Study God in the creatures as well as in the Scriptures. The primary use of the creatures, is to acknowledge God in them; they were made to be witnesses of Himself and His goodness, and to be heralds of His glory, whose glory of God as Creator “shall endure forever” (Psalm 104:31). . . . Nature is not contrary to Scripture, nor Scripture to nature; unless we should think God contrary to Himself who is the Author of both.
– Stephen Charnock
1628 – 1680
If you take away God, you take away conscience, and thereby all measures and rules of good and evil. And how can any law be made when the measure and standard of them are removed? All good laws are founded upon the dictates of conscience and reason, upon common sentiments in human nature, which spring from a sense of God; so that as the foundation is demolished, the whole superstructure must tumble down. A man then could be a thief, a murderer, an adulterer, and could not in a strict sense be considered an offender. The worst actions could not be evil, if a man were a god to himself, a law to himself.
– Stephen Charnock
1628 – 1680
A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant. . . . A man may be excellent in the grammar of Scripture, yet not understand the spiritual sense of it. . . . The highest rational knowledge of God cannot profit without the knowledge of faith. . . . It can be of no more advantage to us than it was to the Jews knowing Him, or to Judas living with Him. In the Scriptures, Christians are not called knowing persons, but believers.
– Stephen Charnock
1628 – 1680
Christ Alone Wyoming 