Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

As the Eternity of God is the ground of all Religion, so the Eternity of Christ is the ground of the Christian Religion: Could our Sins be perfectly expiated, had he not an eternal Divinity to answer for the offences committed against an eternal God? Temporary sufferings had been of little validity, without an infiniteness and eternity in his person to add weight to his passion.

2. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. ^*All things are present to him in his Eternity; for this is the notion of Eternity, to be without succession. If Eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it, is perceived without any succession; For knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from it self, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view: But, since Gods Being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither doth his Knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all things in his Eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him:^* Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world [Greek or Hebrew] à seculo; from eternity. Gods Knowledge is coeternal with him: If he knows that in time which he did not know from eternity, he would not be eternally perfect, since knowledge is the perfection of an intelligent nature.

2. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. ^*All things are present to him in his Eternity; for this is the notion of Eternity, to be without succession. If Eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it, is perceived without any succession; For knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from it self, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view: But, since Gods Being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither doth his Knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all things in his Eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him: