Stephen Charnock on God’s Delight in Answering Prayer
The Puritan Stephen Charnock (1628–1680) is perhaps best remembered for his two-volume magnum opus The Existence and Attributes of God, which contains fourteen discourses on the subject. Despite its length, Charnock actually died before he could finish it. So he does not offer an exhaustive list of God’s attributes—which would be an impossible task for finite creatures to accomplish anyway. His work was published posthumously in 1682.
Charnock developed this tome from a series of sermons he preached to his church. As a pastor devoted to his people’s spiritual good, he sought to preach sermons that both pointed them to the heights and complexity of God’s nature and changed their day-to-day lives. Thus, his sermons followed the common Puritan sermon form with a focus on a biblical text, on doctrine, and on application.
In his twelfth discourse, “A Discourse upon the Goodness of God,” Charnock considered how God’s nature as good affects how we approach him in prayer. In short, God’s goodness gives us much comfort in going to God regularly in prayer because God delights to answer the prayers of his people. The excerpt below gives a small taste of how Charnock applied the attribute of God’s goodness to human life:
Here is comfort in our addresses to him. If he be a fountain and sea of goodness, he cannot be weary of doing good, no more than a fountain or sea are of flowing. All goodness delights to communicate itself. Infinite goodness hath then an infinite delight in expressing itself; it is a part of his goodness not to be weary of shewing it. He can never then be weary of being solicited for the effusions of it. If he rejoices over his people to do them good, he will rejoice in any opportunities offered to him to honour his goodness, and gladly meet with a fit object for it. He therefore delights in prayer. Never can we so delight in addressing as he doth in imparting. He delights more in our prayers than we can ourselves. Goodness is not pleased with shyness. To what purpose did his immense bounty bestow his Son upon us, but that we should be accepted both in our persons and petitions? Eph. i. 6. “His eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry,” Ps. xxxiv. 15. He fixes the eye of his goodness upon them, and opens the ears of his goodness for them; he is pleased to behold them, and pleased to listen to them, as if he had no pleasure in anything else. He loves to be sought to, to give a vent to his bounty: Job xxii. 21, “Acquaint thyself with God, and thereby good shall come unto thee.” The word signifies to accustom ourselves to God. The more we accustom ourselves in speaking, the more he will accustom himself in giving. He loves not to keep his goodness close under lock and key, as men do their treasures. If we knock, he opens his exchequer. Mat. vii. 7. His goodness is as flexible to our importunities as his power is invincible by the arm of a silly worm. He thinks his liberality honoured by being applied to, and your address to be a recompence for his expense. There is no reason to fear, since he hath so kindly invited us, but he will as heartily welcome us. The nature of goodness is to compassionate and communicate, to pity and relieve, and that with a heartiness and cheerfulness. Man is weary of being often solicited, because he hath a finite, not a bottomless goodness. He gives sometimes to be rid of his suppliant, not to encourage him to a second approach. But every experience God gives us of his bounty is a motive to solicit him afresh, and a kind of obligation he hath laid upon himself to renew it, 1 Sam. xvii. 37. It is one part of his goodness that it is boundless and bottomless; we need not fear the wasting of it, nor any weariness in him to bestow it. The stock cannot be spent, and infinite kindness can never become niggardly [i.e., begrudging]; when we have enjoyed it, there is still an infinite ocean in him to refresh us, and as full streams as ever to supply us. What an encouragement have we to draw near to God! We run in our straits to those that we think have most good will, as well as power to relieve and protect us. The oftener we come to him, and the nearer we approach to him, the more of his influences we shall feel. As the nearer the sun, the more of its heat insinuates itself into us. The greatness of God, joined with his goodness, hath more reason to encourage our approach to him than our flight from him, because his greatness never goes unattended with his goodness; and if he were not so good, he would not be so great in the apprehensions of any creature. How may his goodness in the great gift of his Son encourage us to apply to him, since he hath set him as a day’s-man between himself and us, and appointed him an advocate to present our requests for us, and speed them at the throne of grace, and he never leaves till divine goodness subscribes a fiat to our believing and just petitions.[1]
Let me make a few brief notes about Charnock’s discussion. First, notice how frequently he speaks of God’s delight—five times with that word alone. God delights in communicating himself to us. God delights in hearing from us. God never grows weary of us.
Also, God’s goodness draws us to come to him over and over again. Unlike other people, who are limited and finite, God’s supply of good things never runs out. He has an infinite ocean of kindness to give.
Finally, the ultimate assurance we have that God is a God of goodness and that God delights to hear from us and give to us is that he has already given us his Son. The gift of Christ is the greatest display of God’s goodness to his people. And God’s goodness seen in Christ should encourage us to approach him in prayer.
It’s worth mentioning that Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), who ministered in the century after Charnock, also preached on God’s delight in answering prayer. To read one of his sermons on the topic, see “The Most High a Prayer-Hearing God,” which is available as sermon 35 in volume 4 of the Worcester edition of Edwards’s works on Google Books.
Also, the entirety of Charnock’s fourteen discourses on the existence and attributes of God is available at Digital Puritan.
[1] Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse upon God’s Goodness,” in The Existence and Attributes of God, in The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock, B.D., vol. 2 (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1864), 388–89.