' " Nimis longe a propria verborum significatione recedcndum est, et sentciitiarum vis enervanda, si eas cum definita ilia futurorum contingentium prsescicntia conciliare veils, ut Gen. xviii. 21, xxii. 12. Quicquid enim alias de utriusque loci seiitentia statuas, illud tamcn facile est cernere, Deum novum quoddani, et insigne experimcn- tum, illic quidcm impietatis Sodomiticne et GomorrhccK, videre voluisse, Lie vero pietatis Abrahamicaj vidisse, quod antequam fieret, plane certum et exploratum non esset." — Crell. de Vera Eelig. cap. xxiv. p. 209.
OF god's prescience or foreknowledge. 123
their delivery. This progress, then, have we made under our catechist, if we may believe him, as he insinuates his notions concerning God : " God sits in heaven (glistering on a throne), whereunto he is limited, yea, to a certain place therein, so as not to be elsewhere ; being grieved, troubled, and perplexed at the affairs done below which he doth know, making inquiry after what he doth not know, and many things (things future) he knoweth not at all."
Before I proceed to the farther consideration of that which is eminently and expressly denied by Mr B., namely, " God's fore- knowledge of our free actions that are future," because many of his proofs, in the sense by him urged, seem to exclude him from an ac- quaintance with many things present, — as, in particular, the frame and condition of the hearts of men towards himself, as was observed, — it may not be amiss a little to confirm that perfection of the knowledge of God as to those things from the Scripture; which will abundantly also manifest that the expressions insisted on by our catechist are metaphorical and improperly ascribed to God. Of the eminent pre- dictions in the Scripture, which relate unto things future, I shall speak afterward. He knew, for he foretold the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the famine in Egypt, the selling and exal- tation of Joseph, the reign of David, the division of his kingdom, the Babylonish captivity, the kingdom of Cyrus, the return of his people, the state and ruin of the four great empires of the world, the wars, plagues, famines, earthquakes, divisions, which he manifestly foretold. But farther, he knows the frame of the hearts of men ; he knew that the Keilites would deliver up David to Saul if he stayed amongst them, — which probably they knew not themselves, 1 Sam. xxiii. 12 ; he knew that Hazael would murder women and infants, which he knew not himself, 2 Kings viii. 12, 18; he knew that the Egyptians would afflict his people, though at first they entertained them with honour, Gen. XV. 13 ; he knew Abraham, that he would instruct his house- hold, chap, xviii. 19; he knew that some were obstinate, their neck an iron sinew, and their brow brass, Isa. xlviii. 4 ; he knew the ima- gination or figment of the heart of his people, Deut. xxxi. 21 ; that the church of Laodicea, notwithstanding her profession, was lukewarm, neither cold nor hot. Rev. iii. 15. " Man looketli on the outward ap- pearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart," 1 Sam. xvi. 7. " He only knoweth the hearts of all the children of men," 1 Kings viii. 39. " Hell and destruction are before the LoRD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?" Prov. xv. 11. So also Pro v. xxiv. 12; Jer. xvii. 9, 10; Ezek. xi. 5; Ps. xxxviii. 9, xciv. 11; Job xxxi. 4; Matt vi. 4, 6, 8; Luke xvi. 15; ActsL 24, etc. Innumerable other places to this purpose may be insisted on, though it is a surprisal to be put to prove that God knows the hearts of the sons of men. But to proceed to that which is more directly under consideration : —
12-1 VINDICI^ EV ANGELICAS.
The sole foundation of Mr B.'s insinuation, that God knov.'s not our free actions that are future, being laid, as was observed, on the assignation of fear, repentance, expectation, and conjecturing, unto God, the consideration which hath already been had of those at- tributions in the Scrij^ture and the causes of them is abundantly sufficient to remove it out of the way, and to let his inference sink thither whence it came. Doubtless never was painter so injurious to the Deity (who limned out the shape of an old man on a cloth or board, and, after some disputes with himself whether he should sell it for an emblem of winter, set it out as a representation of God the Father) as this man is in snatching God's own pencil out of his hand, and by it presenting him to the world in a gross, carnal, deformed shape. Plato would not suffer Homer in his Commonwealth, for intrenching upon the imaginary blessedness of their dunghill deities, making Jupiter to grieve for the death of Sarpedon,^ Mars to be wounded by Diomedes, and to roar thereupon with disputes and conjectures in heaven among themselves about the issue of the Trojan war,^ though he endeavours to salve all his heavenly solecisms by many noble expressions concerning purposes not unmeet for a deity, telling us, in the close and issue of a most contingent affair, Aihg hi nXuiro ^ovXt].^ Let that man think of how much sorer punishment he shall be thought worthy (I speak of the great account he is one day to make) who shall persist in wresting the Scripture to his own destruction, to represent the living and incomprehensible God unto the world trembling with fear, pale with anger, sordid with grief and repentance, perplexed with conjectures and various expectations of events, and making a diligent inquiry after the things he knows not ; that is, altogether such an one as himself: let all who have the least reverence of and acquaintance with that Majesty with whom we have to do judge and determine. But of these things before.