3. God's knowledge is most exact and accurate ; it is good to see ho\y it is expressed to us in scripture : Heb. iv. 13, ' All things are naked and open before him;' cut down by the chine-bone. When a beast is dissected and opened, every part is seen, the soundness or unsoundness of it presently appears. Heathen soothsayers were wont to look to the inwards of the beasts, and to observe the colour, shape, and all the defects or perfections of the sacrifice : the prophet alludeth to it wlien he saith, Ezek xxi. 21, 'He looked into the liver.' Thus are all things said to be laid open before God. Sometimes by search- ing: 1 Chron. xxix. 11, 'He searcheth the heart, and trieth the imaginations of the sons of men.' Sometimes it is search as with candles, Zeph. i. 12, as one for what is hid or lost. Luke xv. 8, when the woman had lost her groat, ' She lighteth the candle, sweepeth the lionse, seeketh diligently till she findeth it.' We think our sins will never be heard of more, but he findeth them out, and they find us out: Num. xxxii. 23, 'Your iniquities shall find you out.' Sometimes by keeping reckoning : Job xxxi. 4, ' Doth not he count all my steps ? '
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178 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. [SeR. XXVI.
God hatli a book where all is put to account : Mai. iii. 18, ' A book of remembrance was written before him ; and Ps. xvi. 3, ' Thou tellest all my wanderings ; put thou my tears in thy bottle, are they not in thy book ? ' Words, thoughts, actions, all upon record. What neglects of grace, omission of duties, violating principles of conscience, God counteth them all : Jer. xiv. 16, ' Thou numberest my steps, and watchest over my sin.' Sometimes by weighing and pondering : Prov. xvi. 2, 'But the Lord weigheth the spirits;' Prov. xv. 21, 'All my ways are before him, and he pondereth my goings.' Whether full weight or too light, he knoweth the number, the proportion, the weight of every one of thy sins ; the person who, the place where, the time when committed ; what means, warnings, methods of grace, helps to the contrary, these are brought into the reckoning. Thus by many metaphors does the scriptur® set out the exact and certain knowledge that God hath of persons, and circumstances, and all their actions ; nothing can escape God, and he cannot be deceived, because he goeth on sound evidence.
4. It is an infinite, perfect, distinct manner of knowing things : Ps. cxlvii. 5, ' His understanding is infinite : Of his understanding there is no search ;' Isa. xl. 28 ; it is beyond the reach of man's shallow capacity to conceive of it. I add this, because it is hard for us to understand how God should at once know all things that are done by so many several men, in so many several parts of the world, and hearken to all their prayers. Lucian scoffed at the heathen gods, as if they were forced to run hither and thither, to hear the prayers made in the eastern and western parts of the world, and the disorders that fell out in Greece while the gods were banqueting in Ethiopia. An infinite understanding can see all things at once, for he understandeth all things in a way different from man ; not successively, and by discourse one after another. A man cannot read a book in a moment, but must go from line to line, and page to page ; but God knoweth all things in an instant, and that by one act of understanding, as if a man could read a book through by once looking on it. His knowledge is not confounded with multiplicity of objects ; as God had a prospect of the whole creation at once. Gen. i, 31, * He saw all that he had made.' It is all one to him to know all things, and know but one thing. When two or three speak together, we are not able to take in their sense and meaning, our senses and understandings are finite. Now when many speak to God at the same time, it is but as if one spake ; an infinite eye seeth all, and an infinite ear heareth all, and that clearly and distinctly, without confusion.
II. The reasons which the scripture giveth for the belief of this knowledge.
1. The immensity and greatness of God ; God is in all, and above all, and beyond all, nowhere included, and nowhere excluded. And so his omnipresence doth establish the belief of his omniscience : Jer. xxiii. 23, 24, ' Am I a God at hand, and not afar off ? Do not I fill heaven and earth ? can any hide himself in secret places, that I should not see him ? ' God is everywhere, not only with respect to his powerful and efiicacious providence, but with respect to his essential presence. God is there wherever you are. Now if he be with us, surely he knoweth us. He is present with all the world, and therefore he doth regard and
VeR. 20.] SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. 179