Known unto God are all his works
These are the words of James, and not of Amos; all the things
which God does in the church and in the world, they were all
foreknown and predetermined by him: from the beginning of the
world; or from eternity; even all his works of creation,
providence and grace: the Alexandrian copy, and Beza's most
ancient copy, and the Vulgate Latin version, read in the singular
number, "his work"; the work of the conversion of the Gentiles;
this was fixed and resolved on by God in eternity; he knew it
would be, because he had determined it should be; and accordingly
he foretold it, and spoke of it in various periods of time before
it came to pass; and therefore it should not be looked upon as
some new and strange thing, that was never known, spoken or heard
of: and this holds true of every other work of God, and agrees
with what the Jews sometimes say F26, that
``every work which is renewed in the world, the holy blessed God has commanded (or ordered) it from the day the world was created.''
F26 Zohar in Exod. fol. 78. 2. Vid. ib. in Lev. fol. 25. 4.
