“If God is eternal, how bold and foolish it is for a mortal to question his counsels and actions. How can we who are so weak creatures that we cannot understand yesterday, presume to measure the motions of eternity by our scanty intellects? We are not able to foresee an unexpected accident that falls to blast a well-laid plan. If we cannot understand the motions of the sea or the nature of light, how shall we dare to censure the actions of an eternal God that is so infinitely beyond our reach? The counsels of a boundless being are not to be scanned by the brain of a silly worm that breathes but a few minutes in the world. How can eternity be judged by a creature of time? 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 existence and our own short duration, and silence ourselves as did Job.”
Stephen Charnock
