away the key to this secret cabinet, when he framed it, and put off the power of unlocking it when he pleased ? He did not surely frame it in such a posture as that anything in it should be hid from his eye ; he did not fashion it to be privileged from his government ; which would follow if he were ignorant of what was minted and coined in it.
He could not be a judge to punish men, if the inward frames and prin
ciples of men's actions were concealed from him ; an outward action may glitter to an outward eye, yet the secret spring be a desire of applause, and not the fear and love of God. If the inward frames of the heart did lie covered from him in the secret recesses of the heart, those plausible acts, which in regard of their principles would merit a punishment, would meet with a reward, and God should bestow happiness where he had denounced misery. As without the knowledge of what is just, he would not be a wise
lawgiver, so without the knowledge of what is inwardly committed, he could not be a righteous judge ; acts that are rotten in the spring, might be judged good by the fair colour and appearance.
This is the glory of God at the last day, to * manifest the secrets of all
hearts,' 1 Cor. iv. 5 ; and the prophet Jeremiah links the power of judging, and the prerogative of trying the hearts together : Jer. xi. 20, ' But thou, 0 Lord of Hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the
heart ;' and chap. xvii. 10, * I the Lord search the heart ; I try the reins ;' To what end ? Even « to give every man according to his way, and accord ing to the fruit of his doings.' And indeed his binding up the whole law with that command of not coveting, evidenceth that he will judge men by the inward affections and frames of their hearts. Again, God sustains the mind of man in every act of thinking. In him we have not only the prin ciple of life, but every motion, the motion of our minds as well as of our members. ' In him we live and move,' &c., Acts xvii. 28. Since he sup ports the vigour of the faculty in every act, can he be ignorant of those acts which spring from the faculty, to which he doth at that instant communicate power and ability ?
Now this knowledge of the thoughts of men is, First, An incommunicable property, belonging only to the divine under standing. Creatures indeed may know the thoughts of others by divine revelation, but not by themselves ; no creature hath a key immediately to
open the minds of men, and see all that lodgeth there ; no creature can fathom the heart by the line of created knowledge.* Devils may have a conjectural knowledge, and^ may guess at them, by the acquaintance they have with the disposition and constitution of men, and the images they behold in their fancies ; and by some marks which an inward imagination
* Daille, Serm. part i. p. 230.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.J GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 475
may stamp upon the brain, blood, animal spirits, face, &c. ; but the knowing the thoughts merely as thought, without any impression by it, is a royalty God appropriates to himself, as the main secret of his government, and a perfection declarative of his Deity as much as any else: Jer. xvii. 9, 10,
* The heart of man is desperately wicked, who can know it ?' Yes, there is one, and but one ; ' I the Lord search the heart ; I try the reins.' ' Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart,' 1 Sam. xvi. 7, where God is distinguished by this perfection from all men whatso
ever; others may know by revelation, as Elisha did, what was in Gehazi's heart, 2 Kings v. 26 ; but God knows a man more than any man knows himself. What person upon earth understands the windings and turnings of his own heart, what reserves it will have, what contrivances, what incli nations ? all which God knows exactly.
Secondly, God acquires no new knowledge of the thoughts and heart, by the discovery of them in the actions. He would then be but equal in this part of knowledge to his creature ; no man or angel but may thus arrive to the knowledge of them. God were then excluded from an absolute dominion over the prime work of his lower creation ; he would have made a creature superior in this respect to himself, upon whose will to discover, his know ledge of their inward intentions should depend ; and, therefore, when God is said to search the heart, we must not understand it as if God were ignorant before, and was fain to make an exact scrutiny and inquiry, before he attained what he desired to know ; but God condescends to our capacity in the expres sion of his own knowledge, signifying that his knowledge is as complete as
any man's knowledge can be, of the designs of others, after he hath sifted them by a strict and thorough examination, and wrung out a discovery of their intentions; that he knows them as perfectly as if he had put them upon the rack, and forced them to make a discovery of their secret plottings. Nor must we understand that in Gen. xxii. 12, where God saith, after Abra ham had stretched out his hand to sacrifice his son, ' Now I know that thou
fearest God,' as though God was ignorant of Abraham's gracious disposition to him. Did Abraham's drawing his knife furnish God with a new know ledge ? No ; God knew Abraham's pious inclinations before : Gen. xviii. 19,
1 1 know him that he will command his children after him,' &c. Knowledge is sometimes taken for approbation ; then the sense will be, Now I approve this fact as a testimony of thy fear of me ; since thy affection to thy Isaac is extinguished by the more powerful flame of affection to my will and com mand, I now accept thee, and count thee a meet subject of my choicest benefits ; or now I know, that is, I have made known and manifested, the faith of Abraham to himself and to the world. Thus Paul uses the word
know : 1 Cor. ii. 2, ' I have determined to know nothing ;' that is, to declare and teach nothing, to make known nothing * but Christ crucified ;' or else, now I know, that is, I have an evidence and experiment in this noble fact, that thou fearest me. God often condescends to our cnpacity in speak ing of himself after the manner of men, as if he had (as men do) known the inward affections of others by their outward actions.
[4.] God knows all the evils and sins of creatures. First, God knows all sin. This follows upon the other. If he knows all the actions and thoughts of creatures, he knows also all the sinfulness in
those acts and thoughts. This Zophar infers from God's punishing men : Job xi. 11, 'For he knows vain man; he sees his wickedness also;' he knows every man, and sees the wickedness of every man. * He looks down from heaven,' and beholds not only the filthy persons, but what is filthy in them, Ps. xiv. 2, 3, all nations in the world, and every man of every nation;
476 CHAKNOCK'S WOEKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
none of their iniquity is hid from his eyes. ' He searches Jerusalem with
candles,' Zeph. i. 22. God follows sinners step by step with his eye, and will not leave searching out till he hath taken them ; a metaphor taken from one that searches all chinks with a candle, that nothing can be hid from him. He knows it distinctly in all the parts of it, how an adulterer rises out of his bed to commit uncleanness ; what contrivances he had, what steps he took, every circumstance in the whole progress ; not only evil in the bulk, but every one of the blacker spots upon it, which may most aggravate it. If he did not know evil, how could he permit it, order it, punish it, or par don it ? Doth he permit he knows not what ? order [to his own holy ends what he is ignorant of ? punish or pardon that which he is uncertain whether
it be a crime or no ? ' Cleanse me,' saith David, « from my secret faults,' Ps. xix. 12, secret in regard of others, secret in regard of himself; how could God cleanse him from that whereof he was ignorant ? He knows sins before they are committed, much more when they are in act ; he foreknew the idolatry and apostasy of the Jews ; what gods they would serve, in what measure they would provoke him, and violate his covenant, Deut. xxxi. 20, 21 ; he knew Judas his sin long before Judas his actual existence, foretelling it in the Psalms ; and Christ predicts it before he acted it. He sees sins future in his own permitting will ; he sees sins present in his own supporting act. As he knows things possible to himself, because he knows his own power ;
so he knows things practicable by the creature, because he knows the power
and principles of the creature.* This sentiment of God is naturally writ in the fear of sinners, upon lightning, thunder, or some prodigious operation of God in the world ; what is the language of them, but that he sees their deeds, hears their words, knows the inward sinfulness of their hearts ; that he doth not only behold them as a mere spectator, but considers them as a just judge ? And the poets say, that the sins of men leaped into heaven, and
were writ in parchments of Jupiter, scelus in terra geritur, in ccelo scribitur, sin is acted on earth, and recorded in heaven. God, indeed, doth not behold evil with the approving eye ; he knows it not with a practical know ledge to be the author of it, but with a speculative knowledge, so as to under stand the fulness of it ; or a knowledge simplicis intelligentice, of simple
intelligence, as he permits them, not positively wills them ;rhe knows them not with a knowledge of assent to them, but dissent from them. Evil per tains to a dissenting act of the mind, and an aversive act of the will ; and what though evil formally taken hath no distinct conception, because it is a privation, a defect hath no being, and all knowledge is by the apprehension of some being, would not this lie as strongly against our own knowledge of sin ? Sin is the privation of the rectitude due to an act ; and who doubts
man's knowledge of sin ? By his knowing the act, he knows the deficiency of the act ; the subject of evil hath a being, and so hath a conception in the mind ; that which hath no being cannot be known by itself, or in itself, but will it follow that it cannot be known by its contrary ? as we know dark ness to be a privation of light, and folly to be a privation of wisdom. God knows all good by himself, because he is the sovereign good. Is it strange, then, that he should know all evil, since all evil is in some natural good ?
Secondly, The manner of God's knowing evil is not so easily known ; and, indeed, as we cannot comprehend the essence of God, though it is easily in telligible that there is such a being, so we can as little comprehend the
manner of God's knowledge, though we cannot but conclude him to be an intelligent being, a pure understanding, knowing all things. As God hath a higher manner of being than his creatures, so he hath another and higher
* Fotherby, Atheoma, p. 132.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 477
manner of knowing ; and we can as little comprehend the manner of his knowing, as we can the manner of his being. But as to the manner.
Doth not God know his own law ? and shall he not know how much any action comes short of his rule ? He cannot know his own rule without know ing all the deviations from it. He knows his own holiness, and shall he not see how any action is contrary to the holiness of his own nature ? Doth not God know everything that is true, and is it not true that this or that is evil ? and shall God be ignorant of any truth ? How doth God know that he cannot lie, but by knowing his own veracity ? How doth God know that he cannot die, but by knowing his own immutability ? And, by knowing those, he knows what a lie is, he knows what death is ; so, if sin never had been, if no creature had ever been, God would have known what sin was, because he knows his own holiness, because he knew what law was fit to be appointed to his creatures, if he should create them, and that that law might be transgressed by them. God knows all good, all goodness in himself ; he therefore hath a foundation in himself, to know all that comes short of that goodness, that is opposite to that holiness. As if light were capable of understanding, it would know darkness only by knowing itself; by knowing itself, it would know what is contrary to itself. God knows all created good ness which he hath planted in the creature ; he knows then all defects from this goodness, what perfection an act is deprived of, what is opposite to that goodness, and that is evil. As we know sickness by health, discord by harmony, blindness by sight, because it is a privation of sight ; whosoever knows one contrary knows the other. God knows unrighteousness by the idea which he hath of righteousness, and sees an act deprived of that recti tude and goodness which ought to be in it ; he knows evil because he knows
the causes whence evil proceeds.* A painter knows a picture of his own framing ; and if any one dashes any base colour upon it, shall not he also know that ? God by his hand painted all creatures, impressed upon man the fair stamp and colour of his own image ; the devil denies it, man daubs it. Doth not God, that knows his own work, know how this piece is be come different from his work ? Doth not God, that knows his creatures' goodness, which himself was the fountain of, know the change of this good ness ? Yea, he knew before, that the devil would sow tares where he had sown wheat ; and, therefore, that controversy of some in the schools, whether God knew evil by its opposition to created or uncreated goodness, is needless. We may say God knows sin as it is opposite to created good ness, yet he knows it radically by his own goodness, because he knows the goodness he hath communicated to the creature by his own essential good ness in himself. To conclude this head :
The knowledge of sin doth not bespot the holiness of God's nature, for the bare knowledge of a crime doth not infect the mind of man with the filth and pollution of that crime, for then every man that knows an act of murder committed by another, would, by that bare knowledge, be tainted with his sin ; yea, and a judge that condemns a malefactor, may as well condemn himself, if this were so. The knowledge of sins infects not the understanding that knows them, but only the will that approves them. It is no discredit to us to know evil, in order to pass a right judgment upon it ; so neither can it be to God.
(4.) God knows all future things, all things to come. The differences of time cannot hinder a knowledge of all things by him who is before time, above time, that is not measured by hours, or days, or years ; if God did not know them, the hindrance must be in himself, or in the things them-
* Cusan, p. 245.
478 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
selves, because they are things to come. Not in himself: if it did, it must arise from some impotency in his own nature, and so we render him weak ; or from an unwillingness to know, and so we render him lazy, and an enemy to his own perfection ; for, simply considered, the knowledge of more things is a greater perfection than the knowledge of a few ; and if the knowledge of a thing includes something of perfection, the ignorance of a thing includes something of imperfection. The knowledge of future things is a greater perfection than not to know them, and is accounted among men a great part of wisdom, which they call foresight ; it is then surely a greater perfection in God to know future things, than to be ignorant of them. And would
God rather have something of imperfection than be possessor of all perfection? Nor doth the hindrance lie in the things themselves, because their futurition depends upon his will ; for as nothing can actually be without his will, giving it existence, so nothing can be future without his will, designing the futurity of it. Certainly, if God knows all things possible, which he will not do, he must know all things future, which he is not only able, but re
solved to do, or resolved to permit. God's perfect knowledge of himself, that is, of his own infinite power and concluding will, necessarily includes a foreknowledge of what he is able to do, and what he will do.
Again, if God doth not know future things, there was a time when God was ignorant of most things in the world, for, before the deluge, he was more ignorant than after ; the more things were done in the world, the more knowledge did accrue to God, and so the more perfection ; then, the under standing of God was not perfect from eternity, but in time ; nay, is not perfect yet, if he be ignorant of those things which are still to come to pass ; he must tarry for a perfection he wants, till those futurities come to be in act, till those things which are to come cease to be future, and begin to be present. Either God knows them, or desires to know them ; if he desires to know them and doth not, there is something wanting to him ; all desire speaks an absence of the object desired, and a sentiment of want in the person desiring. If he doth not desire to know them, nay, if he doth not actually know them, it destroys all providence, all his government of affairs, for his providence hath a concatenation of means with a prospect of some
thing that is future ; as in Joseph's case, who was put into the pit, and sold to the Egyptians, in order to his future advancement, and the pre servation both of his father and his envious brethren. If God did not know
all the future inclinations and actions of men, something might have been done by the will of Potiphar, or by the free will of Pharaoh, whereby Joseph might have been cut short of his advancement, and so God have been interrupted in the track and method of his designed providences. He that hath decreed to govern man for that end he hath designed him, knows all the means before whereby he will govern him, and therefore hath a distinct
and certain knowledge of all things, for a confused knowledge is an imper fection in government ; it is in this the infiniteness of his understanding is
more seen than in knowing things past or present ; * his eyes are as a flame
of fire,' ftev. i. 14, in regard of the penetrating virtue of them into things impenetrable by any else.
To make it further appear that God knows all things future, consider,
1. First, everything which is the object of God's knowledge without him self was once only future. There was a moment when nothing was in being but himself; he knew nothing actually past, because nothing was past; no thing actually present, because nothing had any existence but himself; therefore only what was future, and why not everything that is future now, as well as only what was future and to come to pass just at the beginning of
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 479
the creation? God, indeed, knows everything as present, but the things themselves known by him were not present, but future. The whole creation was once future, or else it was from eternity ; if it begun in time, it was once future in itself, else it could never have begun to be. Did not God know what would be created by him before it was created by him ? * Did he create he knew not what, and knew not before what he should create ? Was he ignorant before he acted, and in his acting, what his operation would tend to ? Or did he not know the nature of things, and the ends of them, till he had produced them, and saw them in being ? Creatures then did not arise from his knowledge, but his knowledge from them ; he did not then will that his creatures should be, or he had then willed what he knew not, and knew not what he willed ; they, therefore, must be known before they were made, and not known because they were made ; he knew them to make them, and he did not make them to know them. By the same reason he knew what creatures should be before they were, he knows still what creatures shall be before they are;f for all things that are were in God, not really in their own nature, but in him as a cause ; so the earth and heavens were in him, as a model in the mind of a workman, which is in his mind and soul before it be brought forth into outward act.
2. The predictions of future things evidence this. There is not a prophecy of anything to come but is a spark of his foreknowledge, and bears witness to the truth of this assertion in the punctual accomplishment of it. This is a thing challenged by God as his own peculiar, wherein he surmounts all the
idols that man's inventions have goded in the world : Isa. xli. 21, 22, ' Let them bring forth' (speaking of the idols), ' and shew us what shall happen, or declare us things to come : shew the things that are to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods.' Such a foreknowledge of things to come is here ascribed to God by God himself, as a distinction of him from all false gods. Such a knowledge that, if any could prove that they were possessors of, he would acknowledge them gods as well as himself; 'that we may know that you are gods.' He puts his Deity to stand or fall upon this account, and this should be the point which should decide the contro versy whether he or the heathen idols were the true God. The dispute is managed by this medium : he that knows things to come is God ; I know things to come, ergo I am God : the idols know not things to come, there fore they are not gods. God submits the being of his Deity to this trial. If God know things to come no more than the heathen idols, which were either devils or men, he would be, in his own account, no more a God than devils or men ; no more a God than the pagan idols he doth scoff at for this defect. If the heathen idols were to be stripped of their deity for want of this foreknowledge of things to come, would not the true God also fall from the same excellency if he were defective in knowledge ? He would, in his own judgment, no more deserve the title and character of a God than they. How could he reproach them for that, if it were wanting in himself? It cannot be understood of future things in their causes, when the effects neces sarily arise from such causes, as light from the sun and heat from the fire. Many of these men know; more of them, angels and devils know; if God, therefore, had not a higher and farther knowledge than this, he would not by this be proved to be God, any more than angels and devils, who know necessary effects in their causes. The devils, indeed, did predict some things in the heathen oracles, but God is differenced from them here by the infiniteness of his knowledge, in being able to predict things to come that they knew not, or things in their particularities, things that depended on the
* Petavius changed. t Bradward, lib. iii. cap. 14.
480 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
liberty of man's will, which the devils could lay no claim to a certain know ledge of. Were it only a conjectural knowledge that is here meant, the devils might answer they can conjecture, and so their deity were as good as
God's ; for though God might know more things, and conjecture nearer to what would be, yet still it would be but conjectural, and therefore not a higher kind of knowledge than what the devils might challenge. How much, then, is God beholden to the Socinians for denying the knowledge of all future things to him, upon which here he puts the trial of his deity ? God asserts his knowledge of things to come as a manifest evidence of his God head ; those that deny, therefore, the argument that proves it, deny the conclusion too ; for this will necessarily follow, that if he be God because he knows future things, then he that doth not know future things is not God ; and if God knows not future things but only by conjecture, then there is no God, because a certain knowledge, so as infallibly to predict things to come, is an inseparable perfection of the Deity. It was therefore well
said of Austin, that it was as high a madness to deny God to be as* to deny him the foreknowledge of things to come.
The whole prophetic part of Scripture declares this perfection of God.
Every prophet's candle was lighted at this torch ; they could not have this foreknowledge of themselves. Why might not many other men have the same insight, if it were by nature ? f It must be from some superior agent ; and all nations owned prophecy as a beam from God, a fruit of divine illu mination. Prophecy must be totally expunged if this be denied, for the subjects of prophecy are things future, and no man is properly a prophet but in prediction. Now prediction is nothing but foretelling, and things foretold are not yet come ; and the foretelling of them supposeth them not to be yet, but that they shall be in time. Several such predictions we have in Scripture, the event whereof hath been certain. The years of famine in Egypt foretold that he would order second causes for bringing that judgment upon them ; the captivity of his people in Babylon ; the calling of the Gen
tiles ; the rejection of the Jews. Daniel's revelation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, that prince refers to God as the revealer of secrets, Dan. ii. 47. By the same reason that he knows one thing future by himself, and by the infiniteness of his knowledge, before any causes of them appear, he doth know all things future.
3. Some future things are known by men, and we must allow God a greater knowledge than any creature. Future things in their causes may be kno.wn by angels and men, as I said before ; whosoever knows necessary causes, and the efficacy of them, may foretell the effects ; and when he sees the meeting and concurrence of several causes together, he may presage what the consequent effect will be of such a concurrence. So physicians foretell the progress of a disease, the increase or diminution of it by natural signs ; and astronomers foretell eclipses by their observation of the motion of heavenly bodies many years before they happen. J Can they be hid from God, with whom are the reasons of all things ?§ An expert gardener, by knowing the root in the depth of winter, can tell what flowers and what fruit it will bear, and the month when they will peep out their heads ; and shall not God much more, that knows the principles of all his creatures, and is exactly privy to all their natures and qualities, know what they will be, and what operations shall be from those principles ? Now if God did know things only in their causes, his knowledge would not be more excellent than
* Qu. ' no higher . . . than ' ? — ED. f Pacuvius said, Siqui qua eventura sunt provident, cequiparent. i Cusanus. $ Fuller's Pisgah, 1. ii. p. 281.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 481
the knowledge of angels and men, though he might know more than they of the things that will come to pass from every cause singly, and from the con currence of many. Now as God is more excellent in being than his creature, so he is more excellent in the objects of his knowledge and the manner of his knowledge : well, then, shall a certain knowledge of something future, and a conjectural knowledge of many things, be found among men, and shall a determinate and infallible knowledge of things to come be found nowhere, in no being ? If the conjecture of future things savours of ignorance, and God knows them only by conjecture, there is then no such thing in being as a perfect intelligent being, and so no God.
4. God knows his own decree and will, and therefore must needs know
all future things. If anything be future, or to come to pass, it must be from itself or from God ; not from itself, then it would be independent and abso lute. If it hath its futurity from God, then God must know what he hath decreed to come to pass. Those things that are future in necessary causes God must know, because he willed them to be causes of such effects ; he therefore knows them, because he knows what he willed. The knowledge of God cannot arise from the things themselves, for then the knowledge of God would have a cause without him ; and knowledge, which is an eminent per fection, would be conferred upon him by his creatures. But as God sees things possible in the glass of his own power, so he sees things future in the glass of his own will : in his effecting will, if he hath decreed to produce them ; in his permitting will, as he hath decreed to suffer them and dispose of them. Nothing can pass out of the rank of things merely possible into the order of
things future, before some act of God's will hath passed for its futurition.* It is not from the infiniteness of his own nature, simply considered, that God knows things to be future ; for as things are not future because God is infinite (for then all possible things should be future), so neither is anything known to be future only because God is infinite, but because God hath decreed it ; his declaration of things to come is founded upon his appoint ment of things to come.f In Isa. xliv. 7, it is said, * And who, as I, shall call, and declare it, since I appointed the ancient people, and the things that
are coming ? ' J Nothing is created and ordered in the world but what God decreed to be created and ordered. God knows his own decree, and there fore all things which he hath decreed to exist in time, not the minutest part
of the world, could have existed without his will, not an action can be done without his will. As life, the principle, so motion, the fruit of that life, is by and from God. As he decreed life to this or that thing, so he decreed motion as the effect of life, and decreed to exert his power in concurring with them, for producing effects natural from such causes ; for without such a concourse they could not have acted anything, or produced anything. And therefore, as for natural things, which we call necessary causes, God foreseeing them all particularly in his own decree, foresaw also all effects which must necessarily flow from them, because such causes cannot but act when they are furnished with all things necessary for action. He knows his own decrees, and therefore necessarily knows what he hath decreed, or else we must say things come to pass whether God will or no ; or, that he wills he knows not what. But this cannot be ; for « known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world,' Acts xv. 18. Now this necessarily flows from that principle first laid down, that God knows himself, since nothing is future without God's will. If God did not know future things, he would not know his own will; for as things possible could not be
* Chequell. t Coccci Sum. Theol., p. 50. J Gamach in Aquin., part i. qu. 24, cap. 3, p. 124. VOL. I. H n
482 CHABXOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
known by him unless he knew the fulness of his own power, so things future could not be known by his understanding unless he knew the resolves
of his own will.
Thus the knowledge of God differs from the knowledge of men. God's knowledge of his works precedes his works,* man's knowledge of God's works follows his works. Just as an artificer's knowledge of a watch, instrument, or engine which he would make, is before his making of it ; he knows the motions of it, and the reasons of those motions before it is made, because he knows what he hath determined to work ; he knows not those motions from the consideration of them after they were made, as the spec tator doth, who by viewing the instrument after it is made, gains a know ledge from the sight and consideration of it, till he understands the reason of the whole ; so we know things from the consideration of them after we see
them in being, and therefore we know not future things. But God's know ledge doth not arise from things because they are, but because he wills them to be ; and therefore he knows everything that shall be, because it cannot be without his will, as the creator and maintainer of all things ; knowing his own substance, he knows all his works.
5. If God did not know all future things, he would be mutable in his knowledge.
If he did not know all things that ever were or are to be, there would be upon the appearance of every new object an addition of light to his under standing, and therefore such a change in him as every new knowledge causes in the mind of a man, or as the sun works in the world upon its rising every morning, scattering the darkness that was upon the face of the earth. If he did not know them before they came, he would gain a knowledge by them when they came to pass, which he had not before they were effected ; his knowledge would be new according to the newness of the objects, and multi plied according to the multitude of the objects. If God did not know things to come as perfectly as he knew things present and past, but knew those certainly, and the others doubtfully and conjecturally, he would suffer some change, and acquire some perfection in his knowledge, when those future things should cease to be future, and become present ; for he would know it more perfectly when it were present than he did when it was future, and so there would be a change from imperfection to a perfection ; but God is every way immutable.
Besides, that perfection would not arise from the nature of God, but from the existence and presence of the thing. But who will affirm that God acquires any perfection of knowledge from his creatures, any more than he doth of being ? He would not then have had that knowledge, and conse quently that perfection from eternity, as he had when he created the world, and will not have a full perfection of the knowledge of his creature till the end of the world, nor of immortal souls, which will certainly act as well as live to eternity. And so God never was, nor ever will be perfect in know ledge ; for when you have conceived millions of years, wherein angels and souls live and act, there is still more coming than you can conceive, wherein they will act. And if God be always changing to eternity from ignorance to knowledge, as those acts come to be exerted by his creatures, he will not be perfect in knowledge, no, not to eternity, but will always be changing from one degree of knowledge to another ; a very unworthy conceit to entertain of the most blessed, perfect, and infinite God.
Hence then it follows, that, (1.) God foreknows all his creatures ; all kinds which he determined to
* Maimonid. More Nevoch., part iii. cap. 21, p. 393, 394.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 483
make, all particulars that should spring out of every species, the time when they should come forth of the womb, the manner how : ' In thy book all members were written,' Ps. cxxxix. 16. Members is not in the Hebrew, whence some refer all to all living creatures whatsoever, and all the parts of them whichJGod did foresee. He knew the numbers of creatures, with all their parts ; they were written in the book of his foreknowledge ; the duration of them, how long they shall remain in being and act upon the stage ; he knows their strength, the links of one cause with another, and what will follow in all their circumstances, and the series and combination
of effects with their causes.
The duration of everything is foreknown, because determined : Job
xiv. 5, * Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee ; thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.' Bounds are fixed, beyond which none shall reach ; he speaks of days and months, not of
years, to give us notice of God's particular foreknowledge of everything, of every day, month, year, hour of a man's life. (2.) All the acts of his creatures are foreknown by him. All natural acts, because he knows their causes ; voluntary acts I shall speak of afterwards.
(3.) This foreknowledge was certain. For it is an unworthy notion of God to ascribe to him a conjectural knowledge ; if there were only a con jectural knowledge, he could but conjecturally foretell anything ; and then it
is possible the events of things might be contrary to his predictions. It would appear then that God were deceived and mistaken, and then there could be no rule of trying things whether they were from God or no ; for the rule God sets down to discern his words from the words of false prophets is the event and certain accomplishment of what is predicted. Deut. xviii. 21, to that question, ' How shall we know whether God hath spoken or no ? ' he answers, that ' If the thing doth not come to pass, the Lord hath not spoken.' If his knowledge of future things were not certain, there were no stability in this rule, it would fall to the ground. We never yet find God deceived in any prediction ; but the event did answer his fore-
revelation ; his foreknowledge" therefore is certain and infallible. We can not make God uncertain in his knowledge, but we must conceive him
fluctuating and wavering in his will ; but if his will be not * yea and nay,' but ' yea,' his knowledge is certain, because he doth certainly will and resolve.
(4.) This foreknowledge was from eternity. Seeing he knows things pos sible in his power, and things future in his will, if his power and resolves were from eternity, his knowledge must be so too, or else we must make him ignorant of his own power, and ignorant of his own will from eternity, and consequently not from eternity blessed and perfect. His knowledge of possible things must run parallel with his power, and his knowledge of future things run parallel with his will. If he willed from eternity, he knew from eternity what he willed ; but that he did will from eternity we must grant, unless we would render him changeable, and conceive him to be made in time of not willing, willing. The knowledge God hath in time was alway one and the same, because his understanding is his proper essence, as per fect as his essence, and of an immutable nature.
And indeed the actual existence of a thing is not simply necessary to its being perfectly known.* We may see a thing that is passed out of being when it doth not actually exist, and a carpenter may know the house he is
to build before it be built, by the model of it in his own mind ; much more we may conceive the same of God, whose decrees were before the foundation
* Gamach in Aquin., part i. q. xiv. c, in. p. 124.
484 CIIARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
of the world, Eph. i. 5, and in other places ; and to be before time was, and to be from eternity, hath no difference. As God in his being exceeds all beginning of time, so doth his knowledge all motions of time.
(5.) God foreknows all things, as present with him from eternity.* As he knows mutable things with an immutable and firm knowledge, so he knows future things with a present knowledge. Not that the things which are pro
duced in time were actually and really present with him in their own beings from eternity, for then they could not be produced in time ; had they a real existence, then they would not be creatures, but God ; and had they actual being, then they could not be future, for future speaks a thing to come that is not yet ; if things had been actually present with him, and yet future, they had been made before they were made, and had a being before they had
a being ; but they were all present to his knowledge, as if they were in actual being, because the reason of all things that were to be made was present with him.
The reason of the will of God that they shall be, was equally eternal with him,f wherein he saw what, and when, and how he would create things, how he would govern them, to what ends he would direct them. Thus all things
are present to God's knowledge, though in their own nature they may be past or future, not in esse reali, but in esse intelligibili, objectively, not actually
present ;J for as the unchangeableness and infiniteness of God's knowledge of changeable and finite things doth not make the things he knows immu table and infinite, so neither doth the eternity of his knowledge make them
actually present with him from eternity, but all things are present to his understanding, because he hath at once a view of all successions of times, and his knowledge of future things is as perfect as of present things, or what is past. It is not a certain knowledge of present things, and an uncertain knowledge of future ; but his knowledge of one is as certain and unerring as his knowledge of the other. § As a man that beholds a circle with several lines from the centre, beholds the lines as they are joined in the centre, be holds them also as they are distant and severed from one another, beholds them in their extent and in their point all at once, though they may have a
great distance from one another. He saw from the beginning of time to the last minute of it, all things coming out of their causes, marching in their order according to his own appointment, as a man may see a multitude of ants, some creeping one way, some another, employed in several businesses for their winter provision. The eye of God at once runs through the whole circle of time, as the eye of man upon a tower sees all the passengers at once, though some be past, some under the tower, some coming at a farther
distance. God, saith Job, ' looks to the end of the earth, and sees under
the whole heaven,' Job xxviii. 24. The knowledge of God is expressed by sight in Scripture, and futurity to God is the same thing as distance to us. We can, with a perspective glass, make things that are afar off appear as if they were near, and the sun, so many thousand miles distant from us, to appear as if it were at the end of the glass. Why should then future things
be at so great a distance from God's knowledge, when things so far from us may be made to approach so near to us ?
God considers all things, in his own simple knowledge, as if the}7 were now acted ; and therefore some have chosen to call the knowledge of things to come not prescience or foreknowledge, but knowledge, because God sees all things in one instant, scientid nunquam deficientis instantm. \\ Upon this
* Gerhard Exeges, ch. viii., de Deo, sect. xiii. p. 303. t Bradward, 1. iii. c. 14. § Pugio Fidei, part i. ch. 19.
t Hornbeck. jj Boet. Consolat., lib. v. prof. 6.
Ps. CXLYII. 5.J GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 485
account things that are to come are set down in Scripture as present, and sometimes as past : Isa. ix. 6, « Unto us a Child is born,' though not yet born ; so of the sufferings of Christ : Isa. liii. 4, &c., ' He hath borne our
griefs, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was taken from prison,' &c., not shall be ; and Ps. xxii. 18, ' They part my garments among them,' as if it were present ; all to express the certainty of God's foreknowledge, as if things were actually present before him.
(6.) This is proper to God, and incommunicable to any creature. Nothing but what is eternal can know all things that are to come. Suppose a crea ture might know things that are to come after he is in being, he cannot know things simply as future, because there were things future before he was in
being. The devils know not men's hearts, therefore cannot foretell their actions with any certainty. They may indeed have a knowledge of some things to come, but it is only conjectural, and often mistaken, as the devil
was in his predictions among the heathen, and in his presage of Job's cursing God to his face upon his pressing calamities, Job i. 11. Sometimes indeed they have a certain knowledge of something future by the revelation of God, when he uses them as instruments of his vengeance, or for the trial of his people, as in the case of Job, when he gave him a commission to strip him of his goods, or as the angels have, when he uses them as instruments of the deliverance of his people.