First, God had 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 eight hundred, and some more, some fewer years before
they came to pass; and the events punctually answered the prophesies.
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. 9); that the Israelites would be rebellious after Moses’
death, and turn idolaters (Deut. xxxi. 16); Judas’ betraying of our
Saviour, a voluntary action (John vi. _ult._); 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. Second, His truth
had depended upon this foresight. Let us consider that in Gen. xv. 16,
“But in 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.[716] God makes a promise to Abraham,
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 fullness of their iniquity was to
precede the Israelites’ possession. Did the truth of God depend upon
an uncertainty? did he make the promise hand over head (as we say)?
How could he, with any wisdom and truth, {a444} 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 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 likelihood 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.
Third, 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 past 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, supposed 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 foreknowledge
of the fall of man; and all those solemn purposes of displaying
his perfections in those methods had been to no purpose;[717] the
provision of a remedy supposed a certainty of the disease. If a
sparrow fall not to the 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 foreseeing it? It is not hard to
conceive how God might foreknow it?[718] 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 subtelties of
Satan, how he would lay his mine, 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 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 temptation without his
powerful restraint, {a445} 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 temptation, as he foresaw that
Hazael would 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 iii. 18), may not God, that knows that corruption
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 ourselves, 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 determine
himself, both us 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 minerals through which the waters pass, may know
what relish they will have before they appear above the earth, so our
Saviour 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, {a446} 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; 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 distinctions, but be as plain as I can, laying down several
propositions in this case.
_Prop. I._ 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 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
voluntarily according to that covenant, otherwise his death had not
been efficacious for us. A good man doth naturally, necessarily, love
his children, yet voluntarily: it is part of the happiness of the
blessed to love God unchangeably, 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 happiness, 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 forever, but are they
therefore compelled forever 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 necessarily use our
faculty of will; and when we freely will any thing, 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 {a447} 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. II._ 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 ourselves? did we not act either according to our reason,
or according to outward allurements? did we find anything without us,
or within us, that 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 ignorant
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 come 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 the will: God doth not root up the foundations of
nature, or change the order of it, and make men unable 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.
{a448} _Prop. III._ God’s foreknowledge is not, simply considered, the
cause of anything. It puts nothing into things, but only beholds them
as present, and arising from their proper causes. The knowledge of God
is not the principle 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.[719] 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 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 it 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 foreknows what will be done
by him according to that corrupt nature which is in him; though the
decree of God of leaving a {a449} 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 extravagances 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 Esais 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’ belief, but
infers this, that the prediction was manifested to be true by their
unbelief, and the event answered the prediction; this prediction
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. 6),
“Against thee, thee only have I sinned, that thou mightest be
justified,” &c.; the justifying God was not the end and intent of
the sin, but the event of it upon his acknowledgment.[720]
_Prop. IV._ 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 presence 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 permit; as he willed the death of Christ by a determinate counsel,
and willed the permission of the Jew’s sin, and the ordering of the
malice of their nature to that end (Acts ii. 22). God decrees to make
a rational creature, 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
freewill, 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 lie 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. V._ God did not only foreknow our actions, but the manner
{a450} 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 otherwise 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. VI._ But what if the foreknowledge of God, and the liberty of
the will, cannot be fully reconciled by man? shall we therefore deny
a perfection in God to support a liberty in ourselves? Shall we rather
fasten ignorance 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 understandings 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 necessity.
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, 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 affectation 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. lv. 9),[721] 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 possible to dive into
them. The force of our {a451} understandings is below his infinite
wisdom, and therefore we should adore him with an humble astonishment,
and cry out with the apostle (Rom. xi. 33): “O 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 artificer. Let us only resolve not to fasten
anything on God that is unworthy of the perfection of his nature,
and dishonorable 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.[722] 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 sensative power of beasts:
God therefore must be infinitely more excellent in his understanding,
and therefore in the manner of it. As man differs from a beast in
regard of his knowledge, so doth God also from man, in regard of his
knowledge. 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 understanding 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 unconceivably 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.[723] 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. 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 angel (Isa. lv. 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
{a452} sole prerogative to know himself, 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 omnipresent, 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,