An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 8. If the question be, Whether God know things as future, because he willeth them to be future; or because they are future from the free Agent's Will▪

Ans. 1. God's Knowledge, ex parte sui, is his Essence, and hath no Cause, for it is no Effect. God's Understanding, Will and Power are essentially One, but as various, inadequate conceptions, they only make up▪ perfect Unity, and are not Causes and Effects to one another; much less caused by any Creature. 2. But Futurity is caused by that which causeth the thing future: And therefore the futurity of Sin is caused by Man that causeth Sin, so far as it is capable of a Cause; of which more in due place: But as Futurity is not Existence, so it needeth not an existent, but sometimes only a future cause. 3. And God's Intellect is terminated on things as Intelligible, and that is as they are: And so on things that are future by his own will, as such; and on things future by Man's Will, as such; as far as Futurity is an object of an eternal mind.

§. 9. The many Disputes de scientia simplicis intelligentiae, purae visionis & mediae, I think best abbreviated according to the forementioned Principles. God's essential Understanding is but One: Things ⟨p. 35⟩intelligible are many; God's simple Intellect may be variously denominated as related to and terminated on various intelligible Objects, and so according to their Order: But this signifieth no real diversity at all in God, but in the things known: Nor must we dream, that Scientia simplicis intelligentiae, is like man's, a knowledge of certain Logical Notions or Propositions by way of Thinking, as to know that [This is possible, and the other is possible, and that is convenient,] as if God needed such second notions to know by; but it is infinitely above Man's mode of knowing: His Knowledge is first effective and then intuitive, and this without diversity or change in God.