Pithy gems from the Puritan Stephen Charnock

(1628 – 1680)

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Power is God's hand or arm,
omniscience is God's eye,
mercy is God's delight,
eternity is God's duration,
and holiness is God's beauty!

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A proud Christian is as much a contradiction as a humble devil!

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A man may be theologically knowing—and spiritually ignorant.

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Without the heart, there is no worship. It is mere stage play—the acting of a part. It is playing the hypocrite.

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Unbelief was the first sin—and pride was the first-born of it.

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In regard of God, patience is a submission to His sovereignty. To endure a trial, simply because we cannot avoid or resist it—is not Christian patience. But to humbly submit because it is the will of God to inflict the trial, to be silent because the sovereignty of God orders it—that is true godly patience.

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God does not govern the world only by His will as an absolute monarch—but by His wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not His greatest pleasure to show His sovereign power, or His inconceivable wisdom—but His immense goodness, to which He makes the other attributes subservient.

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Pride is self contending with God for preeminence.

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We often learn more of God under the rod that strikes us—than under the staff that comforts us.

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Let us look upon a crucified Christ, as the remedy of all our miseries. His cross has procured a crown—and His passion has expiated our transgressions. His death has disarmed the law—and His blood has washed a believer's soul. His death is the destruction of our enemies, the spring of our happiness, and the eternal testimony of divine love!

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Adoption gives us the privilege of sons—regeneration gives us the nature of sons.

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God knows all that is done in the most secret caverns of the heart. No place is deprived of His presence.

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SELF is the great anti-Christ and anti-God in the world—which sets up itself above all else.

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Works do not make the heart good—but a good heart makes the works good.

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Paul was so captivated by Christ, that nothing sweeter than Jesus could drop from his lips and pen.

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A soldier unresolved to fight, may be easily defeated. Frequently renew settled and holy resolutions. The weakness of our graces, the strength of our temptations, and the diligence of our spiritual enemies—require strong resolutions.

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We may be truly said to worship God—though we lack perfection; but we cannot be said to worship Him—if we lack sincerity.

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How worthy it is to remember God's former benefits—when we come to beg for new blessings.

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It is less injury to God to deny His being, than to deny the purity of His being. The one makes Him no God—the other makes Him a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God. He who says God is not holy—speaks much worse that he who says there is no God at all.

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Assurance is the fruit which grows out of the root of faith.

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Had it been published by a voice from Heaven, that twelve poor men, taken out of boats and creeks, without any help of learning, should conquer the world to the cross, it might have been thought an illusion against all reason of men; yet we know it was undertaken and accomplished by them.

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All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God—not a multitude of words heaped together.

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What comfort can be had in the being of God without thinking of him with reverence and delight? A God forgotten—is as good as no God to us.

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Since nothing but God is eternal—nothing but God is worth the loving.

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Sin endeavors to subject the blessed God to the humor and lust of every person in the world!

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This little member, the eye, can behold the earth, and in a moment view things as high as Heaven.

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The little time that remains between this moment and our death—should quicken our diligence to inherit the endless and unchangeable eternity of God.

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Accustom yourself to serious meditation every morning. Fresh airing our souls in Heaven will engender in us a purer spirit and nobler thoughts. A morning seasoning will secure us for all the day.

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Let us not satisfy ourselves with a knowledge of God in the mass—a glance upon a picture never directs you to the discerning the worth and art of it.

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God often lays the sum of His amazing providences in very dismal afflictions; as the painter first puts on the dusky colors, on which he intends to draw the portraiture of some illustrious beauty.

Sinful and foolish man would make anything his end and happiness, rather than God.

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Were it possible to view the picture of God which men frame in their minds, it would be the most monstrous of beings!

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Without eternity, what would God's perfections be, but glorious yet withering flowers, a great but decaying beauty!

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God's vines thrive the better for pruning.