Because God is immutable, his wisdom is also unchanging.

[God] is “only wise” perpetually. As the wisdom of man is got by ripeness of age, so it is lost by decay of years; it is got by instruction, and lost by dotage. The perfectest minds, when in the wane, have been darkened with folly: Nebuchadnezzar, that was wise for a man, became as foolish as a brute. But the Ancient of Days is an unchangeable possessor of prudence; his wisdom is a mirror of brightness, without a defacing spot. It was “possessed by him in the beginning of his ways, before his works of old” (Prov. viii. 22), and he can never be dispossessed of it in the end of his works. It is inseparable from him: the being of his Godhead may as soon cease as the beauty of his mind; “with him is wisdom” (Job xii. 13); it is inseparable from him; therefore, as durable as his essence. It is a wisdom infinite, and therefore without increase or decrease in itself. The experience of so many ages in the government of the world hath added nothing to the immensity of it, as the shining of the sun since the creation of the world hath added nothing to the light of that glorious body. As ignorance never darkens his knowledge, so folly never disgraces his prudence. God infatuates men, but neither men nor devils can infatuate God; he is unerringly wise; his counsel doth not vary and flatter; it is not one day one counsel, and another day another, but it stands like an immovable rock, or a mountain of brass. “The counsel of the Lord stands for ever, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations” (Ps. xxxiii. 11).

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:511–512.

As beings created in God’s image, we share some of his attributes. Those attributes that we share are called communicable attributes. We, of course, possess these attributes incompletely and imperfectly, while in God they are seen in all their complete perfection. But there is a more important, more fundamental difference in the way we possess these communicable attributes. While we are said to possess them because they are communicated, or added, to us, they are not added to God. Charnock wrote:

[T]he wisdom of God is the same with the essence of God. Wisdom in God is not a habit added to his essence, as it is in man, but it is his essence. It is like the splendour of the sun, the same with the sun itself; or like the brightness of crystal, which is not communicated to it by any thing else, as the brightness of a mountain is by the beam of the sun, but it is one with the crystal itself. It is not a habit superadded to the Divine essence; that would be repugnant to the simplicity of God, and speak him compounded of divers principles; it would be contrary to the eternity of his perfections: if he be eternally wise, his wisdom is his essence; for there is nothing eternal but the essence of God. As the sun melts some things, and hardens others; blackens some things, and whitens others, and produceth contrary qualities in different subjects, yet it is but one and the same quality in the sun, which is the cause of those contrary operations; so the perfections of God seem to be diverse in our conceptions, yet they are but one and the same in God. The wisdom of God, is God acting prudently; as the power of God, is God acting powerfully; and the justice of God, is God acting righteously: and therefore it is more truly said, that God is wisdom, justice, truth, power, than that he is wise, just, true, &c. as if he were compounded of substance and qualities. All the operations of God proceed from one simple essence; as all the operations of the mind of man, though various, proceed from one faculty of understanding.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:509.

In Charnock’s Discourse IV “On the Wisdom of God,” he offers three points in which wisdom consists: “In acting for a right end,” “in observing all circumstances for action,” and

in willing and acting according to the right reason, according to a right judgment of things. We can never count a wilful man a wise man; but him only that acts according to a right rule, when right counsels are taken and vigorously executed. The resolves and ways of God are not mere will, but will guided by the reason and counsel of his own infinite understanding (Eph. i. 11): “Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.” The motions of the Divine will are not rash, but follow the proposals of the Divine mind; he chooses that which is fittest to be done, so that all his works are graceful, and all his ways have a comeliness and decorum in them. Hence all his ways are said to be “judgment” (Deut xxxii. 4), not mere will. Hence it appears, that wisdom and knowledge are two distinct perfections. Knowledge hath its seat in the speculative understanding, wisdom in the practical. Wisdom and knowledge are evidently distinguished as two several gifts of the Spirit in man (1 Cor. xii. 8) : “To one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit.” Knowledge is an understanding of general rules, and wisdom is a drawing conclusions from those rules in order to particular cases. A man may have the knowledge of the whole Scripture, and have all learning in the treasury of his memory, and yet be destitute of skill to make use of them upon particular occasions, and untie those knotty questions which may be proposed to him, by a ready application of those rules. Again, knowledge and wisdom may be distinguished, in our conception, as two distinct perfections in God : the knowledge of God is his understanding of all things; his wisdom is the skilful resolving and acting of all things. And the apostle, in his admiration of him, owns them as distinct; “O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. xi. 33)! Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom, and antecedent to it; wisdom the superstructure upon knowledge: men may have knowledge without wisdom, but not wisdom without knowledge; according to our common proverb, “The greatest clerks are not the wisest men.” All practical knowledge is founded in speculation, either secundum rem, as in a man; or, secundum rationem, as in God. They agree in this, that they are both acts of the understanding; but knowledge is the apprehension of a thing, and wisdom is the appointing and ordering of things. Wisdom is the splendour and lustre of knowledge shining forth in operations, and is an act both of understanding and will; understanding in counselling and contriving, will in resolving and executing: counsel and will are linked together, (Eph. i. 11).

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:508.

We know that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world; but we, i.e., believers, must admit that much of scripture is foolishness to us, too. God requires us to be diligent students of his Word, and to rely on this Holy Spirit to quicken our understanding. Charnock wrote:

The whole scheme of godliness is a mystery. 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 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 Peter i. 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 only manifested the gospel, so he only can open our eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:502–503.

Charnock wrote, of God’s knowledge, that it should cause us to agree with God in all things. That he knows all things, and is surprised by nothing, but works all things according to his will, should cause us to rest in him in all circumstances.

The consideration of this excellent perfection should make us to acquiesce in God, and rely upon Him in every strait. In public, in private; He knows all cases, and He knows all remedies; He knows the seasons of bringing them, and He knows the seasons of removing them, for His own glory. What is contingent in respect of us, and of our foreknowledge, and in respect of second causes, is not so in regard of God’s, who hath the knowledge of the futurition of all things; he knows all causes in themselves, and, therefore, knows what every cause will produce, what will be the event of every counsel and of every action. How should we commit ourselves to this God of infinite understanding, who knows all things, and foreknows everything; that cannot be forced through ignorance to take new counsel, or be surprised with anything that happens to us! This use the Psalmist makes of it (Ps. x. 14): “thou hast seen it, the poor committeth himself unto thee.” though “some trust in chariots and horses” (Ps. xx. 7), some in counsels and counselors, some in their arms and courage, and some in mere vanity and nothing; yet, let us remember the name and nature of the Lord our God, his divine perfections, of which this of his infinite understanding and omniscience is none of the least, but so necessary, that without it he could not be God, and the whole world would be a mere chaos and confusion.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:497.

Charnock lists three Uses (applications) of the doctrine of God’s Knowledge: Use I, information or instruction; Use II, comfort; and Use III, to humble sinners.

   Consider what a poor refuge is secrecy to a sinner. Not the mists of a foggy day, nor the obscurity of the darkest night, not the closest curtains, nor the deepest dungeon, can hide any sin from the eye of God. Adam is known in his thickets, and Jonah in his cabin. Achan’s wedge of gold is discerned by him, though buried in the earth, and hooded with a tent. Shall Sarah be unseen by him, when she mockingly laughs behind the door? Shall Gehazi tell a lie, and comfort himself with an imagination of his master’s ignorance, as long as God knows it? Whatsoever works men do, are not hid from God, whether done in the darkness or daylight, in the midnight darkness, or the noon-day sun: he is all eye to see, and he hath a great wrath to punish. The wheels in Ezekiel are full of eyes: a piercing eye to behold the sinner, and a swift wheel of wrath to overtake him. God is light, and of all things light is most difficultly kept out. The secretest sins are set in the light of his countenance (Ps. xc. 8), as legible to him, as if written with a sun-beam ; more visible to him than the greatest print to the sharpest eye. The fornications of the Samaritan woman, perhaps known only to her own conscience, were manifest to Christ (John iv. 16). There is nothing so secretly done, but there is an infallible witness to prepare a charge. Though God be invisible to us, we must not imagine we are so to him; it is a vanity, therefore, to think we can conceal ourselves from God, by concealing the notions of God from our sense and practice. If men be as close from the eyes of all men, as from those of the sun, yea, if they could separate themselves from their own shadow, they could not draw themselves from God's understanding: how, then, can darkness shelter us, or crafty artifices defend us? With what shame will sinners be filled, when God, who hath traced their steps, and writ their sins in a book, shall make a repetition of their ways, and unveil the web of their wickedness!

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:491–492.

As with all of God’s attributes, the perfection of his knowledge is a great source of comfort to his children. Charnock writes:

This perfection of God fits him to be a special object of trust. If he were forgetful, what comfort could we have in any promise? How could we depend upon him, if we were ignorant of our state? His compassions to pity us, his readiness to relieve us, his power to protect and assist us, would be insignificant, without his omniscience to inform his goodness, and direct the arm of his power. This perfection is, as it were, God’s office of intelligence: as you go to your memorandum-book to know what you are to do, so doth God to his omniscience; this perfection is God’s eye, to acquaint him with the necessities of his church, and directs all his other attributes in their exercise for and about his people. You may depend upon his mercy that hath promised, and upon his truth to perform; upon his sufficiency to apply you, and his goodness to relieve you, and his righteousness to reward you; because he hath an infinite understanding to know you and your wants, you and your services. And without this knowledge of his, no comfort could be drawn from any other perfection; none of them could be a sure nail to hang our hopes and confidence upon. This is that the church alway celebrated (Ps. cv. 7): “He hath remembered his covenant for ever, and the word which he hath commanded to a thousand generations;” and (ver. 42), “He remembered his holy promise;” “And he remembered for them his covenant” (Ps. cvi. 45). He remembers and understands his covenant, therefore his promise to perform it, and therefore our wants to supply them.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:484–485.

I didn’t read Charnock this week. Let this be an adequate substitute, if you please:

A Living Sacrifice ( 6:21).

Stephen Charnock on the future knowledge of God; or, Why Open Theists Are Wrong:

God knows all future things, all things to come. The differences of time cannot hinder a knowledge of all things by him, who is before time, above time, that is not measured by hours, or days, or years; if God did not know them, the hindrance must be in himself, or in the things themselves, because they are things to come: not in himself; if it did, it must arise from some impotency in his own nature, and so we render him weak; or from an unwillingness to know, and so we render him lazy, and an enemy to his own perfection; for, simply considered, the knowledge of more things is a greater perfection than the knowledge of a few; and if the knowledge of a thing includes something of perfection, the ignorance of a thing includes something of imperfection. The knowledge of future things is a greater perfection than not to know them, and is accounted among men a great port of wisdom, which they call foresight; it is then surely a greater perfection in God to know future things, than to be ignorant of them. And would God rather have something of imperfection than be possessor of all perfection? Nor doth the hindrance lie in the things themselves, because their futurition depends upon his will; for as nothing can actually be without his will, giving it existence, so nothing can be future without his will, designing the futurity of it. Certainly if God knows all things possible, which he will not do, he must know all things future, which he is not only able, but resolved to do, or resolved to permit. God’s perfect knowledge of himself, that is, of his own infinite power and concluding will, necessarily includes a foreknowledge of what he is able to do, and what he will do. Again, if God doth not know future things, there was a time when God was ignorant of most things in the world; for before the deluge he was more ignorant than after; the more things were done in the world, the more knowledge did accrue to God, and so the more perfection; then the understanding of God was not perfect from eternity, but in time; nay, is not perfect yet, if he be ignorant of those things which are still to come to pass; he must tarry for a perfection, he wants till those futurities come to be in act, till those things which are to come, cease to be future, and begin to be present. Either God knows them, or desires to know them; if he desires to know them and doth not, there is something wanting to him; all desire speaks an absence of the object desired, and a sentiment of want in the person desiring: if he doth not desire to know them, nay, if he doth not actually know them, it destroys all providence, all his government of affairs; for his providence hath a concatenation of means with a prospect of something that is future: as in Joseph’s case, who was put into the pit, and sold to the Egyptians in order to his future advancement, and the preservation both of his father and his envious brethren. If God did not know all the future inclinations and actions of men, something might have been done by the will of Potiphar, or by the free-will of Pharaoh, whereby Joseph might have been cut short of his advancement, and so God have been interrupted in the track and method of his designed providences. He that hath decreed to govern man for that end he hath designed him, knows all the means before, whereby he will govern him, and therefore bath a distinct and certain knowledge of all things; for a confused knowledge is an imperfection in government; it is in this the infiniteness of his understanding is more seen than in knowing things past or present; his eyes are a flame of fire (Rev. i. 14), in regard of the penetrating virtue of them into things impenetrable by any else.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:429–431.

The following single sentence from Charnock, inspired by Psalm 147:5, is worthy of a post all by itself, and an excellent truth upon which to meditate.

Nothing doth so much delight a gracious soul, as an opportunity of celebrating the perfections and goodness of the Creator.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:406.

A final word from Charnock on the omnipresence of God:

   Let us endeavor for the more special and influential presence of God. Let the essential presence of God be our the ground of our awe, and his gracious influential presence the object of our desire. The heathen thought themselves secure they had their pretty household gods with them in their journeys: such seem to be the images Rachel stole from her father (Gen. xxxi. 19) to company her travel with blessings: she might not at that time have cast off all her respect to those idols, in the acknowledgment of which she had been educated from her infancy; and they seem to be kept by her till God called Jacob to bethel, after the rape of Dinah (Gen. xxxv. 4), when Jacob called for the strange gods, and hid them under the oak. The gracious presence of God we should look after, in our actions, as travelers, that have a charge of money or jewels, desire to keep themselves in company that may protect them from highwaymen that would rifle them. Since we have the concerns of the eternal happiness of our souls upon our hands, we should endeavor to have God’s merciful and powerful presence with us in all our ways (Ps. xiv. 5); “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths:” acknowledge him before any action, by imploring; acknowledge him after, by rendering him the glory; acknowledge his presence before worship, in worship, after worship: it is this presence makes a kind of heaven upon earth; causeth affliction to put off the nature of misery. How much will the presence of the sun outshine the stars of lesser comforts, and fully answer the want of them! The ark of God going before us, can only make all things successful. It was this led the Israelites over Jordan, and settled them in Canaan. Without this we signify nothing: though we live without this, we cannot be distinguished forever from devils; his essential presence they have; and if we have no more, we shall be no better. It is the enlivening fructifying presence of the sun that revives the languishing earth; and this only can repair our ruined soul. Let it be, therefore, our desire, that as He fills heaven and earth by Hiss essence, he may fill our understanding and wills by his grace, that we may have another kind of presence with us than animals have in their brutish state, or devils in their chains: his essential presence maintains our beings, but his gracious presence confers and continues a happiness.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:405.

Now here is a concept that, obvious as it is, had never occurred to me: while God, in his omnipresence, fills all of creation, it is really creation that is contained by him. Charnock wrote:

“In him we live,” is to be understood, not of his power and goodness, perfections of his nature, distinguished according to our manner of conception from his essence, but of the essential presence of God with his creatures. If he had meant it of his efficiency in preserving us, it had not been any proof if his nearness to us. Who would go about to prove the body or sustenance of the sun to be near to us because it doth warm and enlighten us, when our sense evidenceth the distance of it? We live in the beams of the sun, but we cannot be said to live in the sun, which is so far distant from us. The expression seems to be more emphatical than to intend any less than his essential presence; but we live in him not only as the efficient cause of our life, but as the foundation sustaining our lives and motions, as if he were like air, diffused round about us; and we move in him . . . as a sponge in the sea, not containing him, but being contained by him. He compasseth all, is encompassed by none; he fills all, is comprehended by none. The Creator contains the world, the world contains not the Creator; as the hollow of the hand contains the water, the water in the hollow of the hand contains not the hand; and therefore some have chose to say, rather, that the world is in God, it lives and moves in him, than that God is in the world. If all things thus live and move in him, then he is present with everything that hath life and motion; and as long as the devils and damned have life, and motion, and being, so long is he with them; for whatsoever lives and moves, lives and moves in him.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:374–375

Stephen Charnock on God’s omniscience:

God is essentially everywhere present in heaven and earth. If God be, he must be somewhere; that which is nowhere, is nothing, since God is, he is in the world; not in one part of it; for then he would be circumscribed by it: if in the world, and only there, though it be a great space, he were also limited. Some therefore said, “God is everywhere, and nowhere” [Chrysostom]. Nowhere, i. e. not bounded by any place, nor receiving from any place anything for his preservation or sustainment. He is everywhere, because no creature, either body or spirit, can exclude the presence of his essence; for he is not only near, but in everything (Acts xvii. 28): “In him we live, and move, and have our being.” Not absent from anything, but so present with them, that they live and move in him, and move more in God, then in the air or earth wherein they are; nearer to us than our flesh to our bones, than the air to our breath; he cannot be far from them that live, and have every motion in him. The apostle doth not say, By him, but in him, to show the inwardness of his presence. As eternity is the perfection whereby he hath neither beginning nor end, immutability is the perfection whereby he hath neither increase nor diminution, so immensity of omnipresence is that whereby he hath neither bounds nor limitations. At he is in all time, yet so as to be above time; so is he in all places, yet so as to be above limitation by any place. It was a good expression by a heathen to illustrate this, “That God is a sphere or circle, whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.” His meaning was, that the essence of God was indivisible; i. e. could not be divided. It cannot be said here and there the lines of it terminate; it is like a line drawn out in infinite spaces, that no point can be conceived where its length and breadth ends. The sea is a vast mass of waters; yet to that it is said, “Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further.” But in cannot be said of God’s essence, hitherto it reaches and no further; here it is, and there it is not. It is plain, that God is thus immense, because his is infinite; we have reason and scripture to assent to it, though we cannot conceive it. We know that God is eternal, though eternity is to great to be measured by the sort line of a created understanding. We cannot conceive that vastness and glory of the heavens, much less that which is so great, as to fill the heaven and the earth, yea (1 Kings viii. 27), “not to be contained in the heaven of Heavens.”

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:366–377

God’s immutability is the basis upon which all of our security rests. Because God is unchanging, we can trust his promises. And because it is he who has written our names in heaven, we can be sure that our perseverance is guaranteed.

   It consists not with the majesty of God to call a person effectually to himself today, to make him fit for his eternal love to give him faith, and take away that faith tomorrow. His effectual call is the fruit of his eternal election, and that counsel hath no other foundation but his constant and unchangeable will; a foundation that stands sure, and, therefore, called the foundation of God, and not of the creature; “the foundation of God stands sure, the Lord knows who are his” (2 Tim. ii. 19). It is not founded upon our own natural strength; it may be then subject to changes all the products of nature are. The fallen angels had created grace in their innocency, but lost it by their fall. Were this the foundation of the creature, it might soon be shaken; since man, after his revolt, can ascribe nothing constant to himself, but his own inconsistency. But the foundation is mot in the infirmity of nature, but the strength of grace, and of the grace of God, who is immutable, Who wants not virtue to be able, not kindness to be willing, to preserve his own foundation. To what purpose doth our Saviour tell his disciples their names “were written in heaven” (Luke x. 20), but to mark the infallible certainty of their salvation by an opposition to those things which perish, and have their “names written in the earth” (Jer. xvii 23); or upon the sand, where they may be defaced? And why should Christ order his disciples to rejoice that their names were written in heaven, if God were changeable to blot them out again? or why should an apostle assure us, that though God had rejected the greatest part of the Jews, he had not, therefore, rejected his people elected according to his purpose and immutable counsel; because there are none of the elect of God but will come to salvation? For, saith he, the “election hath obtained it” (Rom. xi. 7); that is, all those that are of the election have obtained it, and the others are hardened. Where the seal of sanctification is stamped, it is a testimony of God’s election and that foundation shall stand sure “the foundation of the Lord stands sure. Having this seal. “The Lord knows who are his;” that is the foundation, the “naming the name of Christ” or believing in Christ, and “departing from iniquity,” is the seal. As it is impossible when God calls those things that are not, but that they should spring up into being and appear before him; so it is impossible but that the seed of God, by his eternal purpose, should be brought to a spiritual life, and that calling cannot be retracted; for that “gift and calling is without repentance” (Rom. xi. 29) and when repentance is removed from God in regard of some works, the immutability of those works is declared; and the reason of that immutability is their pure dependence on the eternal favor and unchangeable grace of God “purposed in himself” (Eph. i. 9, 11) and not upon the mutability of the creature. Hence their happiness is not as patents among men, quam diu bene se gesserint, so long as they behave themselves well; but they have a promise that they shall behave themselves so as never to wholly depart themselves from God (Jer. xxxii. 40): I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” God will not turn away from them, to do them good, and promiseth that they shall not turn from him forever, or forsake him. And the bottom of it is the everlasting covenant, and therefore, believing and sealing for security are linked together (Eph. i. 13). And when God doth inwardly touch his law, he puts in a will not to depart from it: (Ps. cxix. 102) “I have not departed from Thy judgments;” what is the reason? “For thou hast taught me.”

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:355–356

Does God change his mind? How can we reconcile the passages of Scripture that seem to indicate that he does with his omnipotence and infallibility? Charnock writes:

   Prop. III. Repentance and other affections ascribed to God in Scripture, argue no change in God. We often read of God’s repenting, repenting of the good he promised (Jer. xviii. 10), and of the evil he threatened (Exod. xxxii. 14; John iii. 10), or of the work he hath wrought (Gen. vi. 6). We must observe, therefore, that
   1. Repentance is not properly in God. He is a pure Spirit and is not capable of those passions which are signs of weakness and impotence, or subject to those regrets we are subject to. Where there is a proper repentance there is a want of foresight, an ignorance of what would succeed, or a defect in the examination of the occurrences which might fall within consideration. All repentance of a fact is grounded upon a mistake in the event which was not foreseen, or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the thing which was acted by the person repenting. But God is so wise that he cannot err, so holy he cannot do evil; and his certain prescience, or foreknowledge, secures him against any unexpected events. God doth not act but upon clear and infallible reason; and a change upon passion is accounted by all so great a weakness in man, that none can entertain so unworthy a conceit of God. Where he is said to repent (Gen. vi. 6), he is also said to grieve; now no proper grief can be imagined to be in God. As repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight, so is grief no less inconsistent with undefiled blessedness. God is “blessed forever” (Rom. ix. 8), and therefore nothing can befall that can stain that blessedness. His blessedness would be impaired and interrupted while he is repenting, though he did soon rectify that which is the cause of his repentance. “God is of one mind, and who can turn him? what his soul desires that he doth” (Job xxiii. 13).
   2. But God accommodates himself in the Scripture to our weak capacity. God hath no more of a proper repentance, than he hath of a real body; though he, in accommodation to our weakness, ascribes to himself the members of our bodies to set out to our understandings the greatness of his perfections, we must not conclude him a body like us; so, because he is said to have anger and repentance, we must not conclude him to have passions like us. When we cannot fully comprehend him as he is, he clothes himself with our nature in his expressions that we may apprehend him as we are able, and by an inspection into ourselves, learn something of the nature of God; yet those human ways of speaking ought to be understood in a manner agreeable to the infinite excellency and majesty of God, and are only designed to mark out something in God which hath a resemblance with something in us; as we cannot speak to God as gods, but as men, so we cannot understand him speaking to us as a God, unless he condescend to speak to us like a man. . . .
   3. Therefore, repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct, according to his infallible foresight and immutable will. . . . it is a change of events, not of counsels. Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact, and a changing of our course in it; grief is not in God, but his repentance is a willing a thing should not be as it was, which will was fixed from eternity; for God, foreseeing man would fall, and decreeing to permit it, he could not be said to repent in time of what he did not repent from eternity; and therefore, if there were no repentance in God from eternity, there could be none in time. But God is said to repent when he changes the disposition of affairs without himself; as men, when they repent, alter the course of their actions, so God alters things, extra se, or without himself, but changes nothing of his own purpose within himself. It rather notes the action he is about to do, than anything in his own nature, or any, change in his eternal purpose. . . .

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:340–342

I don’t know if there were open theists in the seventeenth century, or if Stephen Charnock foresaw the Boyds and Pinnocks of our day, but either way, Stephen Charnock has a message for them:

   If God were changeable in his knowledge, it would make him unfit to be an object of trust to any rational creature. His revelations would want the due ground for entertainment, if his understanding were changeable; for that might be revealed as truth now which might prove false hereafter, and that as false how which hereafter might prove true; and so God would be and unfit object of obedience in regard of his precepts, and an unfit object in regard of his promises. For if he be changeable in knowledge he is defective in knowledge, and might promise that now which he would know afterwards was unfit to be promised, and, therefore, unfit to be performed. It would make him an incompetent object of dread, in regard of his threatenings; for he might threaten that now which he might know hereafter were not fit or just to be inflicted. A changeable mind and understanding cannot make a due and right judgment of things to be done, and things to be avoided; no wise man would judge it reasonable to trust a weak and flitting person. God must needs to be unchangeable in his knowledge; but as the schoolmen say, that, as the sun always shines, so God always knows; as the sun never ceaseth to shine, so God never ceaseth to know. Nothing can be hid from the vast compass of his understanding, no more than anything can shelter itself without the verge of his power.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:322

As the perfection of God is dependent upon his eternality, so it is also necessary that he be immutable.

Unchangeableness doth necessarily pertain to the nature of God. It is of the same necessity with the rectitude of his nature; he can no more be changeable in his essence than he can be unrighteous in his actions. God is a necessary being; he is necessarily what he is, and, therefore, is unchangeably what he is. Mutability belongs to contingency. If any perfection of his nature could be separated from him, he would cease to be God; it is reciprocated with the nature of God. Whatsoever is immutable by nature is God; whatsoever is God is immutable by nature. Some creatures are immutable by his grace and power. God is holy, happy, wise, good by his essence; angels and men are made holy, wise, happy, strong and good by qualities and graces. The holiness, happiness, and wisdom of saints and angels, as they had a beginning, so they are capable of increase and diminution, and of an end also; for their standing is not of themselves, or from the nature of created strength, holiness, or wisdom, which in themselves are apt to fail, and finally to decay; but from the stability and conformation they have by the gift and grace of God. The heaven and earth shall be changed; and after that renewal and reparation they shall not be changed. Our bodies after the resurrection shall not be changed, but forever be “made conformable to the body of Christ” (Phil. iii. 21); but this is by the powerful grace of God: so that, indeed, those things may be said afterwards rather to be unchanged than unchangeable, because they are not so by nature, but by sovereign dispensation. As creatures have not necessary beings, so they have not necessary immutability. Necessity of being, and, therefore, immutability of being, belongs by nature only to God; otherwise, if there were any change in God, he would be sometimes what he is not, and would cease to be what he was, which is against the nature, and, indeed, against the natural notion of a Deity.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:318–319

In our last visit with Charnock, we discovered the comfort we can find in in the attribute of God that is his eternality. Now we’ll see an application regarding our attitude toward our sin.

   Let us be deeply affected by our sins long since committed. Though they are past with us, they are, in regard of God’s eternity, present with him; there is no succession in eternity, as there is in time. All things are before God at once; our sins are before him, as if committed at this moment, though committed long ago. As he is what he is in regard of duration, so he knows what he knows in regard of knowledge. As he is not more than he was, nor shall not be any more than he is, so he always knew what he knows, and shall not cease to know what he knows. As himself, so is his knowledge, is one indivisible point of eternity. He knows nothing but what he did know from eternity; he shall know no more for the future than he now knows. Our sins being present with him in eternity, should be present with us in our regard of remembrance of them, and sorrow for them. What though many years are lapsed, much time run out, and our iniquities almost blotted out of our memory; yet since a thousand years are, in God’s sight, and in regard of his eternity, but as a day—“a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, as a watch in the night.” (Ps. xc. 4)—they are before him. For suppose a man were as old as the world, above six thousand five hundred years; the sins committed five thousand years ago are, according to that rule, but as if they were committed five days ago; so that sixty-two years are but as an hour and a half; and the sins committed forty years since as if they were committed but this present hour. But if we will go further, and consider them as a watch of the night, about three hours (for the night, consisting of twelve hours, was divided into set watches), then a thousand years are but as three hours in the sight of God; and then the sins committed sixty years ago are but as if they were committed in this five minutes. Let none of us set light by the iniquities committed many years ago, and imagine the length of time can wipe out their guilt. No; let us consider them in relation to God’s eternity, and excite an inward remorse, as if they had been but the birth of this moment.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:301–302

All of God’s attributes are dependent upon his eternal being. If God has an end, none of his attributes which we recognize as being unlimited can be. What this means to us is that, if God is not eternal, his promises are meaningless; for if he ceases, his covenant ceases.

   If God be eternal, his covenant will be so. It is founded upon the eternity of God; the oath whereby he confirms it, is by his life. Since there is none greater than himself, he swears by himself (Heb. vi. 13), or by his own life, which he engageth together with his eternity for the full performance; so that if he lives forever, the covenant shall not be disannulled; it is an “immutable counsel” (ver. 16, 17). The immutability of his counsel follows the immutability of his nature. Immutability and eternity go hand in hand together. The promise of eternal life is as ancient as God himself in regard of the purpose of the promise, or in regard of the promise made to Christ for us. “Eternal life which God promised before the world began.” (Tit. i. 2): As it hath an ante-eternity, so it hath a post-eternity; therefore the gospel, which is the new covenant published, is termed the “everlasting gospel” (Rev. xiv. 6), which can no more be altered and perish, than God can change and vanish into nothing; he can as little morally deny his truth, as he can naturally desert his life. The covenant is there represented in a green color, to note his perpetual verdure; the rainbow, the emblem of the covenant “about the throne, was like to an emerald” (Rev. iv. 3), a stone of a green color, whereas the natural rainbow hath many colors; this but one, to signify its eternity.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:297.

The eternality of God juxtaposed against our finitude necessarily precludes us from gainsaying his decrees and designs. Stephen Charnock draws from the book of Job:

   How bold and foolish is it for a mortal creature to censure the counsels and actions of an eternal God, or be too curious in his inquisitions! It is by the consideration of the unreachable number of the years of God that Elihu checks two bold inquiries: “who hath enjoined him his way, or who can say, thou hast wrought iniquity? Behold, God is great, and we know him not; neither can the number of his years be searched out.”[Job xxxvi. 26, compared with ver. 23.] Eternity sets God above our inquiries and censures. Infants of a day old are not able to understand the acts of the wise and gray heads: shall we, that are so short of being and understanding as yesterday, presume to measure the motions of eternity by our scanty intellects? We that cannot foresee an unexpected accident which falls in to blast a well-laid design, and run a ship many leagues back from the intended harbor; we cannot understand the reason of things we see done in time, the motions of the sea, the generation of rain, the nature of light, the sympathies and antipathies of the creatures; and shall we dare to censure the actions of and eternal God, so infinitely beyond our reach? The counsels of a boundless being are not to be scanned by the brain of a silly worm, that hath breathed but a few minutes in the world. Since eternity cannot be comprehended in time, it is not to be judged by a creature of time: “ Let us remember to magnify his works which we behold,” because he is eternal, which is the exhortation of Elihu backed by this doctrine of God’s eternity (Job xxxvi. 24), and not accuse any work of him who is the “ancient of days,” or presume to direct him of whose eternity we come infinitely short. Whenever, therefore, any unworthy notion of the counsels and works of God is suggested to us by Satan, or our own corrupt hearts, let us look backward to God’s eternal and our own short duration, and silence ourselves with the same question wherewith God put a stop to the reasoning of Job—“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job xxxvi. 4), and reprove ourselves for our curiosity, since we are of so short a standing, and were nothing when the eternal God laid the first stone of the world.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:295

Here’s a real mind-bender for you:
Stephen Charnock on the Eternity of God.

   God is without beginning. “In the beginning” God created the world (Gen. i. 1) God was then before the beginning of it; and what point can be set wherein God began, if he were before the beginning created things? God was without beginning, though all other things had time and beginning from him. As unity is before all numbers, so is God before all his creatures, Abraham called upon the name of the everlasting God (Gen. xxi. 33) the eternal God.—It is opposed to the heathen gods, which were but of yesterday, new coined, and so new; but the eternal God was before the world was made. In that sense it is to be understood; “The mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the command of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. xvi. 26). The gospel is not preached by the command of a new and temporary god, but of that God that was before all ages: though the manifestation of it be in time, yet the purpose and resolve of it was from eternity. If there were decrees before the foundation of the world, there was a Decreer before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world he loved Christ as a Mediator; a fore-ordination of him was before the foundation of the world (John xvii. 24); a choice of men, and therefore a Chooser before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 4); a grace given in Christ before the world began (2 Tim i. 9), and therefore a Donor of that grace. From those places, saith Crellius, it appears that God was before the foundation of the world, but they do not assert an absolute eternity; but to be before all creatures is equivalent to his being from eternity. Time began with the foundation of the world; but God, being before time, could have no beginning in time. Before the beginning of the creation, and the beginning of time, there could be nothing but eternity; nothing that was uncreated, that is, nothing but what was without beginning. To be in time is to have a beginning; to be before all time is never to have a beginning, but always to be; for as between the Creator and creatures there is no medium, so between time and eternity there is no medium. It is as easily deduced that he that was before all creatures is eternal, as he that made all creatures is God. If he had a beginning, he must have it from another, or from himself; if from another, that from whom he received his being would be better than he, so more a God than he. He cannot be a God that is not supreme; he cannot be supreme that owes his being to the power of another. He would not be said only to have immortality as he is (1 Tim. vi. 16), if he had it dependent on another; nor could he have a beginning from himself; if he had given beginning to himself, then he was once nothing; there was a time when he was not; if he was not, how could he be the Cause of himself? It is impossible for any to give a beginning and being to itself: if it acts it must exist, and so exist before it existed. A thing would exist as a cause before it existed as an effect. He that is not, cannot be the cause that he is; if, therefore, God does exist, and hath not his being from another, he must exist from eternity. Therefore, when we say God is of and from himself, we mean not that God gave being to himself; but it is negatively to be understood that he hath no cause of existence without himself. Whatsoever number of millions and millions of years we can imagine before the creation of the world, yet God was infinitely before those; he is therefore called the “Ancient Of Days” (Dan. vii. 9), as being before all days and time, and eminently containing in himself all times and ages. Though, indeed, God cannot properly be called ancient, that will testify that he is decaying, and shortly will not be; no more than he can be called young, which would signify that he was not long before. All created things are new and fresh; but no creature can find out any beginning of God: it is impossible that there should be any beginning of him.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 1:281–282

Did you get that?

It is impossible for any to give a beginning and being to itself: if it acts it must exist, and so exist before it existed. A thing would exist as a cause before it existed as an effect. He that is not, cannot be the cause that he is; if, therefore, God does exist, and hath not his being from another, he must exist from eternity.

The Second Commandment forbids the making of images of God (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8). Among the reasons for this prohibition is the fact that it is impossible to create an accurate representation of God. Charnock wrote:

   It is impossible to fashion any image of God. If our more capacious souls cannot grasp his nature, our weaker sense cannot frame his image; it is more possible, of the two, to comprehend him in our minds, than to frame him in an image to our sense. He inhabits inaccessible light; as it is impossible for the eye of man to see him, it is impossible for the art of man to paint him upon walls, and carve him out of wood. None knows him but himself, none can describe him but himself. Can we draw a figure of our own souls, and express that part of ourselves, wherein we are most like God? Can we extend this to any bodily figure, and divide it into parts? How can we deal so with the original copy, whence the first draught of our souls were taken, and which is infinitely more spiritual than men or angels? No corporal thing can represent spiritual substance; there is no proportion in nature between them. God is simple, infinite, immense, eternal, invisible, incorruptible being; a statue is a compounded, finite, limited, temporal, visible and corruptible body. God is a living spirit; but a statue nor sees, nor hears, nor perceives anything. But suppose God had a body, it is impossible to mold an image of it in the true glory of that body; can the statue of an excellent monarch represent the majesty of his countenance, though made by the skillfullest workman in the world? If God had a body in some measure suited to his excellency, were it possible for man to make an image of him, who cannot picture light, heat, motion, magnitude, and dazzling property of the sun? The excellence of any corporeal nature of the least creature, the temper, instinct, artifice, are beyond the power of a carving tool; much more is God.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2005), 193.

Sometimes the best we can do in describing God is to describe what he is not.

   When we say God is a Spirit, it is to be understood by way of negation. There are two ways of knowing or describing God: by way of affirmation, affirming that of him in a way of eminency, which is excellent in the creature, as when we say God is wise, good; the other, by way of negation, when we remove from God in our conceptions what is tainted with imperfection in the creature. The first ascribes to him whatsoever is excellent; the other separates from him whatsoever is imperfect. The first is like a limning, which adds one colour to another to make a comely picture; the other is like a carving, which pares and cuts away whatsoever is superfluous, to make a complete statue. This way of negation is more easy; we better understand what God is not, than what he is; and most of our knowledge of God is by this way; as when we say God is infinite, immense, immutable, they are negatives; he hath no limits, is confined to no place, admits of no change. When we remove from him what is inconsistent with his being, we do more strongly assert his being, and know more of him when we elevate him above all, and above our own capacity. And when we say God is a Spirit, it is a negation; he is not a body, he consists not of various parts, extended one without and beyond another. He is not a spirit, so as our souls are, to be the form of any body; a spirit, not as angels and souls are, but infinitely higher. We call him so, because, in regard of our weakness, we have, not any other term of excellency to express or conceive of him by; we transfer it to God in honour, because spirit is the highest excellency in our nature: yet we must apprehend God above any spirit, since his nature is so great that he cannot be declared by human speech, perceived by human sense, or conceived by human understanding.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker, 2005), 1:181–182

One died for asserting one God; none, in the former ages upon record, hath died for asserting no God. —Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1:30.

While certain famous persons give a public face to atheism, and make it seem to be a common belief, atheism has in fact never been the belief of rational people. In every culture since the beginning of time, the existence of some deity has been assumed. Christians know that this is because the existence of God is made obvious through his creation (Romans 1:19–20). This universal belief is no inconsequential matter of opinion. Throughout history, men and women have laid down their lives rather than deny God. Atheists, in contrast, have no Book of Martyrs.

Charnock writes on this universal knowledge of God and its cause in nature:

   The apostle resolves it (Rom. i. 19, 20), “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” They know, or might know, by the things that were made, the eternity and power of God; their sense might take a circuit about every object, and their minds collect the being and something of the perfections of the Deity. The first discourse of the mind upon the sight of a delicate piece of workmanship, is the conclusion of the being of an artificer, and the admiration of his skill and industry. The apostle doth not say, the invisible things of God are believed, or they have an opinion of them, but they are seen, and clearly seen. They are like crystal glasses, which give a clear representation of the existence of a Deity, like that mirror, reported to be in a temple in Arcadia, which represented to the spectator, not his own face, but the image of that deity which he worshipped. The whole world is like a looking-glass, which, whole and entire, represents the image of God, and every broken piece of it, every little shred of a creature doth the like; not only the great ones, elephants and the leviathan, but ants, flies, worms, whose bodies rather than names we know: the greater cattle and the creeping things (Gen. i. 24); not naming there any intermediate creature, to direct us to view him in the smaller letters, as well as the greater characters of the world. His name is “glorious,” and his attributes are excellent “in all the earth;” [Psalm viii. 1.] in every creature, as the glory of the sun is in every beam and smaller flash; he is seen in every insect, in every spire of grass. The voice of the Creator is in the most contemptible creature. The apostle adds, that they are so clearly seen, that men are inexcusable if they have not some knowledge of God by them.; if they might not certainly know them, they might nave some excuse: so that his existence is not only probably, but demonstratively proved from the things of the world [Banes in Aquin. Par. 2. Qu. 2. Artic. 2. p. 78. col. 2.].
   Especially the heavens declare him, which God “stretches out like a curtain” [Psalm civ. 2.], or, as some render the word, a “skin,” whereby is signified, that heaven is as an open book, which was anciently made of the skins of beasts, that by the knowledge of them we may be taught the knowledge of God. Where Scripture was not revealed, the world served for a witness of a God; whatever arguments the Scripture uses to prove it, are drawn from nature (though, indeed, it doth not so much prove as suppose the existence of a God); but what arguments it uses are from the creatures, and particularly the heavens, which are the public preachers of this doctrine. The breath of God sounds to all the world through those organ-pipes. His being is visible in their existence, his wisdom in their frame, his power in their motion, his goodness in their usefulness. They have a voice, and their voice is as intelligible as any common language [“For their voice goeth to the end of the earth,” Psalm xix. 1, 2.]. And those are so plain heralds of a Deity, that the heathen mistook them for deities, and gave them a particular adoration, which was due to that God they declared. The first idolatry seems to be of those heavenly bodies, which began probably in the time of Nimrod. In Job’s time it is certain they admired the glory of the sun, and the brightness of the moon, not without kissing their hands, a sign of adoration [Job xxxi. 26, 27.]. It is evident a man may as well doubt whether there be when he sees his beams gilding the earth, as doubt whether there be a God, when he sees his works spread in the world.

—Ibid., 42–43

Tuesday has been Theology Proper day here, and having finished Knowing God, I’ve been considering what to start next. Perusing my bookshelves, I was met with the accusing countenance of Stephen Charnock’s (1628–1680) The Existence and Attributes of God scowling at me from beneath a thin layer of dust. I bought it a couple of years ago on a ridiculous sale (because I had to have it), set all 1150 pages of it impressively on my shelf, and have hardly looked at it since. So now I am going to give it a shot.

Whenever I pick up one of these old-timers, it seems I am always impressed with how well their comments on their age apply to ours. Their really is “nothing new under the sun,” and reading old books is one good way of seeing that truism proven.

Expounding Psalm 14:1, Charnock demonstrates that the existence of God is obvious for all to see, so that only fools deny it, and they not entirely sincerely. It would seem, then, that apologetics defending the existence of God would be unnecessary. Yet Charnock gives several reasons for the necessity of speaking apologetically of the existence of God. The following paragraph seems to speak directly to our age.

   But, 1. Doth not the growth of atheism among us render this [teaching the existence of God] necessary? may it not justly be suspected, that the swarms of atheists are more numerous in our times, than history records to have been in any age, when men will not only say it in their hearts, but publish it with their lips, and boast that they have shaken off the shackles which bind other men’s consciences? Doth not the bare-faced debauchery of men evidence such a settled sentiment, or least a careless belief of the truth, which lies at the root, and sprouts up in such venomous branches in the world? Can men’s hearts be free from that principle wherewith their practices are so openly depraved? It is true, the light of nature shines too vigorously for the power of man totally to put it out; yet loathsome actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and considerations of a Deity, and are like mists that darken the light of the sun, though they cannot extinguish it: their consciences, as a candlestick, must hold it, though their unrighteousness obscure it, (Rom. i. 18.) “Who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” The engraved characters of the law of nature remain, though they daub them with their muddy lusts to make them illegible: so that since the inconsideration of a Deity is the cause of all the wickedness and extravagances of men; and as Austin saith, the proposition is always true, the fool hath said in his heart, &c. and more evidently true in this age than any, it will not be unnecessary to discourse of the demonstrations of this first principle. The apostles spent little time in urging this truth; it was taken for granted all over the world, and they were generally devout in the worship of those idols they thought to be gods: that age run from one God to many, and our age is running from one God to none at all.

—Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 1:26

If the Apostles, who spoke to a very deistic culture (and under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit), found it necessary to defend God’s existence, how much more necessary it is in an age in which denial of God is becoming more fashionable every day.

As Charnock continues, we see that this is so because of “that secret atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature.” That secret atheism does not entirely and sincerely deny God, as much as it simply wishes that there were no God.

   4. It is necessary to depress that secret atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature. Though every visible object which offers itself to our sense, presents a deity to our minds, and exhorts to subscribe to the truth of it; yet there is a root of atheism springing up sometimes in wavering thoughts and foolish imaginations, inordinate actions, and secret wishes. Certain it is, that every man that doth not love God, denies God; now can he that disaffects him, and hath a slavish fear of him, wish his existence, and say to his own heart with any cheerfulness, there is a God, and make it his chief care to persuade himself of it? he would persuade himself there is no God, and stifle the seeds of it in his reason and conscience, that he might have the greatest liberty to entertain the allurements of the flesh. It is necessary to excite men to daily and actual considerations of God and his nature, which would be a bar to much of that wickedness which overflows in the lives of men.

—Ibid., 27