1535. Coverdale, Judith ix. 6. Thy iudgmentes are done in thy euerlastinge fore knowlege.
1555. Eden, Decades, Contents (Arb.), 45. Of the foreknowleage that the poet Seneca had of the fyndynge of the news worlde and other regions not then knowen.
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 118.
| If I foreknew, | |
| Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, | |
| Which had no less prov’d certain unforeknown. |
1729. Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. Pref. 19. It is not foreknowledge of the punishment which renders us obnoxious to it; but merely violating a known obligation.
1847. Grote, Greece, II. xi. III. 139. The law which vests a creditor with power over the person of his debtor, so as to convert him into a slave, is likely to give rise to a class of loans which inspire nothing but abhorrence—money lent with the foreknowledge that the borrower will be unable to repay it, but also in the conviction that the value of his person as a slave will make good the loss.
1863. Dicey, Federal St., II. 210. Madame Lagon, natural Astrologist and Medium, will give to the public a fore-knowledge of all the general affairs through life, seeing and describing spirits.
Hence Foreknowledged ppl. a., known beforehand as liable to, destined to. Obs.–1
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 643/2. If thou be a stranger from Christ, howe soeuer other wise thou seeme to flourish in vertues, thou art predestinate to death, and foreknowledged, as they saye, to damnation.
