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
{a430} days, or years; if God did not know them, the hindrance must
be in himself, or in the things themselves, 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 resolved
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
understanding 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 something
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
preservation 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 imperfection in government; it
is in this the infiniteness of his understanding is more seen than in
knowing things past or present; his {a431} eyes are a flame of fire
(Rev. 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. Everything which is the object of God’s knowledge without himself
was once only future. There was a moment when nothing was in being
but himself: he knew nothing actually past, because nothing was
past; nothing 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 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?[695] 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, for 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 that he knew what creatures should be before they were,
he knows still what creatures shall be before they are;[696] 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 is
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 any thing 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 godded in the world (Isa. xli. 21, 22): Let them bring them forth
(speaking of the idols) and show us what shall happen, or declare us
things to come: show the things that are to come hereafter, that we
may know that you are gods. Such a fore‑knowledge 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 controversy, 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, therefore they are not gods; God submits the being
of his Deity to this trial. If God know {a432} 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 necessarily 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 liberty of man’s will, which the devils could lay no claim to
a certain knowledge of. Were it only a conjectural knowledge that is
here meant, the devils might answer, they can conjecture, and so their
deity was 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 Godhead; 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 nature? It must be from some superior
Agent; and all nations owned prophecy as a beam from God, a fruit of
Divine illumination.[697] 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 {a433} of his people in Babylon, the calling of the Gentiles,
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 known 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 foretel the progress of a disease, the
increase or diminution of it by natural signs; and astronomers foretel
eclipses by their observation of the motion of heavenly bodies, many
years before they happen;[698] can they be hid from God, with whom
are the reasons of all things?[699] 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 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 concurrence 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 absolute: 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 perfection, 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 {a434} things
merely possible into the order of things future, before some act of
God’s will hath passed for its futurition.[700] It is not from the
infiniteness of his own nature, simply considered, that God knows
things to be future;[701] for as things are not future because God is
infinite (for then all possible things should be future), so neither
is any thing 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 appointment of things to come.[702] In Isaiah
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?”[703]
Nothing is created or ordered in the world but what God decreed to
be created and ordered. God knows his own decree, and therefore 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 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;[704] 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 motion
of it, and the reason 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 spectator doth,
who, by viewing the instrument after it is made, gains a knowledge
from the sight and the 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 knowledge 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 {a435} 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 understanding, 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 multiplied according
to the multitude of the objects. If God did 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 that knowledge, and consequently 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 knowledge; 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 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 my members were written” (Ps. cxxxix. 16). Members is not in
the _Heb._ whence some refer all, to all living creatures whatsoever,
and all the parts of them which God did foresee; he knew the number
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 combinations of effects with their
causes. The duration of everything is foreknown, because determined
(Job. xiv. 5); “seeing his days {a436} 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
conjectural knowledge, he could but conjecturally foretel 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 there 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 forerevelation; his
foreknowledge, therefore, is certain and infallible. We cannot 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
possible 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 always one and the same,
because his understanding is his proper essence, and of an immutable
nature.[705] And indeed the actual existence of a thing is not simply
necessary to its being perfectly known; we may see a thing that is
past out of being, when it doth 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 of the world;[706] 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.