infinite in regard of certainty; every tittle of what he knows is as
far from failing as what he speaks; our Saviour affirms the one (Matt.
v. 18), and there is the same reason of the certainty of one as well
as the other; his essence is the measure of his knowledge; whence it
is as impossible that God should be mistaken in the knowledge of the
least thing in the world, as it is that he should be mistaken in his
own essence; for, knowing himself comprehensively, he must know all
others things infallibly; since he is essentially omniscient, he is
no more capable of error in his understanding than of imperfection in
his essence; his counsels are as unerring as his essence is perfect,
and his knowledge as infallible as his essence is free from defect.
Again, since God knows all things with a knowledge of vision, because
he wills them, his knowledge must be as infallible as his purpose; now
his purpose will certainly be effected; “what he hath thought shall
come to pass, and what he hath purposed shall stand” (Isa. xiv. 24);
“his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure” (Isa.
xlvi. 10). There may be interruptions of nature, the foundation of
it may be out of course, but there can be no bar upon the Author of
nature; he hath an infinite power to carry on and perfect the resolves
of his own will; he can effect what he pleases by a word. Speech is
one of the least motions; yet when God said, “let there be light,
there was light” arising from darkness. No reason can be given why
God knows a thing to be, but because he infallibly wills it to be.
Again,[732] the schools make this difference between the knowledge
of the good and bad angels, that the good are never deceived; for
that is repugnant to their blessed state; for deceit is an evil and
an imperfection inconsistent with that perfect blessedness the good
angels are possessed of; and would it not much more be a stain upon
the blessedness of that God, that is blessed forever, to be subject
to deceit? His knowledge therefore is not an opinion, for an opinion
is uncertain; a man knows not {a460} what to think, but leans to one
part of the question proposed, rather than to the other. If things did
not come to pass therefore as God knows them, his knowledge would be
imperfect; and since he knows by his essence, his essence also would
be imperfect, if God were exposed to any deceit in his knowledge;
he knows by himself, who is the highest truth; and therefore it is
impossible he should err in his understanding.
_Prop. VI._ God knows immutably. His understanding else could not be
infinite; everything and every act that is mutable, is finite, it hath
its bounds; for there is a term from which it changeth, and a term to
which it changes.[733] There is a change in the understanding, when
we gain the knowledge of a thing, which was unknown to us before; or
when we actually consider a thing which we did not know before, though
we had the principles of the knowledge of it; or, when we know that
distinctly, which we before knew confusedly. None of these can be
ascribed to God without a manifest disparagement of his infiniteness.
Our knowledge indeed is alway arriving to us or flowing from us; we
pass from one degree to another; from worse to better, or from better
to worse; but God loses nothing by the ages that are run, nor will
gain anything by the ages that are to come. If there were a variation
in the knowledge of God, by the daily and hourly changes in the world,
he would grow wiser than he was, he was not then perfectly wise
before. A change in the objects known, infers not any change in the
understanding exercised about them; the wheel moves round, the spokes
that are lowest are presently highest, and presently return to be low
again; but the eye that beholds them changes not with the motions of
the wheels. God’s knowledge admits no more of increase or decrease,
than his essence doth; since God knows by his essence, and the essence
of God is God himself, his knowledge must be void of any change. The
knowledge of possible things, arising from the knowledge of his own
power, cannot be changed unless his power be changed, and God become
weak and impotent; the knowledge of future things cannot be changed,
because that knowledge ariseth from his will, which is irreversible,
“the counsel of the Lord that shall stand” (Prov. xix. 21); so that
if God can never decay into weakness, and never turn to inconstancy,
there can be no variation of his knowledge. He knows what he can do,
and he knows what he will do; and both these being immutable, his
knowledge must, consequently, be so too. It was not necessary that
this or that creature should be, and therefore it was not necessary
that God should know this or that creature with a knowledge of vision;
but after the will of God had determined the existence of this or that
creature, his knowledge being then determined to this or that object,
did necessarily continue unchangeable. God, therefore, knows no more
now than he did before; and at the end of the world, he shall know
no more than he doth now; and from eternity, he knows no less than
he doth now, and shall do to eternity. Though things pass into being
and out of being, the knowledge of God doth not vary with them, for
he knows them as well before they were, as when {a461} they are, and
knows them as well when they are past, as when they are present.
_Prop. VII._ God knows all things perpetually, _i. e._ in act. Since
he knows by his essence, he always knows, because his essence never
ceaseth, but is a pure act; so that he doth not know only in habit,
but in act. Men that have the knowledge of some art or science, have
it always in habit, though when they are asleep they have it not in
act: a musician hath the habit of music, but doth not so much as think
of it when his senses are bound up. But God is an unsleepy eye;[734]
he never slumbers nor sleeps; he never slumbers, in regard of his
providence, and therefore never slumbers in regard of his knowledge.
He knows not himself, nor any other creature more perfectly at one
time than at another; he is perpetually in the act of knowing, as the
sun is in the act of shining; the sun never ceased to shine in one or
other part of the world, since it was first fixed in the heavens; nor
God to be in the act of knowledge, since he was God; and therefore
since he always was, and always will be God, he always was and always
will be in the act of knowledge; always knowing his own essence, he
must alway actually know what hath been gone and ceased from being,
and what shall come and arise into being; as a watchmaker knows what
watch he intends to make, and after he hath made it, though it be
broken to pieces, or consumed by the fire, he still knows it, because
he knows the copy of it in his own mind. Some, therefore, in regard
of this perpetual act of the Divine knowledge, have called God not
_intellectus_, but the intellection of intellections; we have no
proper English word to express the act of the understanding; as his
power is co‑eternal with him, so is his knowledge; all times past,
present, and to come, are embraced in the bosom of his understanding;
he fixed all things in their seasons, that nothing new comes to him,
nothing old passes from him.[735] What is done in a thousand years,
is actually present with his knowledge, as what is done in one day,
or in one watch in the night, is with ours; since a “thousand years
are no more to God than a day,” or a “watch in the night” is to us
(Ps. xc. 4). God is in the highest degree of being, and therefore
in the highest degree of understanding. Knowledge is one of the most
perfect acts in any creature. God therefore hath all actual, as well
as essential and habitual knowledge; his understanding is infinite.
IV. The fourth general is, Reasons to prove this.
_Reason 1._ God must know what any creature knows, and more than any
creature knows. There is nothing done in the world but is known by
some creature or other; every action is at least known by the person
that acts, and therefore known by the Creator, who cannot be exceeded
by any of the creatures, or all of them together; and every creature
is known by him, since every creature is made by him.[736] And as
God works all things by an infinite power, so he knows all things
by an infinite understanding. First, the perfection of God requires
this.[737] All perfections that include no essential defect, are
formally in God; but knowledge includes no essential defect {a462} in
itself, therefore it is in God. Knowledge in itself is desirable, and
an excellency; ignorance is a defect; it is impossible that the least
grain of defect can be found in the most perfect Being. Since God is
wise, he must be knowing; for wisdom must have knowledge for the basis
of it. A creature can no more be wise without knowledge, than he can
be active without strength. Now God is “only wise” (Rom. xvi. 27);
and, therefore, only knowing in the highest degree of knowledge,
incomprehensibly beyond all degrees of knowledge, because infinite.
Again, the more spiritual anything is, the more understanding it
is. The dull body understands nothing; sense perceives, but the
understanding faculty is seated in the soul, which is of a spiritual
nature, which knows things that are present, remembers things that
are past, foresees many things to come. What is the property of a
spiritual nature, must be, in a most eminent manner, in the supreme
spirit of the world; that is, in the highest degree of spirituality,
and most remote from any matter. Again, nothing can enjoy other things,
but by some kind of understanding them; God hath the highest enjoyment
of himself, of all things he hath created, of all the glory that
accrues to him by them; nothing of perfection and blessedness can
be wanting to him. Felicity doth not consist with ignorance, and all
imperfect knowledge is a degree of ignorance: God, therefore, doth
perfectly know himself, and all things from whence he designs any
glory to himself. The most noble manner of acting must be ascribed to
God, as being the most noble and excellent Being; to act by knowledge
is the most excellent manner of acting; God hath, therefore, not only
knowledge, but the most excellent manner of knowledge; for as it is
better to know than to be ignorant, so it is better to know in the
most excellent manner, than to have a mean and low kind of knowledge;
his knowledge, therefore, must be every way as perfect as his essence,
infinite as well as that. An infinite nature must have an infinite
knowledge: a God ignorant of anything cannot be counted infinite, for
he is not infinite to whom any degree of perfection is wanting.
_Reason 2._ All the knowledge in any creature is from God. And you
must allow God a greater and more perfect knowledge than any creature
hath, yea, than all creatures have. All the drops of knowledge
any creature hath, come from God; and all the knowledge in every
creature, that ever was, is, or shall be, in the whole mass, was
derived from him. If all those several drops in particular creatures,
were collected into one spirit, into one creature, it would be an
unconceivable knowledge, yet still lower than what the Author of all
that knowledge hath; for God cannot give more knowledge than he hath
himself; nor is the creature capable of receiving so much knowledge
as God hath. As the creature is incapable of receiving so much power
as God hath, for then it would be almighty, so it is incapable of
receiving so much knowledge as God hath, for then it would be God.
Nothing can be made by God equal to him in anything; if anything could
be made as knowing as God, it would be eternal as God, it would be
the cause of all things as God. The knowledge that we poor worms have,
is an argument God uses for {a463} the asserting the greatness of his
own knowledge (Ps. xciv. 10): “He that teaches man knowledge, shall
not he know?” Man hath here knowledge ascribed to him; the author of
this knowledge is God; he furnished him with it, and therefore doth
in a higher manner possess it, and much more than can fall under the
comprehension of any creature; as the sun enlightens all things, but
hath more light in itself than it darts upon the earth or the heavens:
and shall not God eminently contain all that knowledge he imparts to
the creatures, and infinitely more exact and comprehensive?
_Reason 3._ The accusations of conscience evidence God’s knowledge of
all actions of his creatures. Doth not conscience check for the most
secret sins, to which none are privy but a man’s self, the whole world
beside being ignorant of his crime? Do not the fears of another Judge
gall the heart? If a judgment above him be feared, an understanding
above him discerning their secrets is confessed by those fears; whence
can those horrors arise, if there be not a superior that understands
and records the crime? What perfection of the Divine Being can this
relate unto, but omniscience? What other attribute is to be feared, if
God were defective in this? The condemnation of us by our own hearts,
when none in the world can condemn us, renders it legible, that there
is One “greater than our hearts” in respect of knowledge, who “knoweth
all things” (1 John iii. 20). Conscience would be a vain principle,
and stingless without this; it would be an easy matter to silence
all its accusations, and mockingly laugh in the face of its severest
frowns. What need any trouble themselves, if none knows their crimes
but themselves? Concealed sins, gnawing the conscience, are arguments
of God’s omniscience of all present and past actions.
_Reason 4._ God is the first cause of everything, every creature is
his production. Since all creatures, from the highest angel to the
lowest worm, exist by the power of God, if God understands his own
power and excellency, nothing can be hid from him, that was brought
forth by that power, as well as nothing can be unknown to him, that
that power is able to produce. “If God knows nothing besides himself,
he may then believe there is nothing besides himself; we shall then
fancy a God miserably mistaken: if he knows nothing besides himself,
then things were not created by him, or not understandingly and
voluntarily created, but dropped from him before he was aware.”[738]
To think that the First Cause of all should be ignorant of those
things he is the cause of, is to make him not a voluntary, but natural
agent, and therefore necessary; and then that the creature came from
him as light from the sun, and moisture from the water; this would be
an absurd opinion of the world’s creation; if God be a voluntary agent,
as he is, he must be an intelligent agent. The faculty of will is
not in any creature, without that of understanding also. If God be an
intelligent agent, his knowledge must extend as far as his operation,
and every object of his operation, unless we imagine God hath lost his
memory, in that long tract of time since the first creation of them.
An artificer cannot be ignorant of his own work: if God knows himself,
he knows himself to be a {a464} cause; how can he know himself to be
a cause, unless he know the effects he is the cause of? One relation
implies another; a man cannot know himself to be a father, unless
he hath a child, because it is a name of relation, and in the notion
of it refers to another. The name of cause is a name of relation,
and implies an effect; if God therefore know himself in all his
perfections, as the cause of things, he must know all his acts,
what his wisdom contrived, what his counsel determined, and what
his power effected. The knowledge of God is to be supposed in a free
determination of himself; and that knowledge must be perfect, both
of the object, act, and all the circumstances of it. How can his will
freely produce anything that was not first known in his understanding?
From this the prophet argues the understanding of God, and the
unsearchableness of it, because he is the “Creator of the ends of
the earth” (Isa. xl. 28), and the same reason David gives of God’s
knowledge of him, and of everything he did, and that afar off, because
he was formed by him (Ps. cxxxix. 2, 15, 16). As the perfect making of
things only belongs to God: so doth the perfect knowledge of things;
it is as absurd to think, that God should be ignorant of what he hath
given being to; that he should not know all the creatures and their
qualities, the plants and their virtues; as that a man should not
know the letters that are formed by him in writing. Everything bears
in itself the mark of God’s perfection; and shall not God know the
representation of his own virtue?
_Reason 5._ Without this knowledge, God could no more be the
Governor, than he could be the Creator of the world. Knowledge is
the basis of providence; to know things, is before the government
of things; a practical knowledge cannot be without a theoretical
knowledge. Nothing could be directed to its proper end, without the
knowledge of the nature of it, and its suitableness to answer that
end for which it is intended. As everything, even the minutest, falls
under the conduct of God, so everything falls under the knowledge of
God. A blind coachman is not able to hold the reins of his horses,
and direct them in right paths: since the providence of God is about
particulars, his knowledge must be about particulars; he could not
else govern them in particular; nor could all things be said to depend
upon him in their being and operations. Providence depends upon the
knowledge of God, and the exercise of it upon the goodness of God;
it cannot be without understanding and will; understanding, to know
what is convenient, and will to perform it. When our Saviour therefore
speaks of providence, he intimates these two in a special manner,
“Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things” (Matt.
vi. 32), and goodness, in Luke xi. 13. The reason of providence is so
joined with omniscience, that they cannot be separated. What a kind of
God would he be that were ignorant of those things that were governed
by him! The ascribing this perfection to him, asserts his providence;
for it is as easy for one that knows all things, to look over the
whole world, if writ with monosyllables, in every little particular of
it; as it is with a man to take a view of one letter in an alphabet.
Again, if God were not omniscient, how could he reward the good, and
punish the evil? the {a465} works of men are either rewardable or
punishable; not only according to their outward circumstances, but
inward principles and ends, and the degrees of venom lurking in the
heart.[739] The exact discerning of these, without a possibility to
be deceived, is necessary to pass a right and infallible judgment upon
them, and proportion the censure and punishment to the crime: without
such a knowledge and discerning, men would not have their due; nay, a
judgment just for the matter, would be unjust in the manner, because
unjustly past, without an understanding of the merit of the cause.
It is necessary therefore that the Supreme Judge of the world should
not be thought to be blindfold, when he distributes his rewards and
punishments, and muffle his face when he passes his sentence. It
is necessary to ascribe to him the knowledge of men’s thoughts and
intentions; the secret wills and aims; the hidden works of darkness in
every man’s conscience, because every man’s work is to be measured by
the will and inward frame. It is necessary that he should perpetually
retain all those things in the indelible and plain records of his
memory, that there may not be any work without a just proportion of
what is due to it. This is the glory of God, to discover the secrets
of all hearts at last, as 1 Cor. iv. 5, “The Lord shall bring to light
the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels
of all hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God.” This
knowledge fits him to be a judge; the reason why the ungodly shall not
stand in judgment, is because God knows their ways, which is implied
in his knowing the way of the righteous (Ps. i. 5, 6). I now proceed
to the use.
_Use I._ is of information or instruction. If God hath all knowledge;
then,
_Instruct. 1._ Jesus Christ is not a mere creature. The two titles of
wonderful Counsellor, and mighty God, are given him in conjunction
(Isa. ix. 6), not only the Angel of the covenant, as he is called
(Malach. iii. 1), or the executor of his counsels, but a counsellor,
in conjunction with him in counsel as well as power: this title is
superior to any title given to any of the prophets in regard of their
predictions; and therefore I should take it rather as the note of his
perfect understanding, than of his perfect teaching and discovering;
as Calvin doth. He is not only the revealer of what he knows, so were
the prophets according to their measures; but the counsellor of what
he revealed, having a perfect understanding of all the counsels of God,
as being interested in them, as the mighty God. He calls himself by
the peculiar title of God, and declares that he will manifest himself
by this prerogative to all the churches (Rev. ii. 23): “And all the
churches shall know that I am he which searches the reins and hearts,”
the most hidden operations of the minds of men, that lie locked up
from the view of all the world besides. And this was no new thing
to Him, after his ascension; for the same perfection he had in the
time of his earthly flesh (Luke vi. 8), he knew their thoughts; his
eyes are therefore compared (Cant. v. 12) to doves’ eyes, which are
clear and quick; and to a flame of fire (Rev. i. 14), not only heat
to consume his enemies, but light to discern {a466} their contrivances
against the church; he pierceth by his knowledge, into all parts, as
fire pierceth into the closest particle of iron, and separates between
the most united parts of metals; and some tell us, he is called a Roe,
from the perspicacity of his sight, as well as from the swiftness of
his motion.
1. He hath a perfect knowledge of the Father; he knows the Father, and
none else knows the Father; angels know God, men know God, but Christ
in a peculiar manner knows the Father; no man knows the Son but the
Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son (Matt. xi. 27);
he knows so, as that he learns not from any other; he doth perfectly
comprehend him, which is beyond the reach of any creature, with the
addition of all the divine virtue; not because of any incapacity in
God to reveal, but the incapacity of the creature to receive; finite
is incapable of being made infinite, and therefore incapable of
comprehending infinite; so that Christ cannot be _Deus factus_, made
of a creature a God, to comprehend God; for then of finite he would
become infinite, which is a contradiction. As the Spirit is God,
because he searches the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii. 10), that is
comprehends them,[740] as the spirit of a man doth the things of a man
(now the spirit of man understands what it thinks, and what it wills),
so the Spirit of God understands what is in the understanding of God,
and what is in the will of God. He hath an absolute knowledge ascribed
to him, and such as could not be ascribed to anything but a divinity:
now if the Spirit knows the deep things of God, and takes from Christ
what he shows to us of him (John xvi. 15), he cannot be ignorant of
those things himself; he must know the depths of God, that affords
us that Spirit, that is not ignorant of any of the counsels of the
Father’s will; since he comprehends the Father, and the Father him,
he is in himself infinite; for God whose essence is infinite, is
infinitely knowable; but no created understanding can infinitely know
God. The infiniteness of the object hinders it from being understood
by anything that is not infinite. Though a creature should understand
all the works of God, yet it cannot be therefore said to understand
God himself: as though I may understand all the volitions and motions
of my soul, yet it doth not follow that therefore I understand the
whole nature and substance of my soul; or if a man understood all the
effects of the sun, that therefore he understands fully the nature
of the sun. But Christ knows the Father, he lay in the bosom of the
Father, was in the greatest intimacy with him (John i. 18), and from
this intimacy with him, he saw him and knew him; so he knows God
as much as he is knowable; and therefore knows him perfectly as the
Father knows himself by a comprehensive vision; this is the knowledge
of God wherein properly the infiniteness of his understanding appears:
and our Saviour uses such expressions which manifest his knowledge to
be above all created knowledge, and such a manner of knowledge of the
Father, as the Father hath of him.