be. He sees possible things as possible, not as things that ever are or shall be. If he saw them as existing or future, and they shall never be, this knowledge would be false; there would be a deceit in it, which cannot be. He knows those things not in themselves, because they are not, nor in their causes, because they shall never be: he knows them in his own power, not in his will. He understands them, as able to produce them, not as willing to effect them. Things possible he knows only in his power, things future he knows both in his power and his will, as he is both able and determined in his own good pleasure to give being to them. Those that shall never come to pass, he knows only in himself, as a sufficient cause; those things that shall come into being, he knows in himself as the efficient cause, and also in their immediate second causes.

This should teach us to spend our thoughts in the admiration of the excellency of God, and the Divine knowledge; "his understanding is infinite."

[2.] God knows all things past. This is an argument used by God himself to elevate his excellency above all the commonly adored idols; "Let them show the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them," Isa. xli. 22. He knows them as if they were now present and not past; for indeed in his eternity there is nothing past or future to his knowledge. This is called remembrance in Scripture, as when God remembered Rachel's prayer for a child, Gen. xxx. 22; and he is said to put tears into his bottle, and write them in his book of accounts, which signifies the exact and unerring knowledge in God of the minute circumstances past in the world; and this knowledge is called a book of remembrance, Mal. iii. 16, signifying the perpetual presence of things past before him. There are two elegant expressions signifying the certainty and perpetuity of God's knowledge of sins past: "My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up my iniquity," Job xiv. 17. A metaphor taken from men that put up in a bag the money they would charily keep, tie the bag, sew up the holes, and bind it hard that nothing may fall out; or a vessel wherein they reserve liquors, and daub it with pitch and glutinous stuff, that nothing may leak out, but be safely kept till the time of use. Or else, as some think, from the bags attorneys carry with them, full of writings, when they are to manage a cause against a person. Thus we find God often in Scripture calling to men's minds their past actions, upbraiding them with their ingratitude, wherein he testifies his remembrance of his own past benefits, and their crimes. His knowledge in this regard has something of infinity in it, since though the sins of all men that have been in the world are finite in regard of number, yet when the sins

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of one man in thoughts, words, and deeds, are numberless in his own account, and perhaps in the account of any creature, and the sins of all the vast numbers of men that have been, or shall be, are much more numberless, it cannot be less than infinite knowledge that can make a collection of them, and take a survey of them all at once.

If past things had not been known by God, how could Moses have been acquainted with the original of things? How could he have declared the former transactions, wherein all histories are silent but the Scripture? How could he know the cause of man's present misery so many ages after, wherewith all philosophy was unacquainted? How could he have written the order of the creation, the particulars of the sin of Adam, the circumstances of Cain's murder, the private speech of Lamech to his wives, if God had not revealed them? And how could a revelation be made, if things past were forgotten by him? Do we not remember many things done among men, as well as by ourselves, and reserve the forms of divers things in our minds, which rise as occasions are presented to draw them forth? And shall not God much more, who hath no cloud of darkness upon his understanding? A man that makes a curious picture, has the form of it in his mind before he made it; and if the fire burn it, the form of it in his mind is not destroyed by the fire, but retained in it. God's memory is no less perfect than his understanding. If he did not know things past, he could not be a righteous Governor, or exercise any judicial act in a righteous manner: he could not dispense rewards and punishments according to his promises and threatenings, if things that were past could be forgotten by him; he could not require that which is past, Eccl. iii. 15, if he did not remember that which is past.

And though God be said to forget in Scripture, and not to know his people, and his people pray to him to remember them, as if he had forgotten them, Psal. cxix. 49, this is improperly ascribed to God. As God is said to repent, when he changes things according to his counsel beyond the expectation of men ; so he is said to forget, when he defers the making good his promise to the godly, or his threatenings to the wicked: this is not a defect of memory belonging to his mind, but an act of his will. When he is said to remember his covenant, it is to will grace according to his covenant; when he is said to forget his covenant, it is to intercept the influences of it, whereby to punish the sin of his people; and when he is said not to know his people, it is not an absolute forgetfulness of them, but withdrawing from them the testimonies of his kindness, and clouding the signs of his favour. So God in pardoning is said to forget sin,

Bradward.

not that he ceases to know it, but ceases to punish it: it is not to be meant of a simple forgetfulness, or a lapse of his memory, but of a judicial forgetfulness; so when his people in Scripture pray, Lord, remember thy word unto thy servant; no more is to be understood, but, Lord, fulfil thy word and promise to thy

servant.

[3.] He knows things present. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do," Heb. iv. 13. This is grounded upon the knowledge of himself; it is not so difficult to know all creatures exactly, as to know himself, because they are finite, but himself is infinite: he knows his own power, and therefore every thing through which his omnipotence is diffused, all the acts and objects of it; not the least thing that is the birth of his power can be concealed from him: he knows his own goodness, and therefore every object upon which the warm beams of his goodness strike; he therefore knows distinctly the properties of every creature, because every property in them is a ray of his goodness; he is not only the efficient, but the exemplary cause: therefore as he knows all that his power has wrought, as he is the efficient, so he knows them in himself as the pattern, as a carpenter can give an account of every part and passage in a house he has built, by consulting the model in his own mind, whereby he built it. He looked upon all things after he had made them, and pronounced them good, Gen. i. 31, full of a natural goodness he had endowed them with; he did not ignorantly pronounce them so, and call them good whether he knew them or not; and therefore he knows them in particular, as he knew them all in their first presence. Is there any reason he should be ignorant of every thing now present in the world, or that any thing that derives an existence from him as a free cause, should be concealed from him? If he did not know things present in their particularities, many things would be known by man, yea by beasts, which the infinite God were ignorant of; and if he did not know all things present, but only some, it is possible for the most blessed God to be deceived and be be miserable. Ignorance is a calamity to the understanding: he could not prescribe laws to his creatures, unless he knew their natures, to which those laws were to be suited; no, nor natural ordinances to the sun, moon, and heavenly bodies, and inanimate creatures, unless he knew the vigour and virtue in them, to execute those ordinances; for to prescribe laws above the nature of things, is inconsistent with the wisdom of government: he must know how far they were able to obey; whether the laws were suited to their ability; and for his rational creatures, whether the punishments annexed to the law were proper, and suited to the transgression of the creature.

He knows all creatures from the highest to the lowest, the

least as well as the greatest. He knows the ravens and their young ones, Job xxxviii. 41; the drops of rain and dew which he has begotten, Job. xxxviii. 28; every bird in the air, as well as any man does what he has in a cage at home: "I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field," Psal. 1. 11; which some read creeping things. The clouds are numbered in his wisdom, Job xxxviii. 37. Every worm in the earth, every drop of rain that falls upon the ground, the flakes of snow, and the knots of hail, the sands upon the sea-shore, the hairs upon the head; it is no more absurd to imagine that God knows them, than that God made them; they are all the effects of his power, as well as the stars, which he calls by their names, as well as the most glorious angel and blessed spirit: he knows them as well as if there were none but them in particular for him to know: the least things were framed by his art as well as the greatest; the least things partake of his goodness as well as the greatest; he knows his own arts, and his own goodness, and therefore all the stamps and impressions of them upon all his creatures: he knows the immediate causes of the least, and therefore the effects of those causes. Since his knowledge is infinite, it must extend to those things which are at the greatest distance from him, to those which approach nearest to not being; since he did not want power to create, he cannot want understanding to know every thing he has created, the dispositions, qualities, and virtues of the minutest creature.

Nor is the understanding of God debased, nor suffers a diminution, by the knowledge of the vilest and most inconsiderable things. Is it not an imperfection to be ignorant of the nature of any thing? and can God have such a defect in his most perfect understanding? Is the understanding of man of an impurer alloy by knowing the nature of the rankest poisons? by understanding a fly, or a small insect, or by considering the deformity of a toad? Is it not generally counted a note of a dignified mind, to be able to discourse of the nature of them? Was Solomon, who knew all from the cedar to the hyssop, debased by so rich a present of wisdom from his Creator? Is any glass defiled by presenting a deformed image? Is there any thing more vile than the " imaginations, which are only evil, and continually?" Does not the mind of man descend to the mud of the earth, play the adulterer or idolater with mean objects, suck in the most unclean things? yet God knows these in all their circumstances, in every appearance, inside and outside. Is there any thing viler than some thoughts of men, than some actions of men? their unclean beds, and gluttonous vomiting, and Luciferian pride? yet do not these fall under the eye of God, in all their nakedness? The second Person's taking human nature, though it obscured, yet it did not disparage the Deity, or bring any disgrace to it. Is gold the worse for being formed into the image of a fly? does it not still retain the nobleness of the metal? When men are despised for descending to the knowledge of mean and vile things, it is because they neglect the knowledge of the greater, and sin in their inquiries after lesser things, with a neglect of that which concerns more the honour of God and the happiness of themselves; to be ambitious of such a knowledge, and careless of that of more concern, is criminal and contemptible. But God knows the greatest as well as least: mean things are not known by him to exclude the knowledge of the greater; nor are vile things governed by him to exclude the order of the better. The deformity of objects known by God does not deform him nor defile him; he does not view them without himself, but within himself, wherein all things in their ideas are beautiful and comely. Our knowledge of a deformed thing, is not a deforming of our understanding, but is beautiful in the knowledge, though it be not in the object; nor is there any fear that the understanding of God should become material by knowing material things, any more than our understandings lose their spirituality by knowing the nature of bodies. It is to be observed, therefore, that only those senses of men, as seeing, hearing, smelling, which have those qualities for their objects that come nearest the nature of spiritual things, as light, sounds, fragrant odours, are ascribed to God in Scripture; not touching or tasting, which are senses that are not exercised without a more immediate commerce with gross matter; and the reason may be, because we should have no gross thoughts of God, as if he were a body, and made of matter, like the things he

knows.

As he knows all creatures, so God knows all the actions of creatures. He counts in particular all the ways of men. "Doth not he see all my ways, and count all my steps?" Job xxxi. 4. He tells their wanderings, as if one by one, Psal. lvi. 8. “His eyes are upon all the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings," Job xxxiv. 21; a metaphor taken from men, when they look wistfully, with fixed eyes, upon a thing, to view it in every circumstance, whence it comes, whither it goes, to observe every little motion of it. God's eye is not a wandering but a fixed eye, and the ways of man are not only before his eyes, but he does exactly ponder them, Prov. v. 21; as one that will not be ignorant of the least mite in them, but weigh and examine them by the standard of his law: he may as well know the motions of our members as the hairs of our heads: the smallest actions before they be, whether civil, natural, or religious, fall under his cognizance: what meaner than a man carrying a pitcher? yet our Saviour foretells it, Luke xvii. 10. God knows