Jer. 17. 9, 10.
Isai. 41. 21, 22, 23.
Matth. 2. 13.
1. Concerning the first, this must of necessity be a certain rule that what the holy and elect Angels do not know, the evil and faln Angels must much more ignore, except the knowledge of evil and guilt, from which the good Angels are free; and these may be reduced to these few points. 1. We here may consider that the knowledge of Angels, is to be restrained into these three ranks; first either their innate and congenerate knowledge, or secondly their infused or revealed knowledge by God in his Son Jesus Christ, or thirdly their experimental knowledge that they gain by observation and experience, and it is of the first only that we speak in this Paragraph, and the rest we shall handle anon. 2. That our cogitations, desires and affections are not known to the Angels, unless they manifest themselves either by external signs, or effects, or be revealed from God; And these ways they may be known, but not otherwise; for it is manifest that Satan had darted it, or put it into the mind of Judas to betray Christ, yet had he so cunningly carried himself, that neither by any effect nor sign did the Disciples know it until our Saviour did reveal it unto them. So that the Scriptures do plainly inform us of the truth in this particular, as, For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? For this is only proper to God to search the heart, and to understand the cogitations, as saith the Text: For thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men, he only knoweth them, and neither Angels nor men: and though the heart be deceitful and desperately wicked, yet God doth search the heart, and try the reins. So that if the good Angels do not know the cogitations, desires and affections of Mens hearts, except God either reveal them unto them, or they be made manifest by signs and effects, much less must the bad Angels know or understand them. 3. Those things that are meerly contingent, and those which depend upon free will, cannot be known of the Angels, unless they be revealed by God, as is manifest by the Text. Produce your cause, saith the Lord, bring forth your strong Idols, or Diviners, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the later end of them, or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are Gods: yea, do good, or evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. And as the good Angels know not contingent things, or those that depend upon free will, much less do the faln Angels understand them, as is manifest in these examples. The Angel that was sent of God to warn Joseph to take the child Jesus, and fly into Ægypt, did not of his own innate knowledge, either in it self, or in its cause (as the Schoolmen speak) know that Herod would seek the child to destroy him, because it was truly a contingent thing, and did only depend upon the free act of Herods will, and therefore by Divine Goodness and Providence it was revealed to the Angel, thereby to preserve the life of the child, and to fulfil the Scriptures. Neither do the faln Angels know future events that are contingent, or depend upon the free will of men, as is manifest in Satans tempting and afflicting of Job, which he intended to have been his destruction, and therefore did falsly divine and foretel that Job would curse God to his face, but the event was not according to his lying conjecture, but to the manifestation of Jobs Faith and Patience, and produced his glorious restoration. So the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets, did not know that Ahab would go up to Ramoth Gilead, or that he should be slain there, but that God did reveal it unto him, and sent him forth with a powerful commission to prevail. So that all the predictions and Divinations of the Devil or his Angels are nothing but lying guesses and uncertain conjectures; for what can be expected from him who was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies? Neither were his Idol-priests, Wizzards, Diviners or Prophets any better but meer conjecturers and lyars, as was most manifest in all those Oracles that were amongst the Grecians, which uttered nothing but cheats, lies, equivocations and ambiguous responsions. And those amongst the Jews were no better, who took upon them to foretel and divine for others, but could not or did not foresee their own destruction, as is manifest in Ahabs Prophets slain by Elijah, and the Priests of Baal slain by Jehu, and therefore must all those needs be deceived that run to Divining Witches and Wizzards, of which sort of couzeners we have too many.
Object.
And if against this it be objected that the Devils did know and confess that Jesus was the Son of God, and therefore if they could tell this that was so great a mystery, much more easily may they know other inferior things, and so may foretel future contingencies, to which we give this responsion.
1. We only affirm that Devils did not know Christ by their innate or inbred knowledge, but they might know him by the revelation of the Father, and by the things that were written of him by the Prophets, and by the observation of those things that were manifested at his birth, and shewed and done in his life time.
Matth. 8. 29.
Luke 8. 31.
2. And it is manifest that God did not altogether intend to have him hidden from the knowledge of Devils, because he ordered that the spirit should lead him into the wilderness, that he might be tempted, that his power and victory might be shown over the Prince of darkness. And the end that the wisdom of God had in this, was that the Devils to their greater terror and horror might know their Conquerour, and by whose power they should be tormented and thrown into the Abyss or bottomless pit, and this made them cry out saying, Art thou come to torment us before the time, and also force us not into the Abyss or deep.