#stephen charnock

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

A strong meditation on Christ will excite compassion for His sufferings, but a detestation of our sins and selves as the cause of them. It is a look upon Christ pierced, that pierces the soul

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

He is unlike God, that is hurried with an unruly impetus to punish others for wronging him. God has exercised a long-suffering from the fall of Adam to this minute on innumerable subjects, and shall we be transported with a desire of revenge upon a single injury? How distant are they from the nature of God, who are in a flame upon every slight provocation, from a sense of some feeble and imaginary honour, that must bloody their sword for trifle, and write their revenge in wounds and death.

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 – is true godly patience.

A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant.