The Freedom of the Will, Part 1 · Subpart 1 · Argument 5
5. Argument.
The fifth Argument is the Knowledge of God. This is in our present cause, a most celebrated Argument. I shall therefore endeavour to represent the state of it, with all exactness, clearness, and integrity, that I can bring to it.
I shall divide this Argument into two parts:
1. The first is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge.
2. The second is the Original.
1. Part. The first part is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge. This consisteth in two things:
1. The Comprehensiveness.
2. The distinctness of the Knowledge.
VVe then know perfectly, when we know all things capable of being known, when we know each thing in its proper distinction, in all its distinct forms, properties, and relations.
Shall not He who made the eye see? Shall not the Fountain of Knowledge contain all Knowledges, after the most exact and eminent manner? Shall not He know all things most accurately, by whom all things know, and are known? St. Peter saith to Jesus Christ, as to God, Lord, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. See two things remarkable here:
1. The universality of Christ's Knowledge, extending its self to all things.
2. A confirmation of this, by a particular instance; Thou knowest that I love thee. The instance is most pertinent to our present purpose: It is that peculiar Object of Knowledge, which is the ground and subject of this Discourse, the Will of Man, the motions of the will, the freest of these motions, acts of Love; Thou knowest that I love thee.
Object. Here it may be said, and is said by some, The knowledge of all things doth not contribute to the perfection of Knowledge. There are many things in knowing of which, there is neither beauty, nor any beautiful delight. The Orator makes it the property of a wise man, to seek the knowledge only of things excellent and worthy to be known.
1. Individual and particular things are below the Knowledge of God. Philosophers teach us, That there are no Ideas, no Forms, no Images in the Divine Mind of individual and particular things. All the Ideal Forms and Images seated there, are universal, eternal Substances, Essences, and Truths, sixed in most beautiful, harmonious, unchangeable proportions. Individual and particular things are uncertain, undetermined, composed of changeable, tumultuous, confused accidents, slight, and ever fleeting like shadows. Upon this ground the Philosopher concludeth, That individual, or singular things, can be no Objects of Science, or true Knowledge. This Master also teacheth us, That they are the Objects of Opinion only, which is like these things ever fluctuating, unsubstantial, ungrounded, obscure, unsatisfactory, unworthy, not only of God, but of all separated and Divine Spirits.
2. Many things are too mean, and too vile for the knowledge of an excellent Spirit. The Understanding is transformed into the Image of that which is known. Mean and vile Objects embase the Mind and Spirit, into which they are received. The similitudes and forms of froth and filth in a Divine Spirit, are like Rats and Crocodiles in the Egyptian Temples, or dead Carcases in the stately Pyramids.
Answ. That God knoweth all things, to the lowest, the last division and distinction, that He knoweth the least, the obscurest, the vilest of all things, the Scriptures testifie by their whole design, by plain affirmations and instances every where. From these, which are innumerable, I will cite only two:
1. The first is that Heb. 4. 12. where we read of the living Word of God, That it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The words in Greek properly import this sense; A critical Distinguisher and Judge of the motions or agitations in the Will, and sensitive Appetite, of the notions or images in the understanding or fancy. The Word of God in the verse following is clearly declared to be a Person, God Himself in Person; For these are the words, And there is no Creature which is not manifest in his sight: But all things are naked and bare in his eyes, with whom we have to do.
There is nothing more universal, great, or glorious, than thought; which raiseth it self to the heighth, and extendeth it self to the amplitude of the visible Heavens, and the most vniversal Glories. There is nothing more particular, more low, more vile, than thought, which levels it self with every single atome and dust, which sinks down to the depth of all divisions, darknesses, deformities, and confusions, as low as the neithermost Hell. Yet is God a Critical Distinguisher of the thoughts, singling every thought, setting it naked in its own proper form, clear with all its circumstances, in his light and sight. There is one thing in this Scripture, which hath an eminent sense in it self, and suitableness to our purpose. The 12. verse begins this Argument with foreign, The Word of God; the 13. verse concludes this Argument with foreign, The Word. In this last place, we translate it thus, With whom we have to do. The Greek phrase literally sounds thus, To whom the Word is to us. The Greek term first signifieth Reason, which is the internal Word, or the Understanding; their Speech, the external Word, the Image of the internal, of Reason, of the Understanding. The Holy Ghost seemeth by this expression in the end, answering and ecchoing to that in the beginning, to design this sweet and rich sense; that our Reason, our Understanding, in its internal form, in its outward Image, which is our speech, so far as it is right and true, answering to Jesus Christ, turneth it self to him, formeth it self according to him, fixeth it self upon him, flows back into him, who is the first Reason and Understanding in the Godhead within, and its Image without in the Creature. The inward or outward word of Angels or Men, is to this word, as the Eccho to the Voice, the Face in the Glass to the living Face, the reflection of the Beam to the direct Beam, the Stream to the Fountain. The same term signifieth also, the proportion of things.
All things then, which fall within the compass of any created Understanding, of any expression in discourse, lie first, most clearly, most compleatly in Jesus Christ, the Divine Understanding, the Divine Word, as the Original spring and measure of all understandings and expressions. What ever, in the nature of things, beareth any proportion of great or little, universal or particular, beautiful or deformed, lieth according to that proportion most distinctly in this Divine Word, the Divine Understanding, which is the first, the most universal proportion and harmony, the Original spring and measure of all proportions.
2. I will add another Scripture, which, as in a Picture wrought by a most skilful hand, sets with lively force before our eyes the least, the lowest things, shining with highest beauty in the Divine Mind, embrac'd with the dearest sweetnesses by the Divine Love. You shall see there the Divine Understanding and Affection encompassing all things after the most universal manner, and insinuating themselves into each thing, with the most exact distinction of singulars and individuals.
Jesus Christ, endeavouring to bring us into a Divine Liberty, by being free from solicitous cares and fears, endeavouring to fix our Spirits upon the Divine Goodness, by a full Trust, and sweet Rest, an absolute and delightful Resignation, affirmeth, That even the hairs of our head are numbred. Therefore saith he, Fear not, Luke 12. 7.
Number is defined to be quantity discrete, because it doth most accurately discern and distinguish all the differences of things, as they lie in the whole and apart, both at once. What so sleight, of so little weight, as a single hair of the head? yet God taketh an account of every single hair, while he numbreth all our hairs.
The numbring of things, marketh each single Unity, for a treasure, for the object of esteem and of care in its preservation. This appeareth by the Latin Poet, who bringeth in the Shepheard Swain speaking thus to his Companions upon the Downs, when they were to strive for the mastery, in their Rural Musick.
I from my flock, dare nothing lay with thee.
A Father, a Step-Mother hard agree
To number both each day, the bleating sheep;
One of the wanton Kids, the tale doth keep.
Each single hair then is a Divine Treasure, attracting the Eye of eternity, which diligently and delightfully watcheth for its eternal preservation; for all our hairs are numbred in eternity. As it is said of the Stars in Heaven, God there calleth them all by their names, none of them is wanting, every one shineth as a fixed Star in that supream Orb of Glory.
God hath made all things, in number, weight, and measure. Number is here interpreted to be the Character of the species, or kinds of things, according to their distinct essences. The first and supream link in this Chain of essential forms, is the Idea, or the eternal Pattern or Spring of each Essence, in the Mind of God. The Pythagorean Philosophy foundeth its heighest mysteries of Divinity upon the nature of numbers, as the most agreeable figures of it. The Ideas or eternal Images of things in God so seem to shine forth most clearly, with the sweetest and fullest beauties, in abstracted numbers.
Our Lord saith, That little Children have their Angels, which alwayes behold the face of their Father in Heaven. Behold here each single hair of our heads, which is an excrement only; how much more each part of our Bodies, each motion of our Spirits, each moment of our Lives, or circumstance in our affairs hath its Idea, its first Image and Truth, its Original first true Being and Beauty eternal; in the heart of God. These at once are the Eyes of God, which by day and by night circle round, watch over, and guide them, the invisible Chambers and Treasures of God, where they are laid up, and kept safe, as his Jewels.
Number hath been reputed the first seat and measure of proportion, Harmony, Musick, and Beauty in every kind. Number, and Beauty or Harmony, are both by Philosophers and Divines appropriated to Intellectual Spirits, who alone are capable of them as their proper operations and objects. Both agree in this definition, which seemeth to comprehend not only the proper objects and operations, but the Essence also of immortal Minds; an Unity diffusing it self into Variety, keeping it self undivided and entire through the whole Variety, bounding the Variety with its self, and binding it up within it self. A great and learned Divine teacheth us, That there is a vast difference as between the natures, so between the numbers of the Humane, the Angelical, the Divine Understanding. The numbers which men apply to corporeal and material Subjects, divide, break, and lessen the subject. In these numbers that holdeth true, that the whole is greater than any single part. The numbers with which the Angels number things, retain through all, the indivisibility of the Unity, with diversity of forms. Here each form or essence comprehendeth under its own undivided Unity all forms of things, according to their proper and compleat amplitude, agreeable to the Angelical State, but under the Character of its own peculiar and distinct property. But the Divine number, transcending all divisibility and diversity joyneth in one, the simplest Unity, with the amplest and most distinct Variety.
Thus after a Divine manner, by this Divine Art of Numeration, are all the hai… of our head numbred in the mind of God. Thus every single hair there, maketh up a Divine Harmony, composed of a rich Variety of Divine Proportions, according to the number of all the other hairs, as in the whole, so in the several parts, and single unities. EueryEvery single hair is a center, and a seat to the various proportions between it self and all the rest in particular, as well as also to the Harmony of the whole.
I shall now give a brief answer to the Objections alledged against the Universality of the Divine Knowledge:
1. No Object, however low, however base, embaseth the Divine Understanding. The figures of Mice and Emraulds formed in Gold; lessen'd not the lustre, or preciousness of the Gold, neither did they detract any thing from the sacred Worth, Majesty, or Divinity of the Ark, by being put into it. This Ark was t…e Figure of our Jesus, the essential Image, the Divine Mind, Understanding, and Wisdome of the Father. Lazarus with his Rags, his running Sores, and the Dogs licking them, represented to the life in an excellent Picture, done by the hand of Vandike, of Titian, or some great Master, is a worthy and most agreeable entertainment for the eye and fancy of any Princess, a rich Ornament and rare Jewel for the Chamber or Cabinet of a Prince. The Plague with all its loathsome and horrid attendance, conceived in the mind, formed to a most exact Image in Virgil's fancy, from thence transferred into his inimitable Poems, becomes worthy of the Ear, the Fancy, the Mind of that great and most polite Prince, Augustus Caesar; yea, cloathed thus with this Image, the mind and fancy of the Poet transfuse, and present themselves to the spirit of that Prince, as of all learned and judicious Readers, with a heightned Beauty, and kind of Divinity.
That is a certain Rule, That every thing received, is received according to the nature and manner of the Recipient. The Divine Understanding cloathing it self with the Images and Forms of all Objects, desormeth not it self, but maketh them Divine: To the Pure all things are pure, but to the Unclean nothing is pure, but even their minds (the Angelical part,) their Consciences (the Divine part of their Souls,) is desiled.
2. Individuals and particulars, together with Universals, appear distinctly to the Eye of God, at once, in one view. The Philosopher of old, affirmed all things to be in all. The shady blueness in the clear Heavens above us, which seemeth to terminate our sight, is said to be the deficiency of our sight, which is uncapable either of extending it self to so remote an Object, or of having any Commerce with a Body so pure, so glorious, and so near to the nature of a Spirit. Thus the contraction, the obscurity, the materiality, which seemeth to be the bound of our eye and sense when we look to individual things here below, are in truth the weaknesses of our senses, falling short of the glory shining in the nature of things.
The light of God, which is alone the true Light, having no darkness in it, and so the measure of all Truth, is stiled by St. Peter, A marvailous Light. This is one of the wonders in the Divine Light. All things here are transparent; each particular, each part is seen distinctly in the whole, and the whole compleatly in …h part.
The Psalmist singeth of this holy and high mystery, That with God the Darkness and the Light are both alike, Materiality and corporeity, as they appear before him, are spiritual and Divine forms. In the face of each material, individual object, shineth the whole nature of things. This is manifest upon a three-fold ground:
1. All things in Heaven above, and Earth beneath, meet in the constitution of each individual. In Jacob's Vision Angels were seen descending and ascending upon each step of the Ladder, from the Throne of God Himself above, down to the Earth below. Thus by the Scale of Praedicaments in Logick, and in Metaphysicks, we are taught, That universal and superior Beings, even Being it self in its absolute and unlimited fulness, descend into the essential constitution of each inferior Being. In them also the inferior Being is seen ascending again, according to their several steps, inasmuch as it is eminently comprehended in them.
Thus the Descent and Ascent of things is presented unto us in the first Philosophy, by division, composition, and resolution. Being it self in its absolute fulness, divides it self into potential parts, which are therefore called potential, because it self remaineth potentially, and undividedly in each of these parts. As in abstracted numbers, the Unity divideth it self into many Unities; then this Unity, or first Being, by its own unconfined power and virtue, joyneth or compoundeth these several Unities or Parts, into the common Unity of one particular form, as a particular number. Again, the first Unity, or Being, according to the Laws and Measures of all Harmony in it self, dissolveth the common Unity of this inferior form, into its several parts or unities. These are gathered up into their superior Unities, and so return to their first Original, as they return, retaining their distinction still, but becoming more and more absolute and universal, according to the nature of those …perior Unities, by which they ascend.
2. Each Being in its lowest division, and narrowest contraction, beareth imprinted upon it, and inseparable from it, the figure of the first and supream Being. For this is the first, efficient, and exemplar, the last final cause of all things. Having the figure of the first Being, it hath in that, the figures of all Beings, in all their various Unities and Distinctions. As every shadow is inseparable from its proper Body: so, where the figures of things are, there are the truths themselves, as the Original, exemplar, formal causes of those figures, which flow by perpetual emanations from them, as Beams from the Sun.
3. The Omnipresence of God, filling all in all, even in the fullest sense, as the Essence of all Essences, as the Form of all Forms, as the Being of all Beings, in every the most contracted, most obscure degree of Being, as in a clear Chrystal Glass, presenteth Himself with open naked face to Himself, and so all things in Himself.
After this manner God, whose Knowledge as Himself, is one pure, perfect, eternal Act, at once beholdeth all Particulars in their Universals, all Universals in their Particulars, according to all their several Modes and Distinctions. He, to whom all things are naked and bare, seeth all things in every one, and every one in all forms at once. The night of materiality and corporeity, before him shineth with a determinate Beauty, with a bright Transparency, as the day of spiritual substances. The contracted shades and darknesses of Individuals and Particulars, are as the ample and full sight of Universals. From this, which I have said here, will easily slow my third Answer.
3. Nothing is mean and vile, seen in a right and universal Light. Every degree of Being to the least, the narrowest, and obscurest Point, hath Being it self in its amplitude and majesty in it, without which it could not be. Every thing that is in any kind or degree, hath the Throne of Being set up in it, with God the supream King, and Fountain of Beings, sitting upon it and filling it with the train of his Glories. Thus look upon each Being, and you will see it as a spacious Palace, a sacred Temple, or a new and distinct Heaven.
Being it self, in its universal Nature, from its purest heighth, by beautiful, harmonious, just degrees and steps, descendeth into every Being, even to the lowest shades. All ranks and degrees of Being, so become like the mystical steps in that scale of Divine Harmony and Proportions, Jacobs Ladder. Every form of Being to the lowest step, seen and understood according to its order and proportions in its descent upon this Ladder, seemeth as an Angel, or as a Troop of Angels in one, full of all Angelick Musick and Beauty.
Every thing as it lieth in the whole piece, beareth its part in the Universal Consort. The Divine Musick of the whole would be changed into Confusion and Discords, All the sweet proportions of all the parts would be discorded, and become disagreeable, if any one, the least, and least cons…red part, were taken out of the whole. Every part is tyed to the whole, and to all the other parts, by mutual and essential Relations. By virtue of these Relations, All the distinct proportions, of all the parts, and of the whole, meet in one, on each part, filling it with, and wrapping it up in the rich Garment of the Universal Harmony, curiously wrought, with all the distinct and particular Harmonies.
Every Distinction, and so every distinct degree of Being, hath its proper Original, its exemplar Cause, its distinct Idea in the first Distinction, the Son of God in the Trinity, the Divine Wisdome or Mind, the essential Idea or Image of the Godhead. The distinct Idea or original Image of each distinct Being, is here in the form of God, comprehending clearly and compleatly all distinct Ideas, all the Original and eternal Truths, or Images of things, with their highest Distinctions, in a perfect Unity, in it self. Every thing in its proper form, is the figure and impression of this Idea. The Idea, and its impressed form, mutually enfold and wrap up each other. The lowest and obscurest form of Being, reigneth, shineth virtually, eminently in its highest Truth, with the full and distinct Glories of all the Divine Ideas, united in its own proper Idea, as a Throne in eternity, or as in the bosome of its Father and Bridegroom, both in one. In like manner the Idea, with all the Divine forms of things, lieth seminally, in each particular Being derived from it, like a Divine Sun, in the center of it, forming it and all its motions every moment, drawing its own Picture, and figuring its own Glories upon them all.
Every degree of Being, as it is a part of the whole, is a Divine Variety, springing forth from, and comprehended in the Unity of the whole. The Unity of the whole comprehendeth all parts indivisibly in it self. If it were not so, how or where should all the parts be compared each with other? How should a judgment be made of their suitableness and proportions to each other? The Unity of the whole, with the full variety of all the parts, resteth entirely in each part. In what way, or by what force otherwise shall each part be figured, bounded, acted to an agreeableness and correspondency with all the other parts, that the universal Musick may be full and entire?
Reader, I only offer it now to thy thoughts, to be determined by thy judgment, whether all that which we call materiality and corporeity, do not by the charms of this Musick awaken into a Divine Company of beautiful Spirits. If this be the proper Character of a Spirit, an Unity indivisibly comprehending a Variety, all Variety, according to its rank and degree in it self, diffusing it self through the whole Variety, and yet resting entire in the bosome of each Variety.
Doctor More, whose Books full of excellent Wit, Learning, and Piety I alwayes read with much pleasure and profit, although I be not alwayes so happy, as to find my Understanding tuned to a consort and harmony with his, seemeth to me like a Prophet as well as a Poet, to sing this mystery, drawn forth from the sacred retreats of the divinest Philosophy in his Poems. There he painteth out with liveliest colours the whole Universe, as a great Soul and Spirit, as a Contexture, as a Quire, or as a Dance of many Souls or Spirits, where materiality and corporeity are seen, not as distinct substances from the Soul, but as figures wrought by the Soul her self, in the lowest part of that Vestment, with which spun forth from her self, she is cloathed, and comes forth upon this lower Stage; As the lowest point of that beam, whose head is in the bosome of the Sun. So with him matter and body seem to be the lowest shade, into which the Soul descends within her self, and the various forms which she puts on in this shade.
That seemeth to be most pleasantly harmonious to this, which the same Author hath in that pleasant piece of his Cabbala, upon the beginning of Genesis. There he figures out to us the Soul and the Body, which he calls her Vehicle or Chariot, that is, the Image into which she descends and rides forth here below, by the Male and Female, or the Bridegroom and the Bride, which are also Father and Daughter. The Body thus appears as a beautiful Image of the Soul, springing forth from the Soul, abiding by a mystical marriage in the eye and bosome of the Soul. In it, as in a clear and chrystalline Glass, the Soul, with ravishing delights, seeth her self in all her own beauties and sweetnesses. Of it she saith, This is life of my life, beauty of my beauty, my self springing forth from my self in a beautiful Image, and so represented to my self. Thus is the Soul tyed by irresistible Charms to its Body. This way the Soul falls from her purity, and the joys of her immortality, while she sinks into, and looseth her self in this shadowy Image, as if this were her only true, her only beautiful form. She hath now drowned in a deep oblivion her Angelical, her Divine Beauty and Being, unto which she should have risen, as to the Original Glory, by those inferior and fading figures of her self in this shade. On these Original Glories, as her golden full-spread wings, she should have descended into this shadowy Image, and upon the same wings have carried up in her embraces this shadow into the eternal Light. This divinely pleasant figure of Dr. More, brings to my mind some thing of Plot…nus, in his Discourses upon the Soul, not unsuitable to him, and to our present purpose. He teacheth us, as from a sacred Oracle, That every Soul cometh down into this World as a Caelestial Venus, or an heavenly Beauty, the beautiful Daughter and Image of the supream God, attended with a Caelestial Cupid, or an heavenly Love, her own Birth, ever with her, ever before her, her dear delight and glory. By this Love, the seed of the Divine and eternal Beauty in the Soul, sprung up into a Child, into a pleasant youthful growing Image, upon his wings she springeth up, and takes her flight abroad into all forms of things, as so many scattred figures and births of the first Beauty, until, with her Love, she return into the bosome of that.
Dr. Cudworth, who by giving us a short relish of that rich treasure of Knowledge and Learning, remote from the Vulgar, causeth also a regret in us, that he entertaineth us with no fuller a Feast, when that Feast might be a Divine Feast, Sacrifice, and Marriage all in one, enformeth us from the Jewish Doctors, That all Souls come down from above in a married, or Conjugal state. This seemeth to make one entire piece with Plotinus and Dr. More. The ever blessed Trinity is the first Marriage, and glorious Prototype of all Marriages. Here the Father is the Lover and Bridegroome, the eternal Word or Wisdome is the Daughter and Bride, his essential Image, in which his own glories and sweetnesses offer themselves to his Divine View and embraces. The Holy Spirit is the Love, which springeth forth from these two, which is the Fountain of the Divine Birth and Generation between these two, which uniteth them in eternal embraces, in a Divine fruitfulness, by which they Spring up within this Marriage-bed, into innumerable Births and Images of themselves, in this their Love-Union.
Souls, as they are the Birth, so do they bear the Image of this Trinity and Marriage. The Soul bringeth forth within her self this sensitive Image, which is her Daughter and her Bride. The love which unites these two in a Conjugal state, which springs mutually from both, as they are living Images each of other, as they are one self or substance in two distinct forms, which is the same in both, is the Spirit of life and motion. This makes the sweetness of life, and of all vital motions, That Love is their Spring and their Spirit. From this Love, as from the Marriage-bed, doth the Soul by her own proper Bride, which is its Body, bring forth it self into all sensitive and corporeal forms, which furnish and fill this visible World. Thus Souls come down in a Conjugal state, while each Soul brings down its Bride and Body in its bosome, out of which it springs, as Eve sprung forth out of the side of Adam, his fair and flourishing Image, while he flourished in his pure and Primitive Beauties. I confine not that sentence of the Jewish Rabbies to this sense, which yet seemeth to me (although perhaps not the only sense) as proper in it self, as it is pertinent to our Discourse. If these grounds be good and firm, clear will it be, That there is nothing vile or mean in the nature of things, rightly seen, when as all things are Spirits, or Souls in their married state; that is, heavenly Beauties, and heavenly Loves in various forms and postures, where all their motions are the loves of these Souls in their lovely flights. Some one may think this to be understood and confirmed by that of the Psalmist, cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews, He hath made his Ministers Spirits, or Winds, his Angels a flame of fire. The Fire, the Air, all the Elements in their various composition, the Coelestial Bodies, are Spirits, in their proper Vestments, Vehicles, or Chariots, with their proper Brides.
These heavenly Beauties and Loves may be cast into a deep sleep here, yet are they still sleeping Beauties and sleeping Loves, beautiful and lovely in their sleep. Although, like Abraham, they may have disorderly, deformed, distracting Dreams in their sleep. In these Dreams an horrible darkness may fall upon them, strange Visions may be presented to them. They may see dreadful fires in the midst of this darkness, themselves, their dear Bride the sensitive Image, like Doves, lying dead, and divided one from another, like innocent Beasts of Sacrifice slain, and cut into several pieces, with the brands of fire, or burning Lamps passing between them. In the horrour of these Dreams, and in this sleep, they may lie, till …hey be awakened, by that joyful sound of a Trumpet from Heaven, or of an Arch-angel, Arise and shine, for thy light is come, the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee; Which St. Paul expresseth thus, Awake thou that sleepest, and stand up from the dead, for Christ shall give thee light. Then shall these Bridegroom-Souls, with their beloved Brides, their Bodies, appear after this dark and tempestuous night of their sleep and dreams, in the fresh and pleasant morning of a new day, as new Heavens and a new Earth, with their Beauties, all new married anew to each other.
Some have imagined, that these Souls, together with their Bodies lying yet in their bosomes above, before their descent and fall, had a prospect of this terrible dream in that Image of the Divine Wisdom, which did then shine clearly in their Natures and Essences. It seemed to them an horrible Pit without any bottom, a vast and howling Wilderness full of deformed and dreadful Monsters, to which their sweet Beauties and Chastities, dearer than their Lives, would be exposed to be deflowred and defiled by them, full of Dearths and Droughts, full of fiery Serpents, which with stings fixed in them, with their infused Poyson would fill them all over with pains and horrors, would subject them to that most deformed and most dreadful Monster, the King of Terrors, death it self. Thus were they for their own sakes most averse to this descent and exile from their native home, from themselves, from their own true, sweetest Purities, Beauties and Beings.
But in that Divine Glass, in which they saw this Prospect, they saw also that this terrible Dream had a Divine mystery of wisdome and love in it, that out of it was to arise from every part and circumstance in it, a far more transcendent Glory to the supream Love, their Father and Bridegroom. They saw, that this Love it self would go along with them through all, though hidden and vailed, reserving his own Purities and Sweetnesses in the midst of all. They saw, that he in the midst of those hidden Purities and Sweetnesses, would preserve that Love which he had to them in eternity, when he beheld them in that first-born Image of all loves and lovelinesses, and that in these loves and lovelinesses he would conduct them, and direct their way through this Wilderness. They understood, that he would be a seed of hope to them, by the virtue of which they should certainly in the set time, in their proper season ascend out of this Pit, return home from this Exile: then should they be received with an universal shout of Joys and Glories, resounding from all things without them, and within them, when they should see all these sufferings break up into the most heightned Glories of the supream God, the supream eternal Love, and themselves with Raptures of highest pleasures, transcending all Humane or Angel-like thoughts, taken up into the fellowship of these Glories.
This imagination seemeth to some to be well-grounded upon, and naturally to arise from that Scripture, The earnest expectation of the Creature (or the Creation) was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of him (or for his sake) who subjected the same in hope; because the Creature (or the Creation) it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of Corruption, into the glorious liberty of the Children of God: For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in pain till now.
Reader, I hope it will not be unacceptable to you, that I have endeavoured to divert thee and my self by these Speculations, which seem to be very pleasant, representing to us the Soul, as a Coelestial Bridegroom with its Bride and Bridal Chariot both in one, its Body descending and returning, as in a Caelestial Dance, measured by the Musick of the Divine Harmony. Let these things have with thee that weight of probability or truth which thou thy self shalt give to them in thine own judgment. However I have thought them proper to my present end, the illustration of that truth, the harmony of things in the whole, and of the several parts as they lie in the whole, which seemeth to me to be clearly character'd in all the beautiful and bright lineaments of Reason it self, which its essential form, is an universal Harmony, and to be expressed through the whole Scriptures as their proper design, which are a Divine Draught or Description of the Divine Harmony in its eternal Original, and in its Figure.
St. Paul saith, That all things work together for good for those that love God. The only true love of God, is the immediate and proper Birth of the Divine Love, its clearest and fullest effulgency, and its most perfect reflection upon it self. This is the essential Character of a Saint, as he is the Spiritual man. To this person St. Paul saith, All things are yours, this world, lise and death, things present, and things to come; you are Christ's, and Christ is Gods.
God is the Head, the beginning, the end, the measure of Christ. Christ is the Head, the beginning, the end, the measure of a Saint. A Saint is the head, the beginning, the end, the measure of all things. All things through the whole World, through the whole compass of time, in both those bright and black Regions of Life and of Death, are exactly tuned each to other, and struck with a Divine Hand of Power and Skill with all manner of sweetness, to make the most agreeable and charming Musick to God, to Christ, and to a Saint, as they dwell together in one heavenly Image, and in one eternal Spirit. All things, even the most distant and most contrary, meet together by a most admirable and ravishing consent, in one most beautiful Harmony of a perfect, universal, eternal good, to a Saint, as he is in Christ, as Christ is in God, as all three lie together in the pure, the soft, the spacious bosome of Divine and eternal Love.
But I shall speak more fully of this universal Harmony in the Second Part, when I shall have occasion to shew, what place Sin hath in this Harmony, how Disorder it self is reduced into Order by its powerful Charms, how the Harmony is made perfect by a full Variety; The Variety cannot be full without a Contrariety; how in the contrariety the Law ariseth, as a ministry of wrath, out of which Sin takes its birth as a Contrary, which is the proper correlate, or mark, or object of the Divine Contrariety and Wrath, how this Divine Contrariety heightning it self to the utmost upon Sin and Sinners, to declare to the utmost their irresistible contrariety to the Divine Nature, and prevailing over them, in the Person of Christ consuming them, consumes it self together with them as a flame with its fewel, like a flame it vanisheth into the pure Air, Light and Heaven, where all things now spring again, and are seen new in the beautious Glories and ever-flourishing sweetnesses of an Universal and Divine Harmony, through the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
But we will leave these things to their proper places: In the mean time this Truth seemeth t… be firmly established upon unmoveable grounds, that nothing, as it lies in the whole, in all its causes, concurrences, relations, and circumstances, is mean, vile, or little, unworthy of the Divine Mind, which if it were a stranger to any the least circumstance of things, even the first, most unperceptible motions of the Will, were uncapable of judging of the Harmony of the whole, of Good and Evil, which consist in order and disorder, especially of moral Good and Evil, the chief Good and Evil, of the chief pieces of the whole Work, Intellectual Spirits, whose Good and Evil in order to an eternity of Happiness or Misery, are defined and determined by every motion of the Will.
If I have been at the expence of much time and pains upon this Subject, the Omniscience of God, or the universality of his Knowledge, and the exactness of it in this Universality, I humbly conceive that I have not done it impertinently, being moved to it by these two Reasons,
1. Learned men know, that this Flower in the Crown of the Great King, this Attribute of God, hath been denied to him in the face of the whole World with great confidence, with bold pretences of Reason and Learning opposed to it. I have heard this perfection of the Divine Nature, in the Process of a Discourse upon this freedome of the Will, questioned, Whether it were proper to God, or a Perfection? and this Question made soberly there, where modesty, goodness, and learning have met together.
2. This Argument of the Divine Omniscience appeareth to mewith so great weight in this cause, that if this be freely granted, and clearly understood, I cannot at all comprehend by what way or means the liberty of the Will, now examined, can suppart it self, without the overturning the whole fabrick of our Philosophy and Divinity, with the absolute ruines of all their beauties and strengths. I hope in a few words to manifest this in the Second Part of this Argument, which now follows.
2. Part. The Second Part is the Original of the Divine Knowledge.
This knowledge of God ariseth not from without, but from within himself. This Truth seemeth to carry the full and sweet light of its own evidence brightly shining in the face of it. If God receive any thing from without, he is no more immutable, impassible, independent, a pure Act, a perfect eternal Act, a simple Unity, but a composition of divers and different ingredients. If any Species or Image, if any Knowledge flow in upon the Divine Understanding from any external Object, not only all the Properties, Perfections, and Attributes ascribed to God, but his Godhead it self, with all its most essential Glories are shaken, overthrown, and utterly demolished. If God be receptive of any thing from any other, he is no more the first, the universal Being, the Fountain of all Being, and so no more God. It is generally and rightly affirmed, That the Essence of God and the Operations are the same, that his Knowledge is Himself. If then He receive the knowledge of any thing, He receiveth also Himself, and his Godhead from a Forreign Spring. W…o, saith St. Paul, hath been his Counsellor? or who hath given to Him first, that He should repay?
Object. Some eminent Divines seeming to understand, the force of the Reason in this Point to lie in the fore-knowledge of God, have believed themselves to have gained a full Victory over it, by an imagined co-existence of God with the Creature. For, say they, God is infinite, as in his Essence, so in his duration. By virtue of this infiniteness he after an immutable manner co-exists with the Creature in all its changes. Eternity, which is the duration of the Divine Essence in its undivided and unchangeable but unconfined Unity, co-exists with time, the duration of the Creature in all its numerous and successive motions, in all its undivided moments. Thus, say they, God properly foreknows nothing, but knoweth every Creature, as it is present with Him in its own proper existence and time.
Answ. If all this in the full Latitude be freely granted, I humbly conceive, that the present Argument remains still in its full force, unshaken, untoucht. But first, I shall crave leave to offer some incongruities and mistakes, which make me uncapable of satisfying my self with this co-existence, thus formed and founded:
1. This seems to take away out of the mouth of God Himself, speaking by the Prophet Isaiah, one Principal proof of his Godhead, which he pleaseth to make use of several times over, and in which he glories, challenging all the gods of the Heathen to come and try their Divinities by this Test; This is the Power of Prophecying, the declaring of things to come.
2. Doth not the Co-existence mentioned commensurate God with the Creature, make God the Subject of a Relation to the Creature, establish a proportion between Him and the Creature; which are all contrary to the infiniteness of God, as to the most uncontroverted Principle of Divinity shining in upon us by the light of Nature, or of Revelation.
3. If God by Co-existing with the Creature, in the moment of the Fall, at the beginning of time, declares that full Victory of Christ over the Serpent at the end of time, which he knows only by coexisting with that action in its proper scene and duration, at the winding up of all Ages; Doth it not follow, that the beginning, and the end of time in their proper seasons and durations, co-exist and fall in with each other? For this is a Maxim of universal force, That those two things which meet in a third, meet in themselves.
4. The best Understandings, pure and clear as the Sun it self, clouded with flesh, while they see through so thick a medium, are capable of various and disproportionate views of their Object. A weaker sight fixed on, and confined to some narrower and more particular Image, may in that sometimes discover to better eyes, which extend themselves to a more spacious Object, an error in that smaller Point. Accordingly those great Spirits, with whom I now treat, perhaps may find themselves mistaken in their sense of the Divine Co-existence with the Creature, if they please to consider this which I shall now propound.
God indeed is infinite. By this infiniteness he is above all proportion to, all commerce with every thing that is finite. By this infiniteness he comprehends in himself all Creatures, with all theirExistencies, Formalities, and Modifications, after an infinite manner, eminently, and with the highest transcendency. Thus he beholdeth, thus he converseth with all things within Himself.
Divines generally place the Joys of glorified Spirits in that Beatifical Vision, which is the sight of all things in the most amiable face of the most highly adored Trinity, as in the only clear Glass of all Images of things, in their eternal Truths. Is not God Himself blessed in the first place with this Beatifical Vision? Doth not He much more certainly, with a delight proportioned to a God, behold all things in this Glass of the Trinity, in the supreamly beautiful face of our Jesus, his own eternal Birth, his own essential Image, the full reflection of himself upon himself? Is not this first and full birth of the Godhead its most universal Birth, where by bringing forth him, he brings sorth all things at once in him, according to their first and fairest Births, as beautiful lineaments composed of Divine Lights and Shades in this face and Divine Form, where all pleasantnesses dwell.
Thus, of a truth, God co-exists with all Creatures, hath in Himself, in his Essence, Existence, and Duration, the exact measure of all Essences, Existencies, and Durations; but this is according to the manner of the Divine and Uncreated, not of the created nature, as he comprehends all in himself.
5. I come to that now, which I promised, as my chief and concluding Answer.
Here I shall endeavour to make it appear, that all this established in the most desired sense falls short or flies wide off our present Argument, leaving it altogether untoucht. For let it be, that God doth exist, together with the Creature, in the proper and formal existence of each Creature; yet still we fall upon this Dilemma, The knowledge of each Creature, in the Divine Understanding, arriveth from without, or ariseth from within.
The first of these hath following it an horrid train of direful inconveniencies represented above, such as I may well tremble to mention and the holy Angels stand amazed to hear, the passibility, mutability, dependency, imperfection of the Divine Essence in it self, compositions, divisions in the Divine Nature: in a word, the desposing of God from being God. The Devil indeed in all forms practiseth this as his chiefest Artifice, the establishing of such imaginations and opinions in our Spirits, as by the dividing of the Godhead in it self, may divide God from Himself in our sense of Him, and so in truth separate us from the supream Unity, the only Crown of all Righteousness, Rest and Joy, that by dividing he may Reign.
If I deceive not my self thus this imagination of Gods receiving his Knowledge of created things from the objects themselves, existing in their own proper forms out of their causes and present before him, is thus attended with such a troop of infernal Monsters, as cannot but affrighten us from entertaining any such conception. The first part of the Dilemma being then removed, the second is established, namely, that the knowledge of all things in the mind of God, hath no spring from which it streameth besides God Himself. All the Attributes of God, all the sense which all Nations, all Spirits have of God from the light of Nature or of Revelation, his All-sufficiency, his Being the beginning, the end of all things, testifie with great concurrence to this Truth. It seemeth to me indeed Impertinent to use many words to clear or confirm it. If then God have his Knowledge of every Creature from within, he comprehendeth all the Creatures in his own Divine Essence, either formally, in their own proper Natures and Existencies, or virtually and eminently, as in their first cause. No other way seemeth to me imaginable, by which the Divine Mind should be at once both the Eye and the Glasse, to behold all things in it self.
If we place any Creature, according to its proper form, in the Divine Essence, we place it upon the Throne of the Godhead, and cloath it with the form of God. It remaineth then, that the Divine Knowledge is the intuition or view of things in their first and eternal Original.
Moreover, Knowledge is the Im…ge of the thing known, in the understanding of him who knoweth it. There are only three sorts of Images: 1. The Original Image, the exemplar cause and p…ttern. 2, The essential form, which is the thing it self. 3. A Copy or Figure of this, as the Picture taken from the life, and the shadow cast from the substance. Thus the Lord Jesus in his spiritual Glories, as He is the Divine Understanding, is the Original form of the Sun, the Suns Sun. To him agrees that, which Plutarch delivereth to us from the ancient Philosophers, that the God of the Sun, which inhabits the Sun, excels the Sun in the sweetness, beauty, and glory of his Light, ten thousand times more, than the Sun doth this Earth, or the darkest Cloud. The Sun it self shining in these visible Heavens, is the essence or essential form, framed by this pattern, sprung forth from it. The Light, the Sun-shines, and Suns which we severally take in with our eyes, are so many figures, and pictures, or shadows rather of this Sun flowing from him.
If we believe the Creatures in their essential forms, or in their shadowy figures, to inhabit the Divine Understanding, we either exalt them to an heighth too far above them, by bringing them into the Divine Unity, and so making them one God with God; or we debase the Divine Nature, by bringing it down to a composition with things forreign and inferior to it.
The Philosopher teaches us, that Science, or clear and certain Knowledge, is only the knowledge of things in their causes. The first and most perfect Spirit is only capable of this knowledge, which alone is most perfectly clear and immutable, the knowledge of things in their first and universal cause. Thus the Divine Essence in the Person of our Jesus, the Divine Wisdome and Understanding, the brightness of the Divine Glory, the Image of the Godhead, pure, naked, full, substantial, eternal, is both the only Object of the Divine Eye, worthy of it, and compleatly suited to it, and also the Species or Image, in which and by which alone all Creatures, all forms of things in Heaven, Earth and Hell, are presented to it. This is that Unity, which in its pure simplicity, being free from all division of parts, or diversities of forms, is absolutely unbounded, and so diffuseth it self into the most perfect and unconfined Variety, comprehending it entirely, altogether undivided within it self, as in a spiritual most spacious Palace of Light, and Paradise of the Divine Life, upon the high and flourishing Mount of Eternity. This is that Unity in its first distinction, and so in the most full Variety, our Jesus; in whom all fulness of Nature, Grace, and Glory dwelleth in its sweetest repose, in the most perfect Harmony of all the most heightning Beauties and Delights. This is the Beatisical Vision, in which God clearly contemplates, compleatly enjoys Himself, and all things in Himself, as in the Christalline Fountain of the Godhead.
Let me now bring home to my present mark, this present Argument, by drawing up my whole Discourse upon it, into three short Propositions:
1. God, who knoweth all things distinctly and exactly, knoweth every Act of the Will, every actual determination of it in each Act.
2. God, who only knoweth all things, by beholding them in the Glasse of his own Essence, in the divinely beautiful, the only beloved Person and form of his only eternal Birth, his own Son; there hath the view of the Will of Man in every distinct motion, act, and determination, as in its first exemplar cause in eternity.
3. The will of man then in every motion, act, and determination of it, is from eternity predetermined in the Divine Understanding, as in its first cause and Original form. Upon these grounds, the Knowledge of God is at once a fore-knowledge of future things, and a knowledge of things present: 1. It is a fore-knowledge, as it sees things in their first cause, in a state far above and transcendent to the state of their proper existency, as they stand forth out of their causes. 2. It is a knowledge of things present, as eternity and the Divine duration containeth in it self the measures, the exemplars, and so the most exact forms of time and every successive duration, in its several aspects of past, present, and to come. Besides that, as the Sun looking forth, makes the Day and the Light, with all the visible Images, with which it beholds the Heavens and the Earth, so the Divine Eye is at once a Glass to it self, and a Fountain to all things; by beholding things every moment in it self, it doth formally every moment send them forth from it self: so at once it seeth them in their formal cause and present existence.