Attributes of God by Charnock (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Commence Chapter 2 (Practical atheism) by reading up to the paragraph commencing 'Thus much for the general.'
Now Charnock looks at what it is to be a practical atheist - one who shows his atheism by his actions.
In today's reading we are taught six general propositions about practical atheism:
(i) Actions are a greater discovery of a principle of worth;
(ii) All sin is founded in a secret atheism;
(iii) Sin implies that God is unworthy of being;
(iv) Every sin in its own nature would render God a foolish and impure being;
(v) Sin in its own nature endeavours to render God the most miserable being;
(vi) Men sometimes in some circumstances do wish the not being of God.
A truly excellent section.
So humbling to recognise what our sin says about God: 'We deny his sovereignty when we violate his laws; we disgrace his holiness when we cast our filth before his face; we disparage his wisdom when we set up another rule as the guide of our actions than that law he hath fixed; we slight his sufficiency when we prefer a satisfactions than that law he hath fixed; we slight his sufficiency when we prefer a satisfaction in sin before a happiness in him alone; and his goodness, when we judge it not strong enough to attract us to him. Every sin invades the rights of God, and strips him of one or other of his perfections. It is such a vilifying of God as if he were not God; as if he were not the supreme Creator and Benefactor of the world; as if we had not our being from him; as if the air we breathed in, the food we lived by, were our own by right of supremacy, not of donation. For a subject to slight his sovereign, is to slight his royalty; or a servant his master, is to deny his superiority.'
Every time I sin, I deny God. O that the Lord would help my actions match what my mouth proclaims.
Continue Chapter 2
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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