The Existence & Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock (Book Review)
I am grateful to God to be part of Crossway’s review program. This month they sent me: The Existence & Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock Edited by Mark Jones Updated and Unabridged (Two-Volume Set). The books absolutely beautiful brown Trutone over board, which has a leather feel on hardback covers.
I found myself searching for a good copy of this work for some time to no avail. I remember asking at a conference several years ago and there was not one copy available there of this work. Crossway has produced not only the work, but a beautiful edition that from the outside in are exceptional.
The classic author is Stephen Charnock (1628–1680), a prominent English Puritan theologian and preacher in England and Ireland during the seventeenth century. He trained at Cambridge and Oxford, and served as chaplain to Henry Cromwell, the chief governor of Ireland, and is known for his discourses on the existence and attributes of God.1 The editor is Mark Jones (PhD, Leiden Universiteit) serves as the pastor of Faith Vancouver Presbyterian Church (PCA) in British Columbia, Canada. He has authored many books, including Living for God and God Is, and speaks all over the world on Christology and the Christian life.2
The contents include an invaluable contemporary introduction to the work as well as to each discourse, along with a general and Scripture index.
Volume 1: Discourses 1–8
Discourse 1: On God’s Existence
Discourse 2: On Practical Atheism
Discourse 3: On God’s Being a Spirit
Discourse 4: On Spiritual Worship
Discourse 5: On the Eternity of God
Discourse 6: On the Immutability of God
Discourse 7: On God’s Omnipresence
Discourse 8: On God’s Knowledge
Volume 2: Discourses 9–14
Discourse 9: On the Wisdom of God
Discourse 10: On the Power of God
Discourse 11: On the Holiness of God
Discourse 12: On the Goodness of God
Discourse 13: On God’s Dominion
Discourse 14: On God’s Patience
Taking the Discourse on the Wisdom of God as an example, the editor states the following in the introduction to the work including what I believe is a sufficient and very timely sample3 of Charnock for this review:
“The work of Christ manifests the wisdom of God as both just and the justifier of the ungodly, but the person of Christ also reveals the preeminent wisdom of God, for in the incarnation the finite is united with the infinite, immortality is united to mortality, and a nature who made the law is united to a nature under the law, all in one person. This union “transcends all the unions visible among creatures” and for that reason is incomprehensible. And while the finite can never comprehend the infinite, not even in the union of the two natures, nevertheless, the divine nature is united to every part of Christ’s human nature. Because of the incarnation, the Son of God is able to mediate between God and sinful humanity…. In short, the incarnation reveals the wisdom of God in appointing the Son as mediator. Only the God-man could effect reconciliation between God and man, and communion with God is possible for us only because God became man. Indeed, the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity gave him an experimental compassion that the divine nature was not capable of, and so the efficacy of Christ’s priestly office, in all its aspects, depends on the union of the two natures in one person. The incarnation, then, is one of the many ways God has revealed his wisdom to men. God’s wisdom, which brings together both mercy and “justice, among other things, would not, however, be effectual if God were not powerful.”
An additional excerpt is quoted by Jones contained in Charnock’s work as follows:
Charnock expresses this well in the following words:
“[Jesus Christ] is a true mediator between mortal sinners and the immortal righteous one. He was near to us by the infirmities of our nature and near to God by the perfections of the divine—as near to God in his nature as to us in ours, as near to us in our nature as he is to God in the divine. There is nothing that belongs to the Deity but he possesses, nothing that belongs to the human nature but he is clothed with. He had both the nature that had offended and that nature that was offended; a nature to please God and a nature to pleasure us; a nature whereby he experimentally knew the excellency of God, which was injured, and understood the glory due to him, and consequently the greatness of the offense, which was to be measured by the dignity of his person, and a nature whereby he might be sensible of the miseries contracted by and endure the calamities due to the offender, that he might both have compassion on him and make due satisfaction for him.”
Having this classic available in both readable print and a beautiful edition is truly a great service to pastors, but also to parishioners who wish to go deeply in the matter of theological thought. This work is available in both ebook and print form, but I can say from experience of getting the ebook first, that the print is simply worth ordering in addition to the digital. In fact, through Crossway’s Plus membership (which is free to sign up for) an ebook is included in the print purchase. Highly recommended. These two-volumes should serve the Christian well for deep devotional reading and the pastor for theological equipping. In order to purchase, check out the publisher directly here.
“No man or angel could imagine how two natures so distant as the divine and human should be united, how the same person should be criminal and righteous, how a just God should have a satisfaction and a sinful man a justification, how the sin should be punished and the sinner saved. None could imagine such a way of justification as the apostle in this epistle declares. It was a mystery when hid under the shadows of the law and a mystery to the prophets when it sounded from their mouths; they searched it without being able to comprehend it (1 Pet. 1:10–11). If it be a mystery, it is humbly to be submitted to; mysteries surmount human reason. The study of the gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame. Trades you call mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding; diligence is required. We must be disciples at God’s feet. As it had God for the author, so we must have God for the teacher of it; the contrivance was his, and the illumination of our minds must be from him. As God alone manifested the gospel, so he alone can open our eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it.”
~Charnock
From publisher’s website
Ibid.
I am posting this review in December while Christmas and the Incarnation is particularly in view.