Prop. IV. God knows all things distinctly. His understanding is infinite in regard of clearness; “God is light, and in him is no darknessat all” (John 1:5); he sees not through a mist or cloud; there is no blemish in his understanding, no mote or beam in his eye, to renderany thing obscure to him. Man discerns the surface and outside of things; little or nothing of the essence of things; we see the noblestthing but “as in a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12); the too great nearness, as well as the too great distance of a thing, hinders our sight; thesmallness of a mote escapes our eye, and so our knowledge; also the weakness of our understanding is troubled with the multitude ofthings, and cannot know many things but confusedly: but God knows the forms and essence of things, every circumstance; nothing isso deep, but he sees to the bottom; he sees the mass, and sees the motes of beings; his understanding being infinite, is not offendedwith a multitude of things, or distracted with the variety of them; he discerns every thing infinitely more clearly and perfectly thanAdam or Solomon could any one thing in the circle of their knowledge; what knowledge they had, was from him; he hath, therefore,infinitely a more perfect knowledge than they were capable in their natures to receive a communication of. All things are open to him(Heb. 4:13); the least fibre, in its nakedness and distinct frame, is transparent to him, as, by the help of glasses, the mouth, feet, hands,of a small insect, are visible to a man, which seem to the eye, without that assistance, one entire piece, not diversified into parts. Allthe causes, qualities, natures, properties of things, are open to him; “he brings out the host of heaven by number, and calleth them bynames” (Isa. 40:26); he numbers the hairs of our heads: what more distinct than number? Thus God beholds things in every unity,which makes up the heap; he knows, and none else can, every thing in its true and intimate causes, in its original and intermediatecauses; in himself, as the cause of every particular of their being, every property in their being. Knowledge by the causes is the mostnoble and perfect knowledge, and most suited to the infinite excellency of the Divine Being; he created all things, and ordered them toa universal and particular end; he, therefore, knows the essential properties of every thing, every activity of their nature, all theirfitness for those distinct ends, to which he orders them, and for which he governs and disposeth them, and understands their darkest and most hidden qualities infinitely clearer than any eye can behold the clear beams of the sun. Ife knows all things as he made them;he made them distinctly, and therefore knows them distinctly, and that every individual; therefore God is said (Gen. 1:31) to see everything that he had made; he took a review of every particular creature he had made, and upon his view pronounced it good. Topronounce that good, which was not exactly known in every creek, in every mite of its nature, had not consisted with his veracity; forevery one that speaks truth ignorantly, that knows not that he speaks truth, is a liar in speaking that which is true. God knows everyact of his own will, whether it be positive or permissive, and therefore every effect of his will. We must needs ascribe to God a perfectknowledge; but a confused knowledge cannot challenge that title. To know things only in a heap is unworthy of the Divine perfection;for if God knows his own ends in the creation of things, he knows distinctly the means whereby he will bring them to those ends forwhich he hath appointed them: no wise man intends an end, without a knowledge of the means conducing to that end; an ignorance,then, of any thing in the world, which falls under the nature of a means to a Divine end (and there is nothing in the world but doth),would be inconsistent with the perfection of God; it would ascribe to him a blind providence in the world. As there can be nothingimperfect in his being and essence, so there can be nothing imperfect in his understanding and knowledge, and therefore not aconfused knowledge, which is an imperfection. “Darkness and light are both alike to him” (Psalm 139:12); he sees distinctly into theone, as well as the other; what is darkness to us, is not so to him.
