EXERCITATION VII. The depth of Divine Omniscience seen in discerning the deep things of man, yea, of Satan, yea, of God. Our ignorance discovered and acknowledged. The longitude of God's perfection stated, Eternity proper to him. Not assumed by, or ascribed to men without blasphemy. 1. THE second dimension is the depth of God's omniscience, which appears in that he is able to sound and fathom the deepest things, whether of man, or of Satan, or of the divine essence and will. First, There are "deep things of men. Their words are deep :"* and again, "The words of a man's mouth are as deep waters." Their hearts and counsels much more. "Both the inward thoughts of every one of them, and the heart is deep." So David of the church's enemies. "Counsel in the heart of man is like a deep water." So Solomon of wise sages, who are therefore compared by a learned writer to coffers with double bottoms, which when others look into, being opened, they see not all they hold on the sudden and at once. But these are no depths to God, to whom David said, "There is f * Prov. xviii. 4. + Psalm Ixiv. 6. + Prov. xx. 5. f Sir Walter Raleigh's history, book v. p. 359. not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." And elsewhere, "The Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts."+ Neither is it the least act of God's goodness to mankind, that he is pleased to reserve the searching of hearts to himself, as part of his own prerogative royal, because if men were able to dive into one another's thoughts, there would be no quiet in the world; no peaceable living one by another, in regard of that hidden hypocrisy and malice which lurks in the most. $2. Secondly. " Deep things of Satan," spoken of in the Revelation; "As many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak." Seducers are wont to boast of their mysterious tenets, and to speak of them as great depths, not to be fathomed by common Christians. Christ in that epistle of his to the church of Thyatira, makes use of their own term, depths as they speak; but so as to brand them for depths of Satan fetched from hell, whereas they perhaps held them forth as new truths, glorious lights and revelations from above. Thus popery is a mystery, but a mystery of iniquity, as Paul styleth it, and Socinianism a depth, but a depth of Satan. There is not a serpentine winding or turning in any of those corrupt opinions, which pester and poison the * Psalm cxxxix. 4. church of Christ at this day, but God seeth and knoweth it, how hard soever it be for his servants to discover and refute. To these may be added, all those other hellish designs which go under other names in the scripture, as "the wiles of the devil, and his devices ;"* all which dark secrets are not in the dark to divine understanding. And he that now sees them all will one day reckon with Satan for them, yea, and sink him so much the deeper into hell, by how much his depths have done more mischief upon earth. I say into hell, where he shall have those agents and factors by whom he now carrieth on his cursed work, for his cursed companions to eternity, according to that in the Apocalypse, “The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are; and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."+ § 3. Thirdly, Deep things of God, of the di vine essence and will, concerning which the apos tle saith, "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." Things which the clearest understandings of men and angels enter tain with amazement: we cannot but bewray our balbutiency when we treat of one in three, and three in one such a mysterious gulf is the trinity: so when we discourse either of the per • Ephes. vi. 11. 2 Cor. ii. 11. + Rev. xx. 10. 1 Cor. ii, 10. BB sonal union, or the theandrical acts of Christ. And no wonder, seeing we meet with such secrets and depths even in God's revealed will. The greatest divines have acknowledged many Δυσνόητα, things hard to be understood; yea, diverse auta, knots that cannot be untied, till there either come further light into this world, or we be translated into a better. Such as every modest christian will be ready to say of, as the learned Cajetan did concerning the reason of that difference, which in the Hebrew text is observable betwixt the title of Psalm one hundred and twenty first, and those other Psalms of degrees, Reservo Spiritui Sancto, I reserve the solution of this and that doubt to the Holy Spirit. For to Him and the other divine persons such things are no riddles; though to us they be dark and enigmatical, yea, perhaps unsearchable. Although we ever and anon meet with cause of crying out as St Paul once did, "How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out ?"* Yet let us always remember and believe that of St James, "known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world."+ § 4. Well may the prudent consideration of what hath been said concerning the depth of Divine Omniscience put the wisest of men in mind of their ignorance; keep them from leaning to their own understanding; and give them just + Acts xv. 18. *Rom. xi. 33. occasion to think of an answer to Zophar's question, What canst thou know? If the secrets of nature do so puzzle thee, what canst thou know concerning those much greater secrets of grace and glory? Of which Luther very excellently, “Philosophy receives them not, faith doth. The authority of Scripture is greater by far than the capacity of our wit; and the Holy Ghost than Aristotle."* Well may the depth of divine understanding (which the Psalmist saith is infinite, "Great is the Lord, and of great power, his understanding infinite,"+) cause us to reflect upon the shallowness, the finiteness, yea, the folly of our own. For if the foolishness of God be wiser than men,'‡ as the Apostle telleth us it is, what is his wisdom? And if the wisdom of this world be foolishness with God,"§ what is its folly? No wonder if one learned man wrote a book of the vanity of sciences,|| others of the nullity, quod nihil scitur. If the wise heathen profest, the only thing he knew was this, that he knew not any thing at all.¶ If friar Paul of Venice, the judicious author of that excellent history of the Council of Trent, was wont to say, **"the more we study, the more we see how little * Quid si philosophia, hæc non capit? fides tamen capit, major est verbi Dei authoritas, quam nostri ingenii capacitas. major Sp. Sanctus quam Aritoteles. Luther de captivit. Baby. Jonica. + Psalm cxlviii. 5. 1 Cor. i. 25. § 1 Cor. iii. 19. Anton. Verderius. Franc. Cornel. Agrip. Zanch. M. D. Hoc unum scio. Socrates. ** Quo magis studiis incumbimus eo magis nos videre quam nihil scimus, Ap. Jo. Bevoricium. Epist. quæst. page 86. |