2. STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D.
IN the book of the prophet Isaiah, v. 4, God asks the question, “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” In asking this question He indicates the amount of labour which He bestowed upon His Church, His protection over it, and the great gifts which He conferred upon it. Among these gifts were men to whom He gave talents and grace, and whom He prepared, sometimes in the hard school of adversity, to go out “as the he-goats before the flocks.” Of such men was Stephen Charnock. It is true that he was a man of retired and studious habits and that he did not figure prominently in the strife which abounded during the greater part of his brief life-time, but in the realm of theology he left his mark, for future generations down to the end of time to gaze and wonder, and for the Church of God to praise her Glorious Head for the light which he was made instrumental in holding forth for the guidance and enlightenment of many of the Lord’s people.
Stephen Charnock was born in the parish of Saint Catherine Cree, London, in the year 1628, where his father, Richard Charnock, was a solicitor. We have no authentic information as to whether his parents were religious or not, but there is plenty of evidence that in his boyhood days many in the City of London were seriously inclined, and there were not wanting appearances that they were seeing the judgments of God in the great national upheavals that had begun about this time. Neal in his History of the Puritans writing of these times says, “Religious exercises were set up in private families, as reading the Scriptures, family prayer, repeating sermons, and singing psalms, which were so universal in the City of London, that you might walk the streets on the evening of the Lord’s Day without seeing an idle person, or hearing anything but the voice of prayer or praise from churches or private houses.” What a different picture from that which can be drawn of London to-day, when London’s teeming millions bear unmistakable marks that God is left out of their account, and that they are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”
Whatever the religious convictions of Charnock’s parents were, we find that their son was matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1642. This was the great Puritan College where many who were afterwards eminent for their piety and usefulness to the Church of Christ were educated. It seems pretty certain that it was while in this college that the subject of this sketch came to know what it is to pass from death unto life. That the change was real is very evident from the testimony of one who knew him well at that time, and who says, “How had he hid the Word of God in a fertile soil, in a good and honest heart, which made him ‘flee youthful lusts,’ and antidoted him against the infection of youthful vanities. His study was his recreation; the law of God was his delight. Had he it not, think ye, engraven in his heart? He was as choice, circumspect, and prudent in his election of society, as of books, to converse with; all his delight being in such as excelled in the divine art of directing, furthering, and quickening him in the way to heaven, the love of Christ and souls. Most choice he was of the ministers that he would hear; what he learned from books, converse, or sermons, that which affected and wrought most upon him he prayed over till he was delivered into the form of it, and had Christ, grace and the spirit formed in him.”
He was widely read in the writings of the Fathers and the Divines of the continent of Europe, and made great proficiency in the study of languages, but all his learning and his talents were consecrated to the study of the one Book—the Bible. This equipped him for his life work, which was to “preach the unsearchable riches of Christ” to poor perishing sinners. Happy ought the congregation be whose pastor in his studies, aims at qualifying himself, as far as that is humanly possible, to set before them the only provision which God has provided to meet with the lost and ruined condition of man. But woe unto such of his hearers as despise his message and make light of the Saviour he is proclaiming to them. Such will have a fearful day of account when they meet that Saviour as their Judge.
After leaving Cambridge, Charnock commenced his ministry in Southwark, where the Spirit of God accompanied his preaching with saving power and many were brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. Sharp arrows were entering into the hearts of the King’s enemies, and the Healing Balm was being applied, so that if his preaching occasioned sorrow, that sorrow was but the forerunner of a joy to which no stranger to Christ is a partaker. His period of service in Southwark, though fruitful, was but short, for in 1650 he obtained a fellowship in Oxford University, and he removed there, much to the regret of his attached flock. In Oxford his learning and piety soon obtained for him more than his fair share of preaching on great public occasions.
We next find him in Dublin as chaplain in the family of Henry Cromwell, who had been sent there by his father, the Lord Protector, to look after affairs in Ireland. While in Dublin he preached publicly on Sabbath afternoons to immense crowds, among whom were many of the nobility, and some of them were reckoned to be among the most distinguished Christians of their day. One writing a sketch of his life says, in reference to his preaching in Ireland, “At this time he used no notes, and he poured forth the riches of his original endowments and of his acquired treasures to the great delight of his audience. His solid judgment, his weighty thoughts, his extensive learning, and his cultivated imagination, were all engaged in the work of recommending the gospel of Jesus Christ to the principal inhabitants of the capital of Ireland.” From the foregoing facts one can picture a scene which has been rarely enacted in the history of this world, but which will be quite common yet; lords, ladies, and commoners sitting side by side listening to the proclamation of an unadulterated gospel. Some, no doubt, drawn by curiosity, others, from all ranks, with hungry souls that could not be satisfied with husks. From the congregation let our attention be drawn to the preacher. Here is a man still young in years, though ripe in experience, his natural abilities great, his learning extensive, and his congregation, from the point of rank and numbers, the envy of the modern popular preacher. Does he endeavour to tickle their ears, and play to their fancies? Or does he tell them how good they are, and endeavours to reach their intellect and not their hearts? No! His theme is based on man’s ruin by the Fall and his total depravity. The remedy he holds forth is a crucified, risen, and exalted Redeemer, and the way that the remedy is to be applied is by the saving work of the Holy Spirit. In proclaiming such a gospel he has a single eye to God’s glory and to the good of souls. Does such a preacher fascinate us? If so, let it be but for a moment. Let us look beyond him to the Christ he is proclaiming, and who made him what he is, and let us seek to know that Christ for ourselves.
To many in Dublin at this time, to sit under the preaching of Charnock was like heaven on earth, and, no doubt, they would be ready to say, foolishly, “We will rest here.” The godly Samuel Rutherford in one of his letters to the Viscountess of Kenmure, says, “I thank God Anwoth is not heaven; preaching is not Christ,” and the Lord’s people in Dublin were soon to learn this with respect to the ministrations of Charnock. With the death of Oliver Cromwell changes came which caused Charnock to return to London, where during fifteen years he had but few opportunities for preaching the gospel. During the many silent Sabbaths of these fifteen years we have no doubt but he would be ready to say with Rutherford, “Nothing breaketh my heart, but that I cannot get the daughters of Jerusalem to tell them of my Bridegroom’s glory.” However, these years were profitable to the Church of God, as years in which he had leisure to write much of that rich legacy which he left behind for future generations. At the end of this long period of silence he received a call to minister to the non-conformist congregation which gathered at Crossley Hall. Here he continued preaching until the time of his death in 1680 at the age of fifty-two years.
Of his preaching, his biographers, Adams and Veal, say, “Yet it may withal be said that if he were sometimes deep, he was never abstruse; he handled the great mysteries of the gospel with much clearness and perspicuity, so that in his preaching, if he were above most, it was only because most were below it.” His greatest work is on “The Existence and Attributes of God.” It seems from the nature of it that he contemplated giving to the Church of God a “body of divinity,” which, to the regret of all true lovers of Zion, he did not live to complete. What he has written will richly reward the labour spent in studying it, and if accompanied by the blessing of God will lead to a saving knowledge of the Saviour whom Stephen Charnock held forth.—J. C.