V. These natural, or super-added endowments, how great soever they are, comparatively with those of other creatures, are subject to certain limitations: their perfections are derived, and therefore are finite. It is true, they are holy, or without any sinful impurity; yet even their holiness falls infinitely short of God’s, and therefore it is said concerning him, _Thou only art holy_, Rev. xv. 4. and elsewhere, Job xv. 15. speaking concerning the angels, who are, by a _metonymy_, called the heavens, it is said, they _are not clean in his sight_, that is, their holiness, though it be perfect in its kind, is but finite, and therefore infinitely below his, who is infinitely holy. Moreover, though they are said, as has been before observed, to excel in knowledge, we must, notwithstanding, conclude, that they do not know all things; and therefore their wisdom, when compared with God’s, deserves no better a character than that of folly, Job iv. 18. _His angels he charged with folly_. There are many things, which they are expressly said not to know, or to have but an imperfect knowledge of, or to receive the ideas they have of them by degrees: thus _they know not the time of Christ’s second coming_, Matt. xxiv. 36. and they are represented as enquiring into the great mystery of man’s redemption, or as _desiring to look into it_, 1 Pet. i. 12. And to this let me add, that they do not know the hearts of men, at least not in such a way as God is said to _search the heart_, for that is represented as a branch of the divine glory, Jer. xvii. 10. 2 Chron. vi. 30. And, besides this, it may be farther observed, that they do not know future contingencies, unless it be by such a kind of knowledge, as amounts to little more than conjecture; or, if they attain to a more certain knowledge thereof, it is by divine revelation. For God appropriates this to himself, a glory, from which all creatures are excluded; therefore he says, _Shew the things that are to come_, that is, future contingencies, _that we may know that ye are gods_, Isa. xli. 23. which implies, that this is more than what can be said of any finite mind, even that of an angel. As to the way of their knowing things, it is generally supposed, by divines, that they know them not in a way of intuition, as God does, who is said to know all things in himself, by an underived knowledge; but whatever they know, is either communicated to them, by immediate divine revelation, or else is attained in a discursive way, as inferring one thing from another; in which respect, the knowledge of the best of creatures appears to be but finite, and infinitely below that which is divine.