p. 33The Divine Foreknowledge in the Light of Which That Plan Had Its Origin

Let us again bring vividly before us that Jesus Christ was God, and let us reflect how much that short statement indicates in its bearing upon the point at issue. It means that as He stood on the mount of the Apostolic commission in His risen glory and in the plenitude of His Divine power, He was maker and master of the universe, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God. It means that the whole history of the secular world of all time, in all its several departments and in all its minutest details, was in that hour present to His eye. It means, moreover, that the whole history of His Church from then till now, and from now down to the consummation, was traced out in clear light before Him. All the multitudinous events, that would take place both in the sphere of civil life and in the sphere of religion, were mapped out as plainly in His Divine presence, as if they were actually happening at the moment.

The nations that would rise and fall, the succession of dynasties, the forms of government by which the peoples of the earth were to be ruled, the strivings between the power spiritual and the power temporal; the open persecutions which would be fomented and carried on against His Church by wicked men who in their impotent rage would threaten to destroy her, the intrigues of the secret enemies who would strive to fix upon her the stigma of disgrace and strain every nerve to annihilate her influence; the heresies, schisms and successive divisions which would spring up and wrench multitudes of members from her bosom; the wars, civil and international, religious and secular, just and unjust,—the whole of this came within the range of His all-seeing vision.

But we are more concerned, for our present purpose, with His foresight of the events which would take place within the sphere of religion, than with that of those which form the bulk of profane history. Hence we wish to bring into more distinct view His all-comprehending survey of what may be termed the religious world of the Christian era. This is a point which is little thought of—at least in its bearing on the matter in hand—yet it is one which demands particular attention. We say “all-comprehending survey”. For not even the minutest or most trifling event escaped it. There was before Him a panorama in the strongest sense of the word: nothing either visible or invisible could be absent from it. Everything lay bare to His gaze.

The successive controversies that would rage for a period about the meaning of His words, about the number of Sacraments, the right form of worship, about His own Divine Nature and Divine Personality, and about the almost numberless other questions of doctrine, were then clearly and distinctly known to Him.

The whole course of the various Christian denominations which in successive centuries would claim to be His Church, but which, with one exception, would not and could not be His Church, was then present to His eye. The whole course of whatever Church He would recognise as His own, or, which would be recognised by Him as His own in her beginnings, was then as clear before Him as if she had already actually finished it. The doctrine which that Church would teach in the early centuries and which she would continue to teach throughout her existence, the hierarchy and government she would set up, the worship she would practise, the Sacraments she would administer; the tribunals she would establish for decreeing the honour due to those of her members who were recognised as being exceptionally holy; the millions who would join her, the millions who would refuse or fail to join her, the numbers who would be saved through her, and the numbers who would perish in spite of her proffered graces; the multitudes of pagans who would live and die in their paganism notwithstanding the efforts of her apostles and missionaries to make the light of the Gospel shine upon them; every conversion to her creed as well as every defection from it; every new development of doctrine she would put forward, every law she would enact, every dispensation she would grant,—stood out in plain prominence in His all-seeing presence. The personal sins too of her members (and in this sense no Church has ever been without sin or could be without it), as well as her virtues, came under that notice, from which nothing was hidden. The scandals that would take place in her, the accusations true and false that would be brought against her; the separation of East from West, the attempts of the men who would profess to be Divinely commissioned to reform or rather substantially change the religion both of West and East; the struggles, the persistent and scandalous opposition of anti-popes; the openly wicked lives of some who would profess to be and who would be believed by many to be His highest representatives on earth; the periods of papal exile; the Inquisition, the circumstances that led to it and the excesses or alleged excesses connected with it; the vexed question of Investiture and the controversies, disputes and quarrels it gave rise to; the Crusades, their successes and their failures; the Western Schism; the upheaval of the sixteenth century, as well as the many similiar revolutions in religious thought that crowd the pages of the last 1900 years; these events in all their aspects, details, attendant circumstances, and an interminable series of others of a kindred sort which it would be impossible to enumerate,—were then as plain to His eye as if they were being realised in actual life at the time. Either this is true, or He was not God; and if He was not God, all argument is in vain.

Whether it is reasonable to affirm that, with the light of this Divine knowledge shining in its fulness upon Him, He deliberately designed a Church which He foresaw would fail of its purpose after the first five or six centuries, we shall discuss at length in a separate chapter.