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
(Job xxxviii. 29); every bird in the air, as well as any man doth what
he hath in a cage at home (Ps. l. 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 embased, 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 a 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 {a423} nature
of them? Was Solomon, who knew all from the 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 “imaginations, which are only evil, and continually?”
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
appearance, inside and outside. Is there anything viler than some
thoughts of men? than some actions of men? their unclean beds and
gluttonous vomiting, 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 nobleness of the
metal? When men are despised for descending to the knowledge 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 honor of God and the happiness
of themselves; 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 beautiful 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 odors, 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 may be, 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. lvi. 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, whether
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 {a424}
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 cognizance; what meaner than a man carrying a pitcher, yet
our Saviour foretels 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 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
things 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 the 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 forever 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 condemned
to punishment) is hid from him; much more is he acquainted with the
{a425} thoughts of living men, the counsels of whose hearts are yet
to be manifested, 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 souls 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. (1.) 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 “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,” saith 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.
(2.) 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 principles 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 could 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 color 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 {a426} the power
of judging and the prerogative of trying the hearts together (Jer.
xi. 20): “But thou, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that
triest the reins and the heart;” and (Jer. 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 according 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 principle 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 supports
the vigor 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,
1st. An incommunicable property, belonging only to the Divine
understanding. 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.[691]
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 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 whatsoever,
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
inclinations? all which God knows exactly.
2d. God acquires no new knowledge of the thoughts and hearts 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 knowledge 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 expression of his own knowledge,
signifying that his {a427} 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 and forced them to make a discovery of their
secret plottings. Nor must we understand that in Gen. xxii. 12, where
God saith, after Abraham 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 knowledge? no, God knew Abraham’s pious
inclinations before (Gen. xviii. 19): “I 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 command; 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 capacity in speaking 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. (1.) 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 (Psal.
xiv. 2, 3), all nations in the world, and every man of every nation;
none of their iniquity is hid from his eyes; he searches Jerusalem
with candles (Jer. xvi. 17). 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 pardon 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 apostacy of the Jews; {a428} what gods they
would serve, in what measure they would provoke him, and violate his
covenant (Deut. xxxi. 20, 21); he knew Judas’ sin long before Judas’
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.[692] This sentiment of God is naturally
written in the fears 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,[693] _scelus in terram geritur, in cœlo 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
knowledge to be the author of it, but with a speculative knowledge,
so as to understand the sinfulness of it; or a knowledge _simplicis
intelligentiæ_, of simple intelligence, as he permits them, not
positively wills them; he knows them not with a knowledge of assent to
them, but dissent from them. Evil pertains to a dissenting act of the
mind, and an aversive act of the will; and what though evil formerly
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 a 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 darkness to be a privation of light, and
folly to be a privation of wisdom. God knows good all 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. (2.) 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 intelligible 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 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 knowing 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 {a429} 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 goodness 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 rectitude and goodness
which ought to be in it; he knows evil because he knows the causes
whence evil proceeds.[694] A painter knows a picture of his own
framing, and if any one dashes any base color upon it, shall not he
also know that? God by his hand painted all creatures, impressed upon
man the fair stamp and color of his own image; the devil defiles it;
man daubs it. Doth not God, that knows his own work, know how this
piece is become different from his work? Doth not God, that knows
his creatures’ goodness, which himself was the fountain of, know the
change of this goodness? 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 goodness, yet he knows it radically by his
own goodness, because he knows the goodness he hath communicated to
the creature by his own essential goodness 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 understandings 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.