are often flatterers of God, and think to bend him by formal glavering
devotions, without the concurrence of their hearts; as though he could
not pierce into the darkness of the mind, but did as little know us
as one man knows another. There are such things as feigned lips (Ps.
xvii. 1), a contradiction between the heart and the tongue, a clamor
in the voice, and scoffing in the soul; a crying out to God, thou art
my Father, the guide of my youth, and yet speaking and doing evil to
the utmost of our power (Jer. iii. 4, 5). As if God could be imposed
upon by fawning pretences; and like old Isaac, take Jacob for Esau,
and be cozened by the smell of his garments: as if he could not
discern the negro heart under an angel’s garb. Thus Ephraim, the
ten tribes, apostatized from the true religion, would go with their
flocks and their herds to seek the Lord (Hos. v. 6), would sacrifice
multitudes of sheep and heifers, which was the main outside of the
Jewish religion; only with their flocks and their herds, not with
their hearts, with those inward qualifications of deep humiliation
and repentance for sin; as though outside appearances limited God’s
observation, whereas God had told them before (ver. 3), that he “knew
Ephraim, and Israel was not hid from him.” Thus to do is to put a
cheat upon God, and think to blind his all‑seeing eye, and therefore
it is called deceit (Ps. lxxviii. 36). They did flatter him with their
mouths. The word פתה signifies to deceive, as well as to flatter; not
that they, or any else, can deceive {a482} God, but it implies an
endeavor to deceive him, by a few dissembling words and gestures, or
an imagination that God was satisfied with bare professions, and would
not concern himself in a further inquisition. This is an unworthy
conceit of God, to fancy that we can satisfy for inward sins, and
avert approaching judgments, by external offerings, by a loud voice
with a false heart, as if God (like children) would be pleased with
the glittering of an empty shell, or the rattling of stones, the
chinkling of money, a mere voice and crying, without inward frames
and intentions of service.
4. In cherishing multitudes of evil thoughts. No man but would blush
for shame, if the base, impure, slovenly thoughts, either in or out
of duties of worship, were visible to the understanding of man; how
diligent would he be to curb his luxuriant and unworthy fancies, as
well as bite in his words! but when we give the reins to the motions
of our hearts, and suffer them to run at random without a curb, it is
an evidence we are not concerned for their falling under the notice of
the eye of God; and it argues a very weak belief of this perfection,
or scarce any belief at all. Who can think any man’s heart, possessed
with a sense of this infinite excellency, that suffers his mind, in
his meditations on God, to wander into every sty, and be picking up
stones upon a dunghill? What doth it intimate, but that those thoughts
are as invisible, or unaudible to God, as they are to men without the
garments of words?[752] When a man thinks of obscene things, his own
natural notions, if revived, would tell him that God discerns what he
thinks, that the depths of his heart are open to him: and the voice of
those notions are――deface those vain imaginations out of your minds.
But what is done? Men cast away rational light, muster up conceits
that God sees them not, knows them not, and so sink into the puddle
of their sordid imaginations, as though they remained in darkness to
God. I might further instance. _In omissions of prayer_, which arise
sometimes from a flat atheism: who will call upon a God, that believes
no such Being? or from partial atheism, either a denial of God’s
sufficiency to help, or of his omniscience to know, as if God were
like the statue of Jupiter in Crete, framed without ears. _In the
hypocritical pretences of men, to exempt them from the service God
calls them to._ When men pretend one thing and intend another: this
lurks in the veins sometimes of the best men; sometimes it ariseth
from the fear of man; when men are more afraid of the power of man,
than of dissembling with the Almighty, it will pretend a virtue
to cover a secret wile, and choose the tongue of the crafty as the
expression in Job (ch. xv. 5). The case is plain in Moses, who, when
ordered to undertake an eminent service, pretends a want of eloquence,
and an ungrateful “slowness of speech” (Exod. iv. 10). This generous
soul, that before was not afraid to discover himself in the midst of
Egypt for his countrymen, answers sneakingly to God, and would veil
his carnal fear with a pretence of insufficiency and humility; “Who
am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh” (Exod. iii. 11)? He could not well
allege an inability to go to Pharaoh, since he had had an education
in the Egyptian learning, which rendered him capable to appear
{a483} at court. God at last uncaseth him, and shews it all to be
a dissimulation, and whatsoever was the pretence, fear lay at the
bottom. He was afraid of his life upon his appearance before Pharaoh,
from whose face he had fled upon the slaying the Egyptians; which God
intimates to him (Exod. iv. 19), “Go, and return into Egypt, for all
the men are dead which sought thy life.” What doth this carriage speak,
but as if God’s eye were not upon our inward parts, as though we could
lock him out of our hearts, that cannot be shut out from any creek of
the hearts of men and angels?
_Use II._ is of comfort. It is a ground of great comfort under
the present dispensation wherein we are; we have heard the doctrinal
part, and God hath given us the experimental part of it in his special
providence this day, upon the stage of the world.[753] And, blessed be
God, that he hath given us a ground of comfort, without going out of
our ordinary course to fetch it, whereby it seems to be peculiarly of
God’s ordering for us.
1. It is a comfort in all the clandestine contrivances of men
against the church. His eyes pierce as far as the depths of hell. Not
one of his church’s adversaries lies in a mist; all are as plain as
the stars which he numbers: “Mine adversaries are all before thee” (Ps.
lxix. 19), more exactly known to thee than I can recount them. It is
a prophecy of Christ, wherein Christ is brought in speaking to God of
his own and the church’s enemies: he comforts himself with this, that
God hath his eye upon every particular person among his adversaries:
he knows where they repose themselves, when they go out to consult,
and when they come in with their resolves. He discerns all the rage
that spirits their hearts, in what corner it lurks, how it acts;
all the disorders, motions of it, and every object of that rage; he
cannot be deceived by the closest and subtlest person. Thus God speaks
concerning Sennacherib and his host against Jerusalem (Isa. xxxvii. 28,
29). After he had spoke of the forming of his church, and the weakness
of it, he adds, “But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy
coming in, and thy rage against me. Because thy rage against me, and
thy tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in
thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back,” &c.
He knows all the methods of the counsels, the stages they had laid,
the manner of the execution of their designs, all the ways whither
they turned themselves, and would use them no better than men do
devouring fish and untamed beasts, with a hook in the nose, and a
bridle in the mouth. Those statesmen (in Isa. xxix. 15) thought their
contrivances too deep for God to fathom, and too close for God to
frustrate; “they seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord;
surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the
potter’s clay,” of no more force and understanding than a potter’s
vessel, which understands not its own form wrought by the artificer,
nor the use it is put to by the buyer and possessor; or shall be
esteemed as a potter’s vessel, that can be as easily flung back into
the mass from whence it was taken, as preserved in the figure it is
now endued with. No secret designer is shrouded from God’s sight, or
{a484} can be sheltered from God’s arm; he understands the venom of
their hearts better than we can feel it, and discovers their inward
fury more plainly than we can see the sting or teeth of a viper when
they are opened for mischief; and to what purpose doth God know and
see them, but in order to deliver his people from them in his own due
time? “I know their sorrow, and am come down to deliver them” (Exod.
iii. 7, 8). The walls of Jerusalem are continually before him; he
knows, therefore, all that would undermine and demolish them; none can
hurt Zion by any ignorance or inadvertency in God. It is observable,
that our Saviour, assuming to himself a different title in every
epistle to the seven churches, doth particularly ascribe to himself
this of knowledge and wrath in that to Thyatira, an emblem or
description of the Romish state (Rev. ii. 18): “And unto the angel of
the church of Thyatira write, These things, saith the Son of God, who
hath his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass.”
His eyes, like a flame of fire, are of a piercing nature, insinuating
themselves into all the pores and parts of the body they encounter
with, and his feet like brass, to crush them with, is explained (ver.
23), “I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall
know that I am he which searches the reins and the heart, and I will
give to every one of you according to your works.” He knows every
design of the Romish party, designed by that church of Thyatira.[754]
Jezebel, there, signifies a whorish church; such a church as shall
act as Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, who was not only a worshipper of idols,
but propagated idolatry in Israel, slew the prophets, persecuted
Elijah, murdered Naboth, the name whereof signifies prophecy, seized
upon his possession. And if it be said that (ver. 19) this church was
commended for her works, faith, patience, it is true Rome did at first
strongly profess Christianity, and maintained the interest of it, but
afterwards fell into the practice of Jezebel, and committed spiritual
adultery: and is she to be owned for a wife, that now plays the harlot,
because she was honest and modest at her first marriage? And though
she shall be destroyed, yet not speedily (ver. 22); “I will cast her
into a bed,” seems to intimate the destruction of Jezebel, not to
be at once and speedily, but in a lingering way, and by degrees, as
sickness consumes a body.[755]
2. This perfection of God fits him to be a special object of trust.
If he were forgetful, what comfort could we have in any promise?
How could we depend upon him, if he were ignorant of our state? His
compassion to pity us, his readiness to relieve us, his power to
protect and assist us, would be insignificant, without his omniscience
to inform his goodness, and direct the arm of his power. This
perfection is, as it were, God’s office of intelligence: as you go to
your memorandum‑book to know what you are to do, so doth God to his
omniscience; this perfection is God’s eye, to acquaint him with the
necessities of his church, and directs all his other attributes in
their exercise for and about his people. You may depend upon his mercy
{a485} that hath promised, and upon his truth to perform; upon his
sufficiency to supply you, and his goodness to relieve you, and his
righteousness to reward you; because he hath an infinite understanding
to know you and your wants, you and your services. And without this
knowledge of his, no comfort could be drawn from any other perfection;
none of them could be a sure nail to hang our hopes and confidence
upon. This is that the church alway celebrated (Ps. cv. 7): “He hath
remembered his covenant forever, and the word which he hath commanded
to a thousand generations;” and (ver. 42), “He remembered his holy
promise;” “And he remembered for them his covenant” (Ps. cvi. 45).
He remembers and understands his covenant, therefore his promise to
perform it, and therefore our wants to supply them.
3. And the rather, because God knows the persons of all his own.
He hath in his infinite understanding, the exact number of all the
individual persons that belong to him (2 Tim. ii. 19): “The Lord
knows them that are his.” He knows all things, because he hath created
them; and he knows his people because he hath not only made them,
but also chose them; he could no more choose he knew not what, than
he could create he knew not what; and he knows them under a double
title; of creation as creatures, in the common mass of creation; as
new creatures by a particular act of separation. He cannot be ignorant
of them in time, whom he foreknew from eternity; his knowledge in time
is the same he had from eternity; he foreknew them that he intended
to give the grace of faith unto; and he knows them after they believe,
because he knows his own act, in bestowing grace upon them, and his
own mark and seal wherewith he hath stamped them. No doubt but he
that “calls the stars of heaven by their names” (Ps. clxvii. 4), knows
the number of those living stars that sparkle in the firmament of his
church. He cannot be ignorant of their persons, when he numbers the
hairs of their heads, and hath registered their names in the book of
life. As he only had an infinite mercy to make the choice, so he only
hath an infinite understanding to comprehend their persons. We only
know the elect of God by a moral assurance in the judgment of charity,
when the conversation of men is according to the doctrine of God. We
have not an infallible knowledge of them, we may be often mistaken;
Judas, a devil, may be judged by man for a saint, till he be stripped
of his disguise. God only hath an infallible knowledge of them, he
knows his own records, and the counterparts in the hearts of his
people; none can counterfeit his seal, nor can any rase it out. When
the church is either scattered like dust by persecution, or overgrown
with superstition and idolatry, that there is scarce any grain of true
religion appearing, as in the time of Elijah, who complained that he
was left alone, as if the church had been rooted out of that corner of
the world (1 Kings xix. 14, 18); yet God knew that he had a number fed
in a cave, and had reserved seven thousand men that had preserved the
purity of his worship, and not bowed their knee to Baal.[756] Christ
knew his sheep, as well as he is known of them; yea, better than
they can know him (John x. 14). History acquaints us, that Cyrus had
so {a486} vast a memory, that he knew the name of every particular
soldier in his army, which consisted of divers nations; shall it be
too hard for an infinite understanding to know every one of that host
that march under his banners? may he not as well know them, as know
the number, qualities, influences, of those stars which lie concealed
from our eye, as well as those that are visible to our sense? Yes,
he knows them, as a general to employ them, as a shepherd to preserve
them; he knows them in the world to guard them, and he knows them when
they are out of the world to gather them, and cull out their bodies,
though wrapped up in a cloud of the putrified carcases of the wicked.
As he knew them from all eternity to elect them, so he knows them
in time to clothe their persons with righteousness, to protect their
persons in calamity, according to his good pleasure, and at last to
raise and reward them according to his promise.
4. We may take comfort from hence, that our sincerity cannot be
unknown to an infinite understanding. Not a way of the righteous is
concealed from him, and, therefore, “they shall stand in judgment
before him” (Ps. i. 6): “The Lord knows the way of the righteous;”
he knows them to observe them, and he knows them to reward them. How
comfortable is it to appeal to this attribute of God for our integrity,
with Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 3)! “Remember, Lord, how I have walked
before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart.” Christ himself is
brought in in this prophetical psalm, drawing out the comfort of this
attribute (Ps. xl. 9): “I have not restrained my lips, O Lord, thou
knowest;” meaning his faithfulness in declaring the righteousness of
God. Job follows the same steps, “Also now behold, my record is in
heaven, and my witness is on high” (Job xvi. 19); my innocence hath
the testimony of men, but my greatest support is in the records of God.
Also now, or, besides the testimony of my own heart, I have another
witness in heaven, that knows the heart, and can only judge of the
principles of my actions, and clear me from the scorns of my friends
and the accusations of men, with a justification of my innocence; he
repeats it twice, to take the greater comfort in it. God knows that
we do that in the simplicity of our hearts, which may be judged by men
to be done for unworthy and sordid ends: he knows not only the outward
action, but the inward affection, and praises that which men often
dispraise, and writes down that with an _Euge!_ “Well done, good and
faithful servant,” which men daub with their severest censures (Rom.
ii. 29). How refreshing is it to consider, that God never mistakes
the appearance for reality, nor is led by the judgment of man!
He sits in heaven, and laughs at their follies and censures. If
God had no sounder and no more piercing a judgment than man, woe
be to the sincerest souls that are often judged hypocrites by some.
What a happiness is it for integrity to have a judge of infinite
understanding, who will one day wipe off the dirt of worldly
reproaches! Again, God knows the least dram of grace and righteousness
in the hearts of his people, though but as a smoking flax, or the
least bruise of a saving conviction (Matt. xii. 20), and knows it so
as to cherish it; he knows that work he hath begun, and never hath
his eye off from it to abandon it.
{a487} 5. The consideration of this excellent perfection in God may
comfort us in our secret prayers, sighs, and works. If God were not
of infinite understanding to pierce into the heart, what comfort hath
a poor creature that hath a scantiness of expressions but a heart in
a flame? If God did not understand the heart, faith and prayer, which
are eternal works, would be in vain. How could he give that mercy
our hearts plead for if he were ignorant of our inward affections?
Hypocrites might scale heaven by lofty expressions, and a sincere
soul come short of the happiness he is prepared for, for want of
flourishing gifts. Prayer is an eternal work; words are but the
garment of prayer; meditation is the body, and affection the soul and
life of prayer; “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation”
(Ps. v. 1). Prayer is a rational act; an act of the mind, not the act
of a parrot: prayer is an act of the heart, though the speaking prayer
is the work of the tongue; now God gives ear to the words, but he
considers the meditation of the frame of the heart. Consideration is
a more exact notice than hearing; the act only of the ear. Were not
God of an infinite understanding, and omniscient, he might take fine
clothes, a heap of garments, for the man himself, and be put off by
glittering words, without a spiritual frame. What matter of rejoicing
is it that we call not upon a deaf and ignorant idol, but on one that
listens to our secret petitions, to give them a dispatch, that knows
our desires afar off, and from the infiniteness of his mercy, joined
with his omniscience, stands ready to give us a return? Hath he not
a book of remembrance for them that fear him, and for their sighs and
ejaculations to him, as well as their discourses of him, (Mal. iii.
16); and not only what prayers they utter, but what gracious and holy
thoughts they have of him that thought upon his name? Though millions
of supplications be put up at the same time, yet they have all a
distinct file (as I may say) in an infinite understanding, which
perceives and comprehends them all. As he observes millions of sins
committed at the same time, by a vast number of persons, to record
them in order to punishment, so he distinctly discerns an infinite
number of cries, at the same moment, to register them in order to an
answer. A sigh cannot escape an infinite understanding, though crowded
among a mighty multitude of cries from others, or covered with many
unwelcome distractions in ourselves, no more than a believing touch
from the woman that had the bloody issue could be concealed from
Christ, and be undiscerned from the press of the thronging multitudes:
our groans are as audible and intelligible to him as our words, and
he knows what is the mind of his own Spirit, though expressed in no
plainer language than sobs and heavings (Rom. viii. 27). Thus David
cheers up himself under the neglects of his friends (Ps. xxxviii. 9);
“Lord, my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not hid from thee.”
Not a groan of a panting spirit shall be lost, till God hath lost
his knowledge; not a petition forgotten while God hath a record, nor a
tear dried while God hath a bottle to reserve it in (Ps. lvi. 8). Our
secret works are also known and observed by him; not only our outward
labor, but our inward love in it (Heb. vi. 10). If, with Isaac, we
go privately into the field to meditate, or secretly “cast {a488} our
bread upon the waters,” he keeps his eye upon us to reward us, and
returns the fruit into our own bosoms (Matt. vi. 4, 6); yea, though
it be but a cup of cold water, from an inward spring of love, given
to a disciple, “He sees your works, and your labor, and faith, and
patience” in working them (Rev. ii. 2); all the marks of your industry,
and strength of your intentions, and will be as exact at last, in
order to a due praise, as to open sins, in order to a just recompense
(1 Cor. iv. 5).
6. The consideration of this excellent attribute affords comfort
in the afflictions of good men. He knows their pressures, as well
as hears their cries (Exod. iii. 7). His knowledge comes not by
information from us; but his compassionate listening to our cries
springs from his own inspection into our sorrows; he is affected with
them, before we make any discovery of them; he is not ignorant of the
best season, when they may be usefully inflicted, and when they may be
profitably removed. The tribulation and poverty of his church is not
unknown to him (Rev. ii. 8, 9); “I know thy works and tribulation,”
&c. He knows their works, and what tribulation they meet with for
him; he sees their extremities, when they are toiling against the wind
and tide of the world (Mark vi. 48); yea, the natural exigencies of
the multitude are not neglected by him; he discerns to take care of
them. Our Saviour considered the three days’ fasting of his followers,
and miraculously provides a dish for them in the wilderness. No
good man is ever out of God’s mind, and therefore never out of his
compassionate care: his eye pierceth into their dungeons, and pities
their miseries. Joseph may forget his brethren, and the disciples
not know Christ, when he walks upon the midnight waves and turbulent
sea,[757] but a lion’s den cannot obscure a Daniel from his sight,
nor the depths of the whale’s belly bury Jonah from the Divine
understanding: he discerns Peter in his chains, and Stephen under the
stones of martyrdom; he knows Lazarus under his tattered rags, and
Abel wallowing in his blood; his eye and knowledge goes along with his
people, when they are transplanted into foreign countries, and sold
for slaves into the islands of the Grecians, “for he will raise them
out of the place” (Joel iii. 6, 7). He would defeat the hopes of the
persecutors, and applaud the patience of his people. He knows his
people in the tabernacle of life, and in the valley of the shadow of
death (Ps. xxiii). He knows all penal evils, because he commissions
and directs them. He knows the instruments, because they are his sword
(Ps. xvii. 13); and he knows his gracious sufferer because he hath his
mark. He discerns Job in his anguish, and the devil in his malice. By
the direction of this attribute he orders calamities, and rescues from
them. “Thou hast seen it, for thou beholdest mischief and spite” (Ps.
x. 14). That is the comfort of the psalmist, and the comfort of every
believer, and the ground of committing themselves to God under all the
injustice of men.
7. It is a comfort in all our infirmities. As he knows our sins to
charge them, so he knows the weakness of our nature to pity us. As
his infinite understanding may scare us, because he knows our {a489}
transgressions, so it may relieve us, because he knows our natural
mutability in our first creation; “he knows our frame, he remembers
that we are dust” (Ps. ciii. 14). ’Tis the reason of the precedent
verses why he removes our transgression from us, why he is so backward
in punishing, so patient in waiting, so forward in pitying; Why? He
doth not only remember our sins, but remember our frame of forming;
what brittle, though clear glasses we were by creation, how easy to be
cracked! He remembers our impotent and weak condition by corruption;
what a sink we have of vain imaginations that remain in us after
regeneration; he doth not only consider that we were made according
to his image, and therefore able to stand, but that we were made
of dust and weak matter, and had a sensitive soul, like that of
beasts, as well as an intellectual nature, like that of angels, and
therefore liable to follow the dictates of it, without exact care
and watchfulness. If he remembered only the first, there would be no
issue but indignation; but the consideration of the latter moves his
compassion. How miserable should we be for want of this perfection in
the Divine nature, whereby God remembers and reflects upon his past
act in our first frame, and the mindfulness of our condition excites
the motion of his bowels to us! Had he lost the knowledge how he first
framed us, did he not still remember the mutability of our nature, as
we were formed and stamped in his mint, how much more wretched would
our condition be than it is! If his remembrance of our original be one
ground of his pity, the sense of his omniscience should be a ground of
our comfort in the stirring of our infirmities: he remembers we were
but dust when he made us, and yet remembers we are but dust while he
preserves and forbears us.