Part 32
(7.) Though this be certain, that God foreknows all things and actions, yet the manner of his knowing all things before they come, is not so easily resolved. We must not, therefore, deny this perfection in God, because we understand not the manner how he hath the knowledge of all things. It were unworthy for us to own no more of God than we can perfectly conceive
of him ; we should then own no more of him than that he doth exist. ' Canst thou,' saith Job, * by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ?' Job xi. 7. Do we not see things, unknown to inferior creatures, to be known to ourselves ? Irrational creatures do not apprehend the nature of a man, nor what we conceive of them when we look upon them, nor do we know what they fancy of us when they look wistly upon us ; for aught as I know, we understand as little the manner of their imaginations as they do of ours ; and shall we ascribe a darkness in God as to future things, because we are ignorant of them, and of the manner how he should know them ?* Shall we doubt whether God doth certainly know those things which we only conjecture ? As our power is not the measure of the power of God, so neither is our knowledge the judge of the knowledge of God, no better, nor so well, as an irrational creature can be the judge of our reason. Do we perfectly know the manner how we know ? Shall we therefore deny that we know anything ? We know we have such a faculty which we call understanding, but doth any man certainly know what it is ? And because he doth not, shall he deny that which is plain and evident to him ? Because we cannot ascertain ourselves of the causes of the ebbing and flowing of the sea, of the manner how minerals are engendered in the earth, shall we therefore deny that which our eyes convince us of ?
And this will be a preparation to the last thing.
6. God knows all future contingencies ; that is, God knows all things that shall accidentally happen, or, as we say, by chance ; and he knows all the free motions of men's wills that shall be to the end of the world.
If 'all things be open to him,' Heb. iv. 13, then all contingencies are,
for they are in the number of things ; and as, according to Christ's speech, those things that are impossible to man, are possible to God, so those
* Ficinus in Procl., cap 19.
486 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLTVIL 5.
things which are unknown to man, are known to God, because of the infinite fulness and perfection of the divine understanding.
Let us see what a contingent is. That is contingent which we commonly call accidental, as when a tile falls
suddenly upon a man's head as he is walking in the street, or when one letting off a musket at random shoots another he did not intend to hit ; such was that arrow whereby Ahab was killed, shot by a soldier at a venture,
1 Kings xxii. 34. This some call a mixed contingent, made up partly of necessity, and partly of accident ; it is necessary the bullet, when sent out of the gun, or arrow out of the bow, should fly and light somewhere, but it is an accident that it hits this or that man, that was never intended by the archer. Other things, as voluntary actions, are purely contingents, and have nothing of necessity in them ; all free actions that depend upon the will of man, whether to do or not to do, are of this nature, because they depend not upon a necessary cause, as burning doth upon the fire, moisten ing upon water, or as descent or falling down is necessary to a heavy body, for those cannot in their own nature do otherwise ; but the other actions depend upon a free agent, able to turn to this or that point, and determine
himself as he pleases.
Now we must know that what is accidental in regard of the creature, is
not so in regard of God. The manner of Ahab's death was accidental in regard of the hand by which he was slain, but not in regard of God, who foretold his death, and foreknew the shot, and directed the arrow. God was not uncertain before of the manner of his fall, nor hovered over the battle to watch for an opportunity to accomplish his own prediction ; what may be or not be in regard of us, is certain in regard of God. To imagine that what is accidental to us is so to God, is to measure God by our short line. How many events, following upon the results of princes in their counsels, seem to persons ignorant of those counsels to be a hap-hazard, yet were not con tingencies to the prince and his assistants, but foreseen by him as certainly to issue so as they do, which they knew before would be the fruit of such causes and instruments they would knit together ! That may be necessary
in regard of God's foreknowledge, which is merely accidental in regard of the natural disposition of the immediate causes which do actually produce it ; contingent in its own nature and in regard of us, but fixed in the know
ledge of God. One illustrates it by this similitude : * A master sends two servants to one and the same place, two several ways, unknown to one another ; they meet at the place which their master had appointed them ; their meeting is accidental to them, one knows not of the other, but it was foreseen by the master that they should so meet, and that in regard of them it would seem a mere accident till they came to explain the business to one
another ; both the necessity of their meeting in regard of their master's order, and the accidentalness of it in regard of themselves, were in both their circumstances foreknown by the master that employed them.
For the clearing of this, take it in this method. (1.) It is an unworthy conceit of God, in any, to exclude him from the knowledge of these things.
[1.] It will be a strange contracting of him, to allow him no greater a knowledge than we have ourselves. Contingencies are known to us when they come into act, and pass from futurity to reality ; and when they are present to us, we can order our affairs accordingly ; shall we allow God no greater a measure of knowledge than we have, and make him as blind as ourselves, not to see things of that nature before they come to pass ? Shall * Zanch.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 487
God know them no more ; shall we imagine God knows no otherwise than we know, and that he doth, like us, stand gazing with admiration at events ? Man can conjecture many things; is it fit to ascribe the same uncertainty to God, as though he as well as we could have no assurance till the issue appear in the view of all ? If God doth not certainly foreknow them, he doth but conjecture them ; but a conjectural knowledge is by no means to be fastened on God, for that is not knowledge but guess, and destroys a deity by making him subject to mistake ; for he that only guesseth, may guess wrong, so that this is to make God like ourselves, and strip him of an uni versally acknowledged perfection of omniscience. A conjectural knowledge, saith one, f is as unworthy of God, as the creature is unworthy of omni science. It is certain man hath a liberty to act many things this or that way as he pleases, to walk to this or that quarter, to speak or not to speak, to do this or that thing or not to do it ; which way a man will certainly determine himself, is unknown before to any creature, yea, often at the present to him self, for he may be in suspense ; but shall we imagine this future deter
mination of himself is concealed from God. Those that deny God's fore knowledge in such cases, must either say that God hath an opinion that a man will resolve rather this way than that ; — but then if a man by his liberty determine himself contrary to the opinion of God, is not God then deceived ? and what rational creature can own him for a God that can be deceived in
anything ? — or else they must say that God is at uncertainty, and suspends his opinion without determining it any way ; then he cannot know free acts till they are done, he would then depend upon the creature for his informa tion, his knowledge would be every instant increased, as things he knew not before came into act ; and since there are every minute an innumerable multitude of various imaginations in the minds of men, there would be every minute an accession of new knowledge to God, which he had not before ; besides, this knowledge would be mutable, according to the wavering and weather-cock resolutions of men, one while standing to this point, another
while to that, if he depended upon the creatures' determination for his knowledge.
[2.] If the free acts of men were unknown before to God, no man can see how there can be any government of the world by him. Such contingencies may happen, and such resolves of men's free wills unknown to God, as may perplex his affairs, and put him upon new counsels and methods for attain ing those ends which he settled at the first creation of things ; if things happen which God knows not of before, this must be the consequence, where there is no foresight, there is no providence ; things may happen so sudden, if God be ignorant of them, that they may give a check to his intentions and scheme of government, and put him upon changing the model of it. How often doth a small intervening circumstance, unforeseen by man, dash in pieces a long meditated and well-formed design. To govern necessary causes, as sun and stars, whose effects are natural and constant in themselves, is easy to be imagined ; but how to govern the world, that consists of so many men of free will, able to determine them selves to this or that, and which have no constancy in themselves, as the sun and stars have, cannot be imagined, unless we will allow in God as great a certainty of foreknowledge of the designs and actions of men, as there is inconstancy in their resolves. God must be altering the methods of his government every day, every hour, every minute, according to the determina tions of men, which are so various and changeable in the whole compass of
the world in the space of one minute ; he must wait to see what the counsels
* Scrivener.
488 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
of men will be, before he could settle his own methods of government ; and so must govern the world according to their mutability, and not accord
ing to any certainty in himself. But his ' counsel is stable ' in the midst of multitudes of free 'devices' in the heart of man, Prov. xix. 21, and knowing them all before, orders them to be subservient to his own stable counsel. If he cannot know what to-morrow will bring forth in the mind of a man, how can he certainly settle his own determination of governing him ; his degrees and resolves must be temporal, and arise pro re uatd, ancf he
must alway be in counsel what he should do upon every change of men's minds. This is an unworthy conceit of the infinite majesty of heaven, tot make his government depend upon the resolves of men, rather than their resolves upon the design of God.
(2.) It is therefore certain that God doth foreknow the free and voluntary
acts of man. How could he else order his people to ask of him ' things to come,' in order to their deliverance, such things as depend upon the will of man, if he foreknew not the motions of their will, Isa. xlv. 11.
[1.] Actions good or indifferent depending upon the liberty of man's will as much as any whatsoever. Several of these he hath foretold ; not only a person to build up Jerusalem was predicted by him, but the name of that person, Cyrus, Isa. xliv. 28. What is more contingent, or is more the
effect of the liberty of man's will, than the names of their children ? Was not the destruction of the Babylonish empire foretold, which Cyrus under took, not by any compulsion, but by a free inclination and resolve of his own will ? And was not the dismission of the Jews into their own country
a voluntary act in that conquerer ? If you consider the liberty of man's will, might not Cyrus as well have continued their yoke as have struck off their chains, and kept them captive as well as dismissed them ? Had it not
been for his own interest rather to have strengthened the fetters of so turbulent a people, who, being tenacious of their religion and laws, different from that professed by the whole world, were like to make disturbances more when they were linked in a body in their own country, than when they were transplanted and scattered into the several parts of his empire ? It was in the power of Cyrus (take him as a man) to choose one or the other. His interest invited him to continue their captivity rather than grant their deliverance, yet God knew that he would willingly do this rather than the other ; he knew this which depended upon the will of Cyrus ; and why may not an infinite God foreknow the free acts of all men, as well as of one ? If
the liberty of Cyrus's will was no hindrance to God's certain and infallible foreknowledge of it, how can the contingency of any other thing be a hin
drance to him ? for there is the same reason of one and all ; and his govern ment extends to every village, every family, every person, as well as to kingdoms and nations.
So God foretold by his prophet, not only the destruction of Jeroboam's altar, but the name of the person that should be the instrument of it,
1 Kings xiii. 2, and this about three hundred years before Josiah's birth. It is a wonder that none of the pious kings of Judah, in detestation of idolatry, and hopes to recover again the kingdom of Israel, had in all that space named one of their sons by that name of Josiah, in hopes that that prophecy should be accomplished by him ; that Manasseh only should do
this, who was the greatest imitator of Jeroboam's idolatry among all the Jewish kings, and indeed went beyond them, and had no mind to destroy in another kingdom what he propagated in his own. What is freer tl an the imposition of a name ? Yet this he foreknew, and this Josiah was Ma
nasseh 's son, 2 Kings xxi. 26. Was there anything more voluntary than for
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 489
Pharaoh to honour the butler by restoring him to his place, and punish the baker by hanging him on a gibbet? Yet this was foretold, Gen. xl. 8.
And were not all the voluntary acts of men, which were the means of Joseph's advancement, foreknown by God, as well as his exaltation, which was the end he aimed at by those means ? Many of these may be reckoned up.
Can all the free acts of man surmount the infinite capacity of the divine understanding ? If God singles out one voluntary action in man as contin gent as any, and lying among a vast number of other designs and resolu tions, both antecedent and subsequent, why should he not know the whole
mass of men's thoughts and actions, and pierce into all that the liberty of man's will can effect ? Why should he not know every grain, as well as one that lies in the midst of many of the same kind ?
And since the Scripture gives so large an account of contingents predicted by God, no man can certainly prove that anything is unforeknown to him. It is as reasonable to think he knows every contingent, as that he knows some that lie as much hid from the eye of any creature, since there is no
more difficulty to an infinite understanding to know all, than to know some.* Indeed, if we deny God's foreknowledge of the voluntary actions of men, we must strike ourselves off from the belief of Scripture predictions that yet remain unaccomplished, and will be brought about by the voluntary engage ments of men, as the ruin of antichrist, &c. If God foreknows not the
secret motions of man's will, how can he foretell them ? If we strip him of this perfection of prescience, why should we believe a word of Scripture pre dictions ? All the credit of the word of God is torn up by the roots. If
God were uncertain of such events, how can we reconcile God's declaration of them to his truth, and his demanding our belief of them to his goodness ? Were it good and righteous in God to urge us to the belief of that he were uncertain of himself ? How could he be true in predicting things he were not sure of ? Or good in requiring credit to be given to that which might be false ? This would necessarily follow, if God did not foreknow the
motions of men's wills, whereby many of his predictions were fulfilled, and some remain yet to be accomplished.
[2.] God foreknows the voluntary sinful motions of men's wills. First, God hath foretold several of them. Were not all the minute sinful circumstances about the death of our blessed Redeemer, as the piercing him, giving him gall to drink, foretold, as well as the not breaking his bones, and parting his garments ? What were those but the free actions of men, which they did willingly, without any constraint ? And those foretold by David, Isaiah, and other prophets, some above a thousand, some above eight hun dred, and some more, some fewer years, before they came to pass ; and events punctually answered the prophecies. Many sinful acts of men, which
depended upon their free will, have been foretold : the Egyptians' voluntary oppressing Israel, Gen. xv. 13 ; Pharaoh's hardening his heart against the voice of Moses, Exod. iii. 19 ; that Isaiah's message would be in vain to the people, Isa. vi. 19 ; that the Israelites would be rebellious after Moses his death, and turn idolaters, Deut. xxxi. 16 ; Judas his betraying of our Saviour, a voluntary action, John vi. 71 ; he was not forced to do what he did, for he had some kind of repentance for it ; and not violence, but voluntariness, falls under repentance.
Secondly, His truth hath depended upon this foresight. Let us consider
* The stoics, that thought their souls to be some particle of God, 'Acroo-Trac^ara, pieces pulled off from him, did conclude from thence that he knew all the motions of their souls as his own movements, as things coherent with him.— Arrian Epictet., lib. i. chap. xiv. p. CO.
490 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
that in Gen. xv. 16, but ' the fourth generation, they shall come hither again; ' that is, the posterity of Abraham shall come into Canaan ; ' for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.'* God makes a promise to Abra ham of giving his posterity the land of Canaan, not presently, but in the fourth generation. If the truth of God be infallible in the performance of
his promise, his understanding is as infallible in the foresight of the Amorites' sin : the fulness of their iniquity was to precede the Israelites' possession. Did the truth of God depend upon an uncertainty ? Did he make the pro mise hand over head, as we say ? How could he with any wisdom and truth assure Israel of the possession of the land in the fourth generation, if he had not been sure that the Amorites would fill up the measure of their iniquities
by that time ? If Abraham had been a Socinian, to deny God's knowledge of the free acts of men, had he not had a fine excuse for unbelief ? What would his reply have been to God ? Alas, Lord, this is not a promise to be
relied upon ; the Amorites' iniquity depends upon the acts of their free will, and such thou canst have no knowledge of. Thou canst see no more than a likelihood of their iniquity being full, and therefore there is but a likeli hood of thy performing thy promise, and not a certainty. Would not this be judged not only a saucy, but a blasphemous answer ? And upon these principles the truth of the most faithful God had been dashed to uncertainty and a peradventure.
Thirdly, God provided a remedy for man's sin, and therefore foresaw the entrance of it into the world by the fall of Adam. He had a decree before the foundation of the world, to manifest his wisdom in the gospel by Jesus
Christ, an ' eternal purpose in Jesus Christ,' Eph. iii. 11. And a decree of election passed before the foundation of the world, a separation of some to redemption and forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ, in whom they were from eternity chosen, as well as in time accepted in Christ, Eph. i. 4, 6, 7,
which is called a ' purpose in himself,' ver. 9. Had not sin entered, there had been no occasion for the death of the Son of God, it being everywhere in Scripture laid upon that score. A decree for the shedding of blood sup posed a decree for the permission of sin, and a certain foreknowledge of God, that it would be committed by man. An uncertainty of foreknowledge, and a fixedness of purpose, are not consistent in a wise man, much less in the
only wise God. God's purpose to manifest his wisdom to men and angels in this way might have been defeated, had God had only a conjectural fore knowledge of the fall of man ; and all those solemn purposes of displaying his perfections in those methods had been to no purpose. f The provision of a remedy supposed a certainty of the disease. If a sparrow fall not to ground without the will of God, how much less could such a deplorable ruin
fall upon mankind, without God's will permitting it, and his knowledge fore seeing it !
It is not hard to "conceive how God might foreknow it.| He indeed decreed to create man in an excellent state. The goodness of God could not but furnish him with a power to stand. Yet in his wisdom he might foresee
that the devil would be envious to man's happiness, and would, out of envy, attempt his subversion. As God knew of what temper the faculties were he had endued man with, and how far they were able to endure the assaults of a temptation, so he also foreknew the grand subtilty of Satan, how he would
lay his'Jmine, and to what point he would drive his temptation : how he would propose and manage it, and direct his battery against the sensitive appetite, and assault the weakest part of the fort ; might he not foresee that
* Vid. Rivet, in loc. exerci. 86, p, 329. t Mares, cent. Volkel. lib. i. cap. 24, p. 343. J Amyrald. de Praodestin. cap. 6.
Ps. CXLYII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 491
the efficacy of the temptation would exceed the measure of the resistance ? Cannot God know how far the malice of Satan would extend ; what shots he would, according to his nature, use ; how high he would charge his tempta tion without his powerful restraint, as well as an engineer judge how many shots of a cannon will make a breach in a town, and how many casks of powder will blow up a fortress, who never yet built the one nor founded the other ? We may easily conclude God could not be deceived in the judgment of the issue and event, since he knew how far he would let Satan loose, how far he would permit man to act ; and since he dives to the bottom of the nature of all things, he foresaw that Adam was endued with an ability to stand, as he foresaw that Benhadad might naturally recover of his disease ; but he foresaw also that Adam would sink under the allurements of the tempta tion, as he foresaw that Hazael would not let Benhadad live, 2 Kings viii. 10.
Now since the whole race of mankind lies in corruption, and is subject to the power of the devil, 1 John v. 1 9, may not God, that knows that corrup
tion in every man's nature, and the force of every man's spirit, and what every particular nature will incline him to upon such objects proposed to him, and what the reasons of the temptation will be, know also the issues ?
Is there any difficulty in God's foreknowing this, since man, knowing the nature of one he is well acquainted with, can conclude what sentiments he will have, and how he will behave himself, upon presenting this or that object to him ?
If a man that understands the disposition of his child or servant, knows before what he will do upon such an occasion, may not God much more, who knows the inclination of all his creatures, and from eternity run with his eyes over all the works he intended ? Our wills are in the number of causes, and since God knows our wills, as causes, better than we do our selves, why should he be ignorant of the effects ?
God determines to give grace to such a man ; not to give it to another, but leave him to himself, and suffer such temptations to assault him. Now God, knowing the corruption of man in the whole mass, and in every part of it, is it not easy for him to foreknow what the future actions of the will will be, when the tinder and fire meet together, and how such a man will deter mine himself, both as to the substance and manner of the action ? Is it not easy for him to know how a corrupted temper and a temptation will suit ?
God is exactly privy to all the gall in the hearts of men, and what principles
they will have before they have a being. He * knows their thoughts afar off,' Ps. cxxxix. 2, as far off as eternity, as some explain the words, and thoughts are as voluntary as anything ; he knows the power and inclinations of men in the order of second causes ; he understands the corruption of men, as
well as the poison of dragons and the venom of asps. This is ' laid up in store with him, and sealed among his treasures,' Deut. xxxii. 33, 34 ; among the treasures of his foreknowledge, say some.
What was the cruelty of Hazael but a free act ? Yet God knew the frame of his heart, and what acts of murder and oppression would spring from that bitter fountain, before Hazael had conceived them in himself, 2 Kings viii. 12. As a man that knows the mineral through which waters pass may know what relish they will have before they appear above the earth, so our Sa viour knew how Peter would deny him ; he knew what quantity of powder would serve for such a battery, in what measure he would let loose Satan, how far he would leave the reins in Peter's hands, and then the issue might easily be known ; and so, in every act of man, God knows in his own will what measure of grace he will give to determine the will to good, and what measure of grace he will withdraw from such a person, or not give to him,
492 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
and consequently, how far such a person will fall or not. God knows the inclinations of the creature ; he knows his own permissions, what degrees of grace he will either allow him or keep from him, according to which will be the degree of his sin. This may in some measure help our conceptions in this, though, as was said before, the manner of God's foreknowledge is not so easily explicable.
(3). God's foreknowledge of man's voluntary actions doth not necessitate the will of man. The foreknowledge of God is not deceived, nor the liberty
of man's will diminished. I shall not trouble you with any school distinc tions, but be as plain as I can, laying down several propositions in this case.
Prop. 1. It is certain all necessity doth not take away liberty. Indeed, a compulsive necessity takes away liberty, but a necessity of immutability removes not liberty from God ; why should then a necessity of infallibility in God remove liberty from the creature ? God did not necessarily create the world, because he decreed it ; yet freely, because his will from eternity stood to it : he freely decreed it, and freely created it. As the apostle saith,
in regard of God's decrees, * Who hath been his counsellor ? ' Rom. xi. 34, so, in regard of his actions, I may say, Who hath been his compeller ? He freely decreed, and he freely created. Jesus Christ necessarily took our flesh, because he had covenanted with God so to do, yet he acted freely and voluntar[il]y according to that covenant, otherwise his death had not been effi
cacious for us. A good man doth naturally necessarily love his children, yet voluntary. It is part of the happiness of the blessed to love God un changeably, yet freely, for it would not be their happiness if it were done by compulsion. What is done by force cannot be called felicity, because there is no delight or complacency in it ; and though the blessed love God freely, yet, if there were a possibility of change, it would not be their hap piness ; their blessedness would be damped by their fear of falling from this love, and consequently from their nearness to God, in whom their happiness consists. God foreknows that they will love him for ever, but are they therefore compelled for ever to love him ? If there were such a kind of
constraint, heaven would be rendered burdensome to them, and so no heaven.
Again, God's foreknowledge of what he will do doth not necessitate him to do ; he foreknew that he would create a world, yet he freely created
a world. God's foreknowledge doth not necessitate himself, why should it necessitate us more than himself ? We may instance in ourselves : when we will a thing, we necessar[il]y use our faculty of will ; and when we freely will
anything, it is necessary that we freely will ; but this necessity doth not exclude but include liberty ; or more plainly, when a man writes or speaks, whilst he writes or speaks, those actions are necessary, because to speak and be silent, to write and not to write, at the same time, are impossible ; yet our writing or speaking doth not take away the power not to write or to be silent at that time, if a man would be so, for he might have chose whether he would have spoke or writ. So there is a necessity of such actions of man which God foresees ; that is, a necessity of infallibility, because God cannot be deceived, but not a coactive necessity, as if they were compelled by God to act thus or thus.
Prop. 2. No man can say in any of his voluntary actions that he ever found any force upon him. When any of us have done anything according to our wills, can we say we could not have done the contrary to it ? Were we determined to it in our own intrinsic nature, or did we not determine our selves ? Did we not act either according to our reason, or according to outward allurements ; did we find anything without us or within us that
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 493
did force our wills to the embracing this or that ? Whatever action you do, you do it because you judge it fit to be done, or because you will do it. What though God foresaw that you would do so, and that you would do this or that, did you feel any force upon you ? Did you not act according to your nature ? God foresees that you will eat or walk at such a time ; do you find anything that moves you to eat but your own appetite, or to walk but your own reason and will ? If prescience had imposed any necessity upon man, should we not probably have found some kind of plea from it in the mouth of Adam ? He knew as much as any man ever since knew of the nature of God, as discoverable in creation ; he could not in innocence fancy an igno rant God, a God that knew nothing of future things ; he could not be so ignorant of his own action but he must have perceived a force upon his will,
had there been any ; had he thought that God's prescience imposed any necessity upon him, he would not have omitted the plea, especially when he was so daring as to charge the providence of God, in the gift of the woman to him, to be the cause of his crime, Gen. iii. 12. How came his posterity to invent new charges against God, which their father Adam never thought of, who had more knowledge than all of them ? He could find no cause of his sin but the liberty of his own will. He charges it not upon any necessity from the devil, or any necessity from God ; nor doth he allege the gift of the woman as a necessary cause of his sin, but an occasion of it, by giving the fruit to him. Judas knew that our Saviour did foreknow his treachery, for he had told him of it in the hearing of his disciples, John xiii: 21, 26, yet he never charged the necessity of his crime upon the foreknowledge of his Master. If Judas had not done it freely, he had had no reason to repent of it ; his repentance justifies Christ from imposing any necessity upon him by that foreknowledge. No man acts anything but he can give an account of the motives of his action ; he cannot father it upon a blind necessity ; the will cannot be compelled, for then it would cease to be will. God doth not root up the foundations of nature, or change the order of it, and make men un able to act like men, that is, as free agents. God foreknows the actions of irrational creatures ; this . concludes no violence upon their nature, for we find their actions to be according to their nature, and spontaneous.
Prop. 3. God's foreknowledge is not, simply considered, the cause of any thing. It puts nothing into things, but only beholds them as present, and arising from their proper causes. The knowledge of God is not the prin ciple of things, or the cause of their existence, but directive of the action. Nothing is because God knows it, but because God wills it, either positively or permissively. God knows all things possible ; yet because God knows them, they are not brought into actual existence, but remain still only as things possible. Knowledge only apprehends a thing, but acts nothing; it is the rule of acting, but not the cause of acting ; the will is the immediate principle, and the power the immediate cause. To know a thing is not to do a thing ; for then we may be said to do everything that we know. But every man knows those things which he never did, nor never will do. Knowledge in itself is an apprehension of a thing, and is not the cause of it. A spectator of a thing is not the cause of that thing which he sees ; that is, he is not the cause of it as he beholds it. We see a man write ; we know before that he will write at such a time ; but this foreknowledge is not the cause of his writing. We see a man walk ; but our vision of him brings no
necessity of walking upon him ; he was free to walk, or not to walk.* We foreknow that death will seize upon all men ; we foreknow that the seasons
of the year will succeed one another; yet is not our foreknowledge the cause
* Raleigh, of the World, lib i. cap. i. sec. 12.
494 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVIL 5.
of this succession of spring after winter, or of the death of all men, or any man. We see one man fighting with another ; our sight is not the cause of that contest, but some quarrel among themselves exciting their own passions. As the knowledge of present things imposeth no necessity upon them while they are acting and present, so the knowledge of future things imposeth no
necessity upon them while they are coming. We are certain there will be men in the world to-morrow, and that the sea will ebb and flow; but is this knowledge of ours the cause that those things will be so ? I know that the sun will rise to-morrow ; it is true that he shall rise ; but it is not true that my foreknowledge makes it to rise. If a physician prognosticates, upon seeing the intemperances and debaucheries of men, that they will fall into such a distemper, is his prognostication any cause of their disease, or of the sharpness of any symptoms attending it ? The prophet foretold the cruelty of Hazael before he committed it ; but who will say that the prophet was the cause of his commission of that evil ? And thus the foreknowledge of
God takes not away the liberty of man's will, no more than a foreknowledge that we have of any man's actions takes away his liberty. We may, upon our knowledge of the temper of a man, certainly foreknow that if he falls into such company, and get among his cups, he will be drunk ; but is this foreknowledge the cause that he is drunk ? No ; the cause is the liberty of his own will, and not resisting the temptation. God purposes to leave such a man to himself and his own ways; and man being so left, God fore knows what will be done by him according to that corrupt nature which is in him. Though the decree of God, of leaving a man to the liberty of his
own will, be certain, yet the liberty of man's will, as thus left, is the cause of all the extravagancies he doth commit. Suppose Adam had stood ; would not God certainly have foreseen that he would have stood ? Yet it would
have been concluded that Adam had stood, not by any necessity of God's foreknowledge, but by the liberty of his own will. Why should, then, the
foreknowledge of God add more necessity to his falling than to his standing ? * And though it be said sometimes in Scripture that such a thing was done,
' that the Scripture might be fulfilled,' as John xii. 38, « that the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled, Lord, who hath believed our report?' the word that doth not infer that the prediction of the prophet was the cause of the
Jews' unbelief; but infers this, that the prediction was manifested to be true by their unbelief, and the event answered the prediction. This predic tion was not the cause of their sin ; but their foreseen sin was the cause of
this prediction. And so the particle that is taken, Ps. li. 4, ' Against thee, thee only have I sinned, that thou mightest be justified,' &c. The justify ing God was not the end and intent of the sin, but the event of it upon his acknowledgment.
Prop. 4. God foreknows things because they will come to pass ; but things are not future because God knows them. Foreknowledge presupposeth the object which is foreknown. A thing that is to come to pass is the object of the divine knowledge, but not the cause of the act of divine knowledge ; and though the foreknowledge of God doth in eternity precede the actual pre sence of a thing which is foreseen as future, yet the future thing, in regard of its futurity, is as eternal as the foreknowledge of God. As the voice is uttered before it be heard, and a thing is visible before it be seen, and a thing knowable before it be known ; but how comes it to be knowable to God ? It must be answered, either in the power of God as a thing possible, or in the will of God as a thing future. He first willed, and then knew what he willed ; he knew what he willed to effect, and he knew what he willed to
* Eivet in Isa. liii. 1, p. 16.
Ps. CXLYII. 5.J GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 495
permit ; as lie willed the death of Christ by a determinate counsel, and
willed the permission of the Jews' sin, and the ordering of the malice of their nature to that end, Acts ii. 23. God decrees to make a rational crea ture, and to govern him by a law ; God decrees not to hinder this rational
creature from transgressing his law ; and God foresees that what he would not hinder would come to pass. Man did not sin because God foresaw him ; but God foresaw him to sin, because man would sin. If Adam and other men would have acted otherwise, God would have foreknown that they would have acted well. God foresaw our actions because they would so come to pass by the motion of our free-will, which he would permit, which he would concur with, which he would order to his own holy and glorious ends for the manifestation of the perfection of his nature. If I see a man lie in a sink, no necessity is inferred upon him from my sight to he in that filthy place ; but there is a necessity inferred by him that lies there, that I should see him in that condition if I pass by and cast my eye that way.
Prop. 5. God did not only foreknow our actions, but the manner of our actions ; that is, he did not only know that we would do such actions, but that we would do them freely. He foresaw that the will would freely determine itself to this or that. The knowledge of God takes not away the nature of things. Though God knows possible things, yet they remain in the nature of possibility ; and though God knows contingent things, yet they remain in the nature of contingencies ; and though God knows free agents, yet they remain in the nature of liberty. God did not foreknow the actions of man as necessary, but as free ; so that liberty is rather established by this foreknowledge than removed. God did not foreknow that Adam had not a power to stand, or that any man hath not a power to omit such a
sinful action, but that he would not omit it. Man hath a power to do other wise than that which God foreknows he will do. Adam was not determined by any inward necessity to fall, nor any man by any inward necessity to commit this or that particular sin ; but God foresaw that he would fall, and fall freely ; for he saw the whole circle of means and causes whereby such and such actions should be produced, and can be no more ignorant of the motions of our wills, and the manner of them, than an artificer can be ignorant of the motions of his watch, and how far the spring will let down the string in the space of an hour. He sees all causes leading to such events in their whole order, and how the free-will of man will comply with
this, or refuse that; he changes not the manner of the creature's operation, whatsoever it be.
Prop. 6. But what if the foreknowledge of God, and the liberty of the will, cannot be fully reconciled by man ? Shall we therefore deny a perfec tion in God, to support a liberty in ourselves ? Shall we rather fasten igno rance upon God, and accuse him of blindness, to maintain our liberty ? That God doth foreknow everything, and yet that there is liberty in the rational creature, are both certain ; but how fully to reconcile them, may surmount the understanding of man. Some truths the disciples were not capable of bearing in the days of Christ ; and several truths our understand ings cannot reach as long as the world doth last ; yet in the mean time we must on the one hand take heed of conceiving God ignorant, and on the other hand of imagining the creature necessitated : the one will render God imperfect, and the other will seem to render him unjust, in punishing man for that sin which he could not avoid, but was brought into by a fatal neces sity. God is sufficient to render a reason of his own proceedings, and clear
up all at the day of judgment ; it is a part of man's curiosity, since the fall,
496 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
to be prying into God's secrets, things too high for him, whereby he singes his own wings, and confounds his own understanding. It is a cursed affec
tation that runs in the blood of Adam's posterity, to know as God, though our first father smarted and ruined his posterity in that attempt ; the ways
and knowledge of God are as much * above our thoughts' and conceptions, as ' the heavens are above the earth,' Isa. Iv. 9, and so sublime, that we cannot comprehend them in their true and just greatness ;* his designs are so mysterious, and the ways of his conduct so profound, that it is not pos sible to dive into them. The force of our understandings is below his infinite wisdom, and therefore we should adore him with an humble astonishment,
and cry out with the apostle ; Bom. xi. 33, ' Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and
his ways past finding out !' Whenever we meet with depths that we cannot fathom, let us remember that he is God, and we his creatures ; and not be guilty of so great extravagance, as to think that a subject can pierce into all the secrets of a prince, or a work understand all the operations of the arti ficer. Let us only resolve not to fasten any thing on God that is unworthy
of the perfection of his nature, and dishonourable to the glory of his majesty ; nor imagine that we can ever step out of the rank of creatures to the glory of the Deity, to understand fully everything in his nature.
So much for the second general, what God knows.
III. The third is, How God knows all things ? As it is necessary we should conceive God to be an understanding being, else he could not be God, so we must conceive his understanding to be infinitely more pure and perfect than ours in the act of it, else we liken him to ourselves, and debase him as low as his footstool. As among creatures there are degrees of being and perfection ; plants above earth and sand, because they have a power of growth ; beasts above plants, because to their power of growth, there is an addition of excellency of sense ; rational creatures above beasts, because to sense there is added the dignity of reason ; the understanding of man is more noble than all the vegetative power of plants, or the sensitive power of beasts : God therefore must be infinitely more excellent in his understand ing, and therefore in the manner of it.f As man differs from a beast in regard of his knowledge, so doth God also from man in regard of his know ledge. As God therefore is, in being and perfection, infinitely more above a man than a man is above a beast, the manner of his knowledge must be
infinitely more above a man's knowledge, than the knowledge of a man is above that of a beast ; our understandings can clasp an object in a moment, that is at a great distance from our sense ; our eye by one elevated motion
can view the heavens ; the manner of God's understanding must be un con ceivably above our glimmerings ; as the manner of his being is infinitely more perfect than all beings, so must the manner of his understanding be infinitely more perfect than all created understandings. Indeed, the manner
of God's knowledge can no more be known by us, than his essence can be known by us ; and the same incapacity in man, which renders him unable to comprehend the being of God, renders him as unable to comprehend the manner of God's understanding. J As there is a vast distance between the essence of God, and our beings, so there is between the thoughts of God and our thoughts. The heavens are not so much higher than the earth, as the thoughts of God are above the thoughts of men, yea, and of the highest
* Daille, Melang. part i. p. 712, 725. t Maxim. Tyrius Dissert, i. p, 9, 10. j Maimonides More Nevocliim. part iii. c. xx. p. £91-393.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] [ GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 497
angel, Isa. Iv. 8, 9 ; yet though we know not the manner of God's knowledge, we know that he knows ; as though we know not the infiniteness of God,
yet we know that he is infinite. It is God's sole prerogative to know him self what he is ; and it is equally his prerogative to know how he knows ;
the manner of God's knowledge therefore must be considered by us, as free from those imperfections our knowledge is encumbered with.
In general, God doth necessarily know all things ; he is necessarily omni present, because of the immensity of his essence; so he is necessarily omniscient, because of the infiniteness of his understanding. It is no more
at the liberty of his will, whether he will know all things, than whether he
will be able to create all things ; it is no more at the liberty of his will, whether he will be omniscient, than whether he will be holy ; he can as
little be ignorant, as he can be impure ; he knows not all things because he will know them, but because it is essential to his nature to know them.
In particular. Prop. 1. God knows by his own essence ; that is, he sees the nature of things in the ideas of his own mind, and the events of things in the decrees of his own will ; he knows them not by viewing the things, but by viewing himself ; his own essence is the mirror and book, wherein he beholds all things that he doth ordain, dispose, and execute ; and so he knows all things in the first and original cause, which is no other than his own essence will ing, and his own essence executing what he wills ; he knows them in his power as the physical principle, in his will as the moral principle of things, as some speak.
He borrows not the knowledge of creatures from the creatures, nor depends upon them for means of understanding, as we poor worms do, who are be holden to the objects abroad to assist us with images of things, and to our senses to convey them into our minds ; God would then acquire a perfection from those things which are below himself, and an excellency from those things that are vile ; his knowledge would not precede the being of the creatures, but the creatures would be before the act of his knowledge. If he understood by images drawn from the creatures, as we do, there would be something in God which is not God, viz., the images of things drawn from outward objects. God would then depend upon creatures for that which is more noble than a bare being ; for to be understanding, is more
excellent than barely to be. Besides, if God's knowledge of his creatures were derived from the creatures by the impression of anything upon him, as there is upon us, he could not know from eternity, because from eternity there was no actual existence of anything but himself; and therefore there could not be any images shot out from any thing, because there was not anything in being but God ; as there is no principle of being to anything but by his essence, so there is no principle of the knowledge of anything by himself but his essence. If the knowledge of God were distinct from his essence, his knowledge were not eternal, because there is nothing eternal but his essence.
His understanding is not a faculty in him as it is in us, but the same with his essence, because of the simplicity of his nature ; God is not made up of various parts, one distinct from another, as we are, and therefore doth not understand by a part of himself, but by himself ; so that to be and to understand is the same with God ; his essence is not one thing, and the power whereby he understands another ; he would then be compounded, and not be the most simple being. This also is necessary for the perfection of God ; for the more perfect and noble the way and manner of knowing is, the more perfect and noble is the knowledge. The perfection of knowledge depends upon
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498 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
the excellency of the medium whereby we know. As a knowledge by reason is a more noble way of knowing than knowledge by sense, so it is more excellent for God to know by his essence, than by anything without him, anything mixed with him ; the first would render him dependent, and the other would demolish his simplicity.
Again, the natures of all things are contained in God, — not formally, for then the nature of the creatures would be God ; * — but eminently, ' he that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? he that formed the eye, shall he not see ?' Ps. xciv. 9. He hath in himself eminently the beauty, perfection, life and vigour of all creatures ; he created nothing contrary to himself, but every thing with some footsteps of himself in them ; he could not have pronounced them good, as he did, had there been anything in them contrary to his own goodness ; and therefore as his essence primarily represents itself, so it re presents the creatures, and makes them known to him. As the essence of
God is eminently all things, so by understanding his essence, he eminently understands all things. And therefore he hath not one knowledge of him self, and another knowledge of the creatures ; but by knowing himself, as the original and exemplary cause of all things, he cannot be ignorant of any creature which he is the cause of; so that he knows all things, not by an understanding of them, but by an understanding of himself; by understand ing his own power as the efficient of them, his own will as the orderf of them, his own goodness as the adorner and beautifier of them, his own wisdom as the disposer of them, and his own holiness, to which many of their actions are contrary.
As he sees all things possible in his own power,J because he is able to produce them, so he sees all things future in his own will ; decreeing to effect them, if they be good ; or decreeing to permit them, if they be evil. In this glass he sees what he will give being to, and what he will suffer to fall into a deficiency, without looking out of himself, or borrowing knowledge from his creatures ; he knows all things in himself. And thus his know ledge is more noble, and of a higher elevation than ours, or the knowledge of any creature can be ; he knows all things by one comprehension of the causes in himself.
Prop. 2. God knows all things by one act of intuition. This the schools call an intuitive knowledge. This follows upon the other; for if he know by his own essence, he knows all things by one act ; there would be other wise a division in his essence, a first and a last, a nearness and a distance. As what he made, he made by one word, so what he sees, he pierceth into by one glance from eternity to eternity ; as he wills all things by one act of his will, so he knows all things by one act of his understanding. He knows not some things discursively from other things, nor knows one thing suc cessively after another. As by one act he imparts essence to things, so by one act he knows the nature of things.
1. He doth not know by discourse as we do ; that is, by deducing one thing from another, and from common notions drawing out other rational conclusions, and arguing one thing from another, and springing up various consequences from some principle assented to ; but God stands in no need of reasonings : the making inferences and abstracting things would be stains in the infinite perfection of God. Here would be a mixture of knowledge and ignorance ; while he knew the principle, he would not know the con sequence and conclusion till he had actually deduced it; one thing would be known after another, and so he would have an ignorance and then a knowledge, and there would be different conceptions in God, and knowledge
* Dionys. f Qu. ' orderer ' ? — ED. $ Kendal against Goodwin of Foreknowledge.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 499
would be multiplied according to the multitude of objects, as it is in human understandings. But God knows all things before they did exist, and never
was ignorant of them : Acts xv. 18, « Known unto God are all his works,
from the beginning of the world.' He therefore knows them all at once ; the knowledge of one thing was not before another, nor depended upon
another, as it doth in the way of human reasoning. Though indeed some * make a virtual discourse in God, that is, though God hath a simple know ledge, yet it doth virtually contain a discourse by the flowing of one know ledge from another; as from the knowledge of his own power he knows
what things are possible to be made by him, and from the knowledge of himself he passes to the knowledge of the creatures; but this is only according to our conception, and because of our weakness they are appre hended as two distinct acts in God, one of which is the reason of another.
As we say that one attribute is the reason of another ; as his mercy may be
said to be the reason of his patience, and his omnipresence to be the reason
of the knowledge of present things done in the world. God indeed by one simple act knows himself and the creatures, but when that act whereby he knows himself is conceived by us to pass to the knowledge of the creatures, we must not understand it to be a new act distinct from the other,
but the same act upon different terms or objects. Such an order is in our
understanding and conceptions, not in God's. 2. Nor doth he know successively as we do; that is, not by drops, one thing after another. This follows from the former, a knowledge of all things without discourse is a knowledge without succession. f The knowledge of one thing is not in God before another, one act of knowledge doth not forget | another. In regard of the objects, one thing is before another, one year before another, one generation of men before another ; one is the cause, the other is the effect. In the creatures there is such a succession, and God
knows there will be such a succession ; but there is no such order in God's knowledge, for he knows all those successions by one glance, without any succession of knowledge in himself.
Man in his view of things must turn sometimes his body, sometimes only his eyes. He cannot see all the contents of a letter at once ; and though he beholds all the lines in the page of a book at once, and a whole country in a map, yet to know what is contained in them, he must turn his eye from word to word, and line to line, and so spin out one thing after another by several acts and motions. We behold a great part of the sea at once, saith Epiphanius, but not all the dimensions of it ; for to know the length of the
sea we move our eyes one way ; to see the breadth of it, we turn our eyes another way ; to behold the depth of it, we hath another motion of them. And when we cast our eyes up to heaven, we seem to receive in at an instant the whole extent of the hemisphere ; yet there is but one object the eye can attentively pitch upon, and we cannot distinctly view what we see in a lump without various motions of our eyes, which is not done without succession of time.§ And certainly the understanding of angels is bounded according to the measure of their beings, so that it cannot extend itself at one time to a quantity of objects, to make a distinct application of them, but the objects must present themselves one by one. But God is all eye, all understanding ; as there is no succession in his essence, so there is none
in his knowledge ; ' his understanding,' in the nature and in the act, « is infinite,' as it is in the text. He therefore sees eternally and universally all
* Suarez. vol. i. de Deo, lib. iii. cap. ii. p. 133, 134. t Gamach. in Aquin. q. xiv. cap. i. p. 119. i Qu. « beget' or ' forego ' ?— ED. 5 Amyrant, Morale Chresti, torn. iii. p. 137.
500 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
things by one act, without any motion, much less various motions. The various changes of things in their substance, qualities, places, and relations, withdraw not anything from his eye, nor bring any new thing to his know ledge. He doth not, upon consideration of present things, turn his mind from past, or when he beholds future things, turn his mind from present ; but he sees them not one after another, but all at once and altogether, the whole circle of his own counsels, and all the various lines drawn forth from the centre of his will to the circumference of his creatures. Just as if a man were able in one moment to read a whole library ; or as if you should imagine a transparent crystal globe, hung up in the midst of a room, and so framed as to take in the images of all things in the room, the fretwork in the ceiling, the inlaid parts of the floor, and the particular parts of the tapestry about it, the eye of a man would behold all the beauty of the room at once in it. As the sun by one light and heat frames sensible things, so God by one simple act knows all things. As he knows mutable things by an immutable knowledge, bodily things by a spiritual knowledge, so he knows many things by one knowledge: Heb. iv. 13, 'All things are open and naked to him,' more than any one thing can be to us, and therefore he views all things at once as well as we can behold and contemplate one thing alone. As he is the * Father of lights,' a God of infinite understanding, there is 'no variableness' in his mind, 'nor any shadow of turning' of his eye as there is of ours, to behold various things, James i. 17. His know ledge being eternal, includes all times ; there is nothing past or future with him, and therefore he beholds all things by one and the same manner of knowledge, and comprehends all knowable things by one act, and in one moment.
This must needs be so, (1.) Because of the eminency of God. God is above all, and therefore cannot but see the motions of all. He that sits in a theatre, or at the top of a place, sees all things, all persons ; by one aspect he comprehends the whole circle of the place; whereas he that sits below, when he looks before, he cannot see things behind. God being above all, about all, in all, sees at once the motions of all. The whole world in the eye of God is less than
a point that divides one sentence from another in a book ; as a cipher, ' a grain of dust,' Isa. xl. 15. So little a thing can be seen by man at once, and all things being as little in the eye of God, are seen at once by him. As all time is but a moment to his eternity, so all things are but as a point to the immensity of his knowledge, which he can behold with more ease than we can move or turn our eye.
(2.) Because all the perfections of knowing are united in God. As par ticular senses are divided in man,* — by one he sees, by another he hears, by another he smells, yet all those are united in one common sense, and this common sense apprehends all, — so the various and distinct ways of know ledge in the creatures, are all eminently united in God. A man, when he sees a grain of wheat, understands at once all things that can in time pro ceed from that seed ; so God, by beholding his own virtue and power, beholds all things which shall in time be unfolded by him. We have a shadow of this way of knowledge in our own understanding : the sense only perceives a thing present, and one object only proper and suitable to it ; as the eye sees colour, the ear hears sounds, we see this and that man, one time this, another minute that ; but the understanding abstracts a notion of the common nature of man, and frames a conception of that nature wherein all men agree, and so in a manner beholds and understands all men at once,
* Cusan. p. 646.
Ps. CXLYII. 5.] GOD'S KNOWLEDGE. 501
by understanding the common nature of man, which is a degree of know ledge above the sense and fancy ; we may then conceive an infinite vaster perfection in the understanding of God. As to know is simply better than not to know at all, so to know by one act comprehensive is a greater per fection than to know by divided acts, by succession to receive information, and to have an increase or decrease of knowledge, to be like a bucket, alway descending into the well and fetching water from thence. It is a
man's weakness that he is fixed on one object only at a time ; it is God's perfection that he can behold all at once, and is fixed upon one no more than upon another.
Prop. 8. God knows all things independently. This is essential to an infinite understanding. He receives not his knowledge from anything without him, he hath no tutor to instruct him, or book to inform him ;
' Who hath been his counsellor ?' saith the prophet, Isa. xl. 13. He hath no need of the counsels of others, nor of the instructions of others. This follows upon the first and second propositions ; if he knows things by his essence, then as his essence is independent from the creatures, so is his knowledge ; he borrows not any images from the creature, hath no species or pictures of things in his understanding, as we have ; no beams from the creature strike upon him to enlighten him, but beams from him upon the world ; the earth sends not light to the sun, but the sun to the earth.
Our knowledge indeed depends upon the object, but all created objects
depend upon God's knowledge and will. We could not know creatures unless they were, but creatures could not be unless God knew them. As nothing that he wills is the cause of his will, so nothing that he knows is the cause of his knowledge ; he did not make things to know them, but he knows them to make them. Who will imagine that the mark of the foot in the dust is the cause that the foot stands in this or that particular place ?
If his knowledge did depend upon the things, then the existence of things
did precede God's knowledge of them ; to say that they are the cause of God's knowledge is to say, that God was not the cause of their being ; and if he did create them, it was effected by a blind and ignorant power, he created he knew not what till he had produced it. If he be beholden for his knowledge to the creatures he hath made, he had then no knowledge of them before he made them. If his knowledge were dependent upon them, it could not be eternal, but must have a beginning when the creatures had a beginning, and be of no longer a date than since the nature of things was in