A26923:252
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Ans. 1. God's Essential Knowledge is simply one. 2. The Objects of it are many. 3. Therefore as denominated ab extra, from respect to the Objects, we may distinguish his simple Knowledge, and mention priority and posteriority, but such only •s resulteth from the Order of Objects: And these being but Conceptions and Denominations necessitated by our weakness, without any real diversity •n God, we must fear and abhor presumptuous boldness, and contentiousness hereabout.
Ans. 1. God's Essential Knowledge is simply one. 2. The Objects of it are many. 3. Therefore as denominated ab extra, from respect to the Objects, we may distinguish his simple Knowledge, and mention priority and posteriority, but such only •s resulteth from the Order of Objects: And these being but Conceptions and Denominations necessitated by our weakness, without any real diversity •n God, we must fear and abhorr presumptuous boldness, and contentiousness hereabout.
§. 6. So if the question be, Whether God's Knowledge be mutable?
Ans. 1. His Knowledge essential it self is not. 2. The Objects are. 3. And therefore the Denominations of his Knowledge ab extrae oft are: As we may say, That God knew from Eternity that the World would be created, and Christ incarnate, as future. But now he knoweth that they were so, ut praeterita. God doth not now know, that Christ will be born, that Christ just now is crucified, that Paul is preaching on Earth: but once he knew all these. Yet here all the Change is in the object, and none in God's Knowledge, as there is on mans.