Selections from the Discourses of Stephen Charnock on the Existence and Attributes of God - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ...be reconciled to the sinner, but never to the sin; for then He should renounce Himself, deny His own essence and His own Divinity, if His inclinations to the love of goodness, and His aversion from evil, could be changed; if He suffered the contempt of the one and encouraged the practice of the other. God's Holiness has no part in Man's Sin. Light may sooner be the cause of darkness, than holiness itself be the cause of unholiness, absolutely contrary to it. It is a contradiction, that He that is the fountain of good should be the source of evil; as if the same fountain should bubble up both sweet and bitter streams, salt and fresh, Jam. iii. 11. Since whatsoever good is in man acknowledges God for its author, it follows that men are evil by their own fault. There is no need for men to be incited to that, to which the corruption of their own nature doth so powerfully bend them. Water hath a forcible principle in its own nature to carry it downward; it needs no force to hasten the motion: God tempts no man, but every man is drawn away by his own lust, Jam. i. 13, 14. All the preparations for glory are from God, Rom. ix. 23. But men are said to be fitted to destruction, ver. 22; but God is not said to fit them; they by their iniquities fit themselves for ruin, and He by His long-suffering keeps the destruction from them for a while. The plain story of man's apostacy dischargeth God from any interest in the crime as an encouragement, and excuseth Him from any appearance of suspicion. When He showed him the tree He had reserved as a mark of His sovereignty, and forbade him to eat of the fruit of it, He backed the prohibition with the threatening the greatest evil, namely, death; which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss of...