The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errors of Papists, Arminians,…The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errours of Papists, Arminians,…

Sixthly,¹ If Gods seeing were to be explained oppositely to his knowing, then nothing that had a present being were known by God. But doth not the Scripture give to God the knowledge of all things? and though the things be diversified by time past, present, and to come, yet to God they are not so; Consider that eminent place, 2 Pet. 3.8. A thousand years with God, are but as one day. The Apostle allegeth this place out of Psal. 90. ver. 4. ⟨p. 92⟩with a little variation. The Psalmist saith, as yesterday when it is past: The Apostle as one day. The Psalmist saith, in thy eyes O Lord: The Apostle with the Lord. The Psalmists expression in the eyes of the Lord, are very pregnant to our purpose. Here is a description of eternity, proving that God seeth all things with one intuitive cast of his eye, and that although to us things are present, past and to come, yet to God all things are present, and although we are not able to reach this with our understanding, no more then a pygmy the Pyramids, yet we must rest more upon this Scripture assertion, then our own understanding, Quicquid de Deo dici (we may add cogitari) potest, eo ipso est indignum quia dici (cogitari) potest: and again dignè Deum aestimamus, dum inaestimabil•m dicimus. The Schoolmen dispute, whether those things which God did once know, he still knoweth, as for example, God once knew that Christ was to die, but now it is not true, that he is to die; and their resolution is, that we cannot properly say, God begins to know what he did, or ceaseth to know what he did, but rather that the thing it self beginneth to be known, or ceaseth to be known, so that the change is not in respect of Gods knowing, but the thing known, as when I see the Sun, and afterwards it is hid in the cloud, the change is not in my eye, but in the Sun; Hence they also resolve, that God knoweth all things simul together, that his knowledge is invariable, that it admitteth not of increase or decrease, that all things are present to him, and that as the Sun is always in actu lucendi, so God in actu intelligendi: So that this very Text doth briefly overthrow all that which the Antinomian in so many pages sweateth to prove; and that the consideration of Gods eternal knowledge in this manner is of profitable use, appeareth by that, when the Apostle saith, Be not ignorant of this one thing.