The Existence and Attributes of God Quotes

“Antiquity hath, too, too often bewitched the minds of men, and drawn them from the revealed will of God. Men are more willing to imitate the outward actions of their famous ancestors, than conform themselves to the revealed will of their Creator.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“A man may sooner engrave the chronicle of a whole nation, or all the records of God in the Scripture upon the hardest marble with his bare finger, than write one syllable of the law of God in a spiritual manner upon his heart.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“To conclude this: As when a man comes into a palace, built according to the exactest rule of art, and with an unexceptionable conveniency for the inhabitants, he would acknowledge both the being and skill of the builder; so whosoever shall observe the disposition of all the parts of the world, their connection, comeliness, the variety of seasons, the swarms of different creatures, and the mutual offices they render to one another, cannot conclude less, than that it was contrived by an infinite skill, effected by infinite power, and governed by infinite wisdom. None can imagine a ship to be orderly conducted without a pilot; nor the parts of the world to perform their several functions without a wise guide; considering the members of the body cannot perform theirs, without the active presence of the soul. The atheist, then, is a fool to deny that which every creature in his constitution asserts, and thereby renders himself unable to give a satisfactory account of that constant uniformity in the motions of the creatures.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“Every plant, every atom, as well as every star, at the first meeting whispers this in our ears, "I have a Creator, I am witness to a deity.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“the faith of Abel testified in his sacrifice, and the faith of Enoch testified in his walking with God, was not simply a faith of the existence of God. Cain in the time of Abel, other men in the world in the time of Enoch, believed this as well as they: but it was a faith joined with the worship of God, and desires to please him in the way of his own appointment; so that they believed that God was such as he had declared himself to be in his promise to Adam, such an one as would be as good as his word, and bruise the serpent’s head.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“When man fell from his created goodness, God would evidence that he could not fall from his infinite goodness: that the greatest evil could not surmount the ability of his wisdom to contrive, nor the riches of his bounty to present us a remedy for it. Divine Goodness would not stand by a spectator, without being reliever of that misery man had plunged himself into; but by astonishing methods it would recover him to happiness, who had wrested himself out of his hands, to fling himself into the most deplorable calamity: and it was the greater, since it surmounted those natural inclinations, and those strong provocations which he had to shower down the power of his wrath.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“It is evident a man may as well doubt whether there be a sun, when he sees his beams gilding the earth, as doubt whether there be a God, when he sees his works spread in the world.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“But what miracles could rationally be supposed to work upon an atheist, who is not drawn to a sense of the truth proclaimed aloud by so many wonders of the creation?”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“When the sense of religion is shaken off, all kinds of wickedness is eagerly rushed into, whereby they become as loathsome to God as putrefied carcases are to men.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“Those that deny the providence of God, do in effect deny the being of God; for they strip him of that wisdom, goodness, tenderness, mercy, justice, righteousness, which are the glory of the Deity.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“The circumcision of the flesh was to instruct them in the circumcision of the heart:”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“The legal ceremonies were not a fit means to bring the heart into a spiritual frame.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“That service was gross, carnal, calculated for an infant and sensitive church. It consisted in rudiments, the circumcision of the flesh, the blood and smoke of sacrifices, the steams of incense, observation of days, distinction of meats, corporal purifications; every leaf of the law is clogged with some rite to be particularly observed by them.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“The ceremonial law was abolished to promote the spirituality of divine worship.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“What Adam could not see with his sound eyes, we cannot with our dim eyes; he must be told from heaven what worship was fit for the God of heaven.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“It shall be a worship "in truth," because the true God shall be adored without those vain imaginations and fantastic resemblances of him,y which were common among the blind Gentiles, and contrary to the glorious nature of God, and unworthy ingredients in religious services. It shall be a worship "in spirit," without those carnal rites the degenerate Jews rested on; such a posture of soul which is the life and ornament of every service God looks for at your Lands.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“We must first believe that he is, and that he is what he declares himself to be, before we can seek him, adore him, and devote our affections to him.13 We cannot pay God a due and regular homage, unless we understand him in his perfections, what he is; and we can pay him no homage at all, unless we believe that he is.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“It is a great folly to deny or doubt of the existence or being of God: or, an atheist is a great fool.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“Those that deny the providence of God, do in effect deny the being of God; for they strip him of that wisdom, goodness, tenderness, mercy, justice, righteousness, which are the glory of the Deity.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“To desire worship as an end is carnal; to desire it as a means, and act desires in it for communion with God in it, is spiritual, and the fruit of a spiritual life.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“A carnal worshipper is taken with the beauty and magnificence of the temple; a spiritual worshipper desires to see the glory of God in the sanctuary (Psalm lxiii. 2), he pants after God: as he came to worship, to find God, he boils up in desires for God, and is loth to go from it without God, “the living God” (Psalm xlii. 2).”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“The more we act love upon God, as amiable and gracious, the more we should exercise grief in ourselves, as we are vile and offending. Spiritual worship is a melting worship, as well as an elevating worship; it exalts God, and debaseth the creature.”
― Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God

“if thy heart be taken with God, it will be mortified to every-thing that is not G”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“The gospel pares off the rugged parts of the law, and heaven shall remove what is material in the gospel, and change the ordinances of worship into that of a spiritual praise.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“The nearer God doth approach to us, and the more full his manifestations are, the more spiritual is the worship we return to God.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“Evil works are a dust stirred up by an atheistical breath. He that habituates himself in some sordid lust, can scarcely be said seriously and firmly to believe that there is a God in being; and the apostle doth not say that they know God, but they profess to know him: true knowledge and profession of knowledge are distinct.”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“And the finer parts extracted from plants and minerals we call spirits, those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immersed, because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance;”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“If you that are unholy, and have so much corruption in you, to render you cruel, can bestow upon your children the good things they want, how much more shall God, who is holy, and hath nothing in him to check his mercifulness to his creatures, grant the petitions of his supplicants!”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“Men that have strength, often misplace the actings of it, because of their folly; and sometimes employ it to base ends, because of their wickedness; but this power in God is always awakened by goodness, and conducted by wisdom; it is never exercised by self-will and passion, but according to the immutable rule of his own nature, which is righteousness. How”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God

“As Omnipotence is an ocean that cannot be fathomed, so the comforts from it are streams that cannot be exhausted. What joy can be wanting to him that finds himself folded in the arms of Omnipotence? This”
― William Symington, The Existence and Attributes of God