not know what was a contempt of him, and what an adoration of him; what was worthy of God, and what was unworthy of him. In fine, he could not know other things unless he knew himself: unless he knew his own power, he could not know how he created things; unless he knew his own wisdom, he could. not know the beauty of his works; unless he knew his own glory, he could not know the end of his works; unless he knew his own holiness, he could not know what was evil; and unless he knew his own justice, he could not know how to punish the crimes of his offending creatures. And therefore,

God knows himself, because his knowledge with his will is the cause of all other things that can fall under his cognizance. He knows himself first, before he can know any other thing, that is, first according to our conceptions; for indeed God knows himself and all other things at once: he is the first truth, and therefore is the first object of his own understanding. There is nothing more excellent than himself, and therefore nothing more known to him than himself. As he is all knowledge, so he has in himself the most excellent object of knowledge. To understand is properly to know oneself. No object is so intelligible to God as God is to himself; nor so intimately and immediately joined with his understanding as himself; for his understanding is his essence, himself.

He knows himself by his own essence. He knows not himself and his own power by the effect, because he knows himself from eternity, before there was a world, or any effect of his power extant. It is not a knowledge by the cause, for God has no cause; nor a knowledge of himself by any species, or any thing from without. If it were any thing from without himself, that must be created or uncreated: if uncreated, it would be God; and so we must either own many Gods, or own it to be his essence, and so not distinct from himself. If created, then his knowledge of himself would depend upon a creature; he could not then know himself from eternity, but in time, because nothing can be created from eternity, but in time. God knows not himself by any faculty, for there is no composition in God; he is not made up of parts, but is a simple being: some therefore have called God, not intellectus, understanding, because that savours of a faculty; but intellectio, intellection. God is all act in the knowledge of himself, and his knowledge of other things.

God therefore knows himself perfectly, comprehensively. Nothing in his own nature is concealed from him, he reflects upon every thing that he is. There is a positive comprehension: in this does God not comprehend himself; for what is comprehended has bounds, and what sum is comprehended by itself is finite to itself. And there is a negative comprehension:

1 Magalancus.

God so comprehends himself; nothing in his own nature is obscure to him, unknown by him. For there is as great a perfection in the understanding of God to know, as there is in the Divine nature to be known. The understanding of God, and the nature of God, are both infinite, and so equal to one another: his understanding is equal to himself; he knows himself so well, that nothing can be known by him more perfectly than himself is known to himself. He knows himself in the highest manner, because nothing is proportioned to the understanding of God as himself: he knows his own essence, goodness, power, all his perfections, decrees, intentions, acts, the infinite capacity of his own understanding, so that nothing of himself is in the dark to himself. And in this respect some use this expression, that the infiniteness of God is in a manner finite to himself, because it is comprehended by himself.

Thus God transcends all creatures; thus his understanding is truly infinite, because nothing but himself is an infinite object for it. What angels may understand of themselves perfectly, I know not; but no creature in the world understands himself; man understands not fully the excellency and parts of his own nature. Upon God's knowledge of himself depends the comfort of his people, and the terror of the wicked: this is also a clear argumeut for his knowledge of all other things without himself; he that knows himself, must needs know all other things, which are less than himself, and which were made by himself. When the knowledge of his own immensity and infiniteness is not an object too difficult for him; the knowledge of a finite and limited creature in all his actions, thoughts, circumstances, cannot be too hard for him. Since he knows himself who is infinite, he cannot but know whatsoever is finite; this is the foundation of all his other knowledge; the knowledge of every thing present, past, and to come, is far less than the knowledge of himself. He is more incomprehensible in his own nature, than all things created, or that can be created, put together can be. If he then have a perfect comprehensive knowledge of his own nature, any knowledge of all other things is less than the knowledge of himself: this ought to be well considered by us, as the fountain whence all his other knowledge flows.

(2.) Therefore God knows all other things, whether they be possible, past, present, or future.

Whether they be things that he can do, but will never do, or whether they be things that he has done, but are not now; things that are now in being, or things that are not now existing, that lie in the womb of their proper and immediate causes;1 if his understanding be infinite, he then knows all things whatsoever that can be known, else his understanding would

1 Petav. Theol. Dogm. lib. q. 257.

have bounds, and what has limits is not infinite, but finite; if he be ignorant of any one thing that is knowable, that is a bound to him, it comes with an exception, a "but;" God knows all things but this; a bar is then set on his knowledge. If there were any thing, any particular circumstance in the whole creation, or non-creation, and possible to be known by him, and yet were unknown to him, he could not be said to be omniscient; just as he would not be almighty if any one thing that implied not a repugnancy to his nature, did transcend his power.

[1.] First, all things possible. No question but God knows what he could create as well as what he has created; what he would not create, as well as what he resolved to create; he knew what he would not do, before he willed to do it: this is the next thing which declares the infiniteness of his understanding. For as his power is infinite, and can create innumerable worlds and creatures, so is his knowledge infinite, in knowing innumerable things possible to his power. Possibles are infinite; that is, there is no end of what God can do, and therefore no end of what God does know, otherwise his power would be more infinite than his knowledge. If he knew only what is created, there would be an end of his understanding, because all creatures may be numbered, but possible things cannot be reckoned up by any creature. There is the same reason of this in eternity; when never so many numbers of years are run out, there is still more to come, there still wants an end; and when millions of worlds are created, there is no more an end of God's power than of eternity. Thus there is no end of his understanding; that is, his knowledge is not terminated by any thing.

This the Scripture gives us some account of. God knows things that are not, "for he calls things that are not, as if they were," Rom. iv. 17. He calls things that are not, as if they were in being; what he calls is not unknown to him. If he knows things that are not, he knows things that may never be: as he knows things that shall be, because he wills them, so he knows things that might be, because he is able to effect them. He knew that the inhabitants of Keilah would betray David to Saul, if he remained in that place, 1 Sam. xxiii. 11. He knew what they would do upon that occasion, though it was never done: as he knew what was in their power and in their wills, so he must needs know what is within the compass of his own power: as he can permit more than he does permit, so he knows what he can permit, and what upon that permission would be done by his creatures: so God knew the possibility of the Tyrians' repentance, if they had the same means, heard the same truths, and beheld the same miracles which were offered to the ears, and presented to the eyes of the Jews, Matt. xi. 21.

This must needs be so; because,

Man knows things that are possible to him, though he will never effect them. A carpenter knows a house in the model he has of it in his head, though he never build a house according to that model: a watchmaker has the frame of a watch in his mind, which he will never work with his instruments: man knows what he could do, though he never intends to do it.1 As the understanding of man has a virtue, that where it sees one man it may imagine thousands of men of the same shape, stature, form, parts; yea, taller, more vigorous, sprightly, intelligent than the man he sees, because it is possible such a number may be; shall not the understanding of God much more know what he is able to effect, since the understanding of man can know what he is never able to produce, yet may be produced by God, namely, that he who produced this man which I see, can produce a thousand exactly like him? If the Divine understanding did not know infinite things, but were confined to a certain number, it may be demanded whether God can understand any thing further than that number, or whether he cannot? If he can, then he does actually understand all those things which he has a power to understand: otherwise there would be an increase of God's knowledge, if it were actually now and not before, and so he would be more perfect than he was before. If he cannot understand them, then he cannot understand what a human mind can understand; for our understandings can multiply numbers in infinitum; and there is no number so great, but a man can still add to it: we must suppose the Divine understanding more excellent in knowledge. God knows all that a man can imagine, though it never were, and never shall be; he must needs know whatsoever is in the power of man to imagine or think, because God concurs to the support of the faculty in that imagination: and though it may be replied, an atheist may imagine that there is no God, a man may imagine that God can lie, or that he can be destroyed, does God know therefore that he is not? or that he can lie, or cease to be? No, he knows he cannot; his knowledge extends to things possible, not to things impossible to himself; he knows it as imaginable by man, not as possible in itself; because it is utterly impossible, and repugnant to the nature of God: since he eminently contains in himself all things possible, past, present, and to come, he cannot know himself without knowing them.

God knowing his own power, knows whatsoever is in his power to effect. If he knows not all things possible, he could not know the extent of his own power, and so would not know himself, as a cause sufficient for more things than he has

Ficin. de Immort. lib. 2. cap. 10.

2 Gamach.

created. How can he comprehend himself, who comprehends not all effluxes of things possible that may come from him and be wrought by him? How can he know himself as a cause, if he know not the objects and works which he is able to produce? Since the power of God extends to numberless things, his knowledge also extends to numberless objects; as if a unit could see the numbers it could produce, it would see infinite numbers; for a unit is, as it were, all number. God knowing the fruitfulness of his own virtue, knows a numberless multitude of things which he can do, more than have been done, or shall be done by him; he therefore knows innumerable worlds, innumerable angels, with higher perfections than any of them which he has created have; so that if the world should last many millions of years, God knows that he can every day create another world more capacious than this; and having created an inconceivable number, he knows he could still create more. So that he beholds infinite worlds, infinite numbers of men and other creatures in himself, infinite kinds of things, infinite species and individuals under those kinds, even as many as he can create, if his will did order and determine it; for not being ignorant of his own power, he cannot be ignorant of the effects wherein it may display and discover itself. A comprehensive knowledge of his own power does necessarily include the objects of that power; so he knows whatsoever he could effect, and whatsoever he could permit, if he pleased to do it.

If God could not understand more than he has created, he could not create more than he has created; for it cannot be conceived how he can create any thing that he is ignorant of; what he does not know, he cannot do: he must know also the extent of his own goodness, and how far any thing is capable to partake of it: so much, therefore, as any detract from the knowledge of God, they detract from his power.

It is further evident that God knows all possible things, because he knew those things which he has created before they were created, when they were yet in a possibility. If God knew things before they were created, he knew them when they were in a possibility, and not in actual reality. It is absurd to imagine that his understanding did lackey after the creatures, and draw knowledge from them after they were created. It is absurd to think that God did create before he knew what he could or would create. If he knew those things he did create when they were possible, he must know all things which he can create, and therefore all things that are possible.

To conclude this; we must consider that this knowledge is of another kind than his knowledge of things that are or shall 1 Ficin. de Immort. lib. 2. cap. 10.

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