Note 55 — Quest. VII.
Reading edition
As knowledge is a faculty of which wisdom is the due exercise, the proofs of divine wisdom are so many evidences of the knowledge of God. Wisdom consists in the choice of the best ends, and the selection of means most suitable to attain them. The testimonies of the wisdom of God must therefore be as numerous and various, as the works of his creation. The mutual relations and subserviency of one thing to another; as the heat of the sun, to produce rain; both, to produce vegetation; and all, to sustain life; ensation, digestion, muscular motion, the circulation of the fluids, and, still more, intelligence, and above all, the moral faculty, or power of distinguishing good and evil, are unequivocal proofs of the wisdom, and consequently of the knowledge, of God.—He that formed the eye, doth he not see: he that planted the ear, &c.
Mortal artificers are deemed to understand their own work, though ignorant of the formation of the materials and instruments they use: but the Creator uses no mean or material which he has not formed. He therefore knows, from the globe to the particle of dust or fluid, and from the largest living creature to the smallest insect. He has knowledge equally of the other worlds of this system, and every system; of all things in heaven, earth, and hell.
Our knowledge is conversant about his works; he knows all things which are known to us, and those things which have not come to our knowledge.
He formed and sustains the human mind, and knows the thoughts: this is necessary to him as our Judge. He knows equally all spiritual creatures, and sustains his holy spirits in holiness.
Our knowledge springs from things; but things spring from his purposes: they are, because he knows them; otherwise they existed before his knowledge, and so independently of him.
We know but the external appearances, he the intimate nature of things. We inquire into the properties of things by our senses, by comparing them, by analizing, &c: but nothing possesses a property which he did not purpose and give; otherwise his hands have wrought more than he intended. We look up through effects unto their causes: he looks down through intermediate causes, and sees them all to be effects from him.
We are furnished with memories to bring up ideas, being only able to contemplate a part at a time; but his comprehension embraces all things.
He never changes; his purposes of the future embrace eternity: all things that are really future are certain, because his purposes cannot fail of accomplishment. But all future things to us are contingent, except as he has revealed their certainty. That the future is known to him, also appears by the accomplishment of every prophecy.
But man’s sin receives hereby no apology. He gives the brutal creation the capacity of deriving pleasure from gratification of sense, and provides for such appetites. He offers to man, pleasures which are intellectual: he has tendered him the means, and requires man to seek his spiritual happiness in God. When he refuses and withholds his return of service from God, man is alone to blame. And the more numerous and powerful the motives which he resists, the guilt is the greater. The divine foreknowledge of this is no excuse for man. When the Lord overpowers man’s evil with good, the glory of man’s salvation belongs to God.