"Known to God from eternity are all His works. (Acts 15:18 NKJ)
2. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. All things are present to him in his eternity; for this is the notion of eternity, to be without succession. (t) If eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceeding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it is perceived without any succession, for knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from itself, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view. But, since God's being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so either does his knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all thing in his eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him: "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world;" ἀπ̓ αἰῶνος, a seculo, "from eternity" (Acts 15:18). God's knowledge is co-eternal with him; if he knows that in time which he did not know from eternity, he would not be eternally perfect, since knowledge is the perfection of an intelligent nature.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1853, reprint, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), pp. 294-295.
(t) Petav.
(Cf. Ephesians 1:11).
(a seculo or "a saeculo", Latin Vulgate).
2. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. All things are present to him in his eternity; for this is the notion of eternity, to be without succession. (t) If eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into preceeding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it is perceived without any succession, for knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath various actions and distinct from itself, then it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view. But, since God's being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so either does his knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all thing in his eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him: "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world;" ἀπ̓ αἰῶνος, a seculo, "from eternity" (Acts 15:18). God's knowledge is co-eternal with him; if he knows that in time which he did not know from eternity, he would not be eternally perfect, since knowledge is the perfection of an intelligent nature.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1853, reprint, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), pp. 294-295.
(t) Petav.
(Cf. Ephesians 1:11).
(a seculo or "a saeculo", Latin Vulgate).
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