Acts 15:18

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 z, 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.''

z Zohar in Exod. fol. 78. 2. Vid. ib. in Lev. fol. 25. 4.