Attributes of God - Charnock - V - Chapter 2 (Practical atheism) continued

Required reading
Attributes of God by Charnock (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Continue Chapter 2 (Practical atheism) by reading up to the paragraph commencing 'Secondly, Man naturally owns any other rule rather than that of God's prescribing'.

My summary
Today Charnock continues to look at what it means to be a practical atheist by beginning his first main point about practical atheists, 'Man would set himself up as his own rule instead of God'. 

Today's reading is Charnock's first subpoint of this main point: man naturally disowns the rule God sets him.

Firstly we see that there is in man naturally an unwillingness to have any acquaintance with the rule God sets him.  For:
(i) men are negligent in using the means for knowledge of God's will;
(ii) when any part of the mind and will of God breaks in upon men, they endeavour to shake it off;
(iii) when men cannot shake off the notices of the will and mind of God, they have no pleasure in the consideration of them;
(iv) there is, further, a rising and swelling of the heart against the will of God;
(v) men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the will of God, not out of any respect to his will, and to make it their rule, but upon some other consideration;
(vi) many that entertain the notions of the will and mind of God, admit them with unsettled and wavering affections;
(vii) many desire an acquaintance with the law and truth of God, with a design to improve some lust by it; to turn the word of God to be a pander to the breach of his law.

Secondly we are taught that men show contempt of the law when they find they cannot avoid the notions and some impressions of it.  This contempt is seen:
(i) in any presumptuous breach of any part of his law;
(ii) in the natural averseness to the declarations of God's will and mind;
(iii) when we gave the greatest slight of that will which is most for his honour and his greatest pleasure;
(iv) in our running the greatest hazards and exposing ourselves to more trouble to cross the will of God, than is necessary to the observance of it;
(v) in the unwillingness and awkwardness of the heart, when it is to pay God a service;
(vi) in a deserting of the rule of God, when our expectations are not answered upon our service;
(vii) in breaking promises with God.

What grabbed me
One of Charnock's illustrations particularly hit home to me today.  We've had a series of extraordinarily hot days here in Sydney and the bin with the children's nappies has really begun to stink!  And this, Charnock says, is a good illustration of sinful man's reaction to God's law: 'We have a natural antipathy against a divine rule, and therefore when it is clapped close to our consciences, there is a snuffing at it, high reasonings against it, corruption breaks out more strongly: as water poured on lime sets it on fire by an antiperistasis, and the more water is cast upon it, the more furiously it burns; or as the sun-beams shining upon a dunghill make the steams the thicker, and the stench the noisomer, neither being the positive cause of the smoke in the lime, or the stench in the dunghill, but by accident the causes of the eruption: [Rom. vii. 8), "But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law sin was dead."'

Instead of God's law bringing righteousness, it ends up bringing increasing unrighteousness.

Next week's reading
Continue Chapter 2 (Practical atheism) by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'II. The second main thing: As man would be a law to himself, so he would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God.'

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.