“Practical atheism is evidenced in envying the gifts and prosperities of others. Envy has a deep tincture of practical atheism and is a cause of atheism.

We are unwilling to leave God to be the proprietor and do what He will with His own, and as a Creator to do what He pleases with His creatures. We assume a liberty to direct God what portions, when and how, He should bestow upon His creatures.

We would not let Him choose His own favorites and pitch upon His own instruments for His glory—as if God should have asked counsel of us how He should dispose of His benefits.

We are unwilling to leave to His wisdom the management of His own judgments to the wicked and the dispensation of His own love to ourselves. This temper is natural; it is as ancient as the first age of the world.

Adam envied God a felicity by himself and would not spare a tree that he had reserved as a mark of his sovereignty. The passion that God had given Cain to employ against his sin he turns against his Creator; he was wroth with God (Gen. 4:5) and with Abel.

But envy was at the root, because his brother’s sacrifice was accepted and his refused. How could he envy his accepted person without reflecting upon the acceptor of his offering!

Good men have not been free from it. Job questions the goodness of God, that he should “shine upon the counsel of the wicked” (Job 10:3).

Jonah had too much of self in fearing to be counted a false prophet when he came with absolute denunciations of wrath (Jonah 4:2).

And when he could not bring a volley of destroying judgments upon the Ninevites, he would shoot his fury against his Master, envying those poor people the benefit and God the honor of His mercy.

And this after he had been sent into the whale’s belly to learn humiliation, which, though he exercised there, yet those two great branches of self-pride and envy were not lopped off from him in the belly of hell.

And God was fain to take pains with him, and by a gourd, scarce makes him ashamed of his peevishness.

Envy is not like to cease till all atheism be cashiered, and that is in heaven.

This sin is an imitation of the devil, whose first sin upon earth was envy, as his first sin in heaven was pride. It is a wishing that to ourselves which the devil asserted as his right, to give the kingdoms of the world to whom he pleased (Luke 4:6).

It is an anger with God because he has not given us a patent for government.

It utters the same language in disparagement of God as Absalom did in reflection on his father:

“If I were king in Israel, justice should be better managed; if I were lord of the world, there should be more wisdom to discern the merits of men and more righteousness in distributing to them their several portions.”

Thus we impose laws upon God and would have the righteousness of His will submit to the corruptions of ours and have Him lower Himself to gratify our minds rather than fulfill His own.

We charge the author of those gifts with injustice that He has not dealt equally, or with ignorance that He has mistook His mark. In the same breath that we censure Him by our peevishness, we would guide Him by our wills.”

–Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, ed. Mark Jones, Updated and Unabridged, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 1: 195-196