memories of a puritan

Something I heard the other night reminded me of a book I read a couple of years ago by Stephen Charnock, one of the English puritans. One of the most memorable things about it was what he said about the verse that goes along the lines of, What will it profit you, to gain the whole world, if you lose your own soul. His comment was that, by gaining the world, you're gaining a loss - gaining ruin, gaining destruction. That struck me at the time for a very stark way of putting it. It's not a neutral unimportant thing to lose a soul.

But the other thing which I remember him talking about was how God gets great glory to himself from saving great sinners. I think he might even have made it into an incentive for "great sinners" to go to God for salvation, because his grace would shine all the greater by saving such an obviously unworthy person. I'm sure I've read somewhere else that just like a skilled surgeon enjoys taking on challenging cases, in the same way the Saviour loves to show his skill at healing or saving souls in the most difficult and unlikely of circumstances.

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help.
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine inquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously ... for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away from him. Hosea 13-14.

There's a short entry for Stephen Charnock in Wikipedia (here).