First, We have more of not being than being. We were nothing from an unbegun eternity, and we might have been nothing to an endless eternity, had not God called us unto being; and if he please, we may be nothing by a short annihilating word, as we were something by a creating word. As it is the prerogative of God to be ‘I am that I am,’ so it is the property of a creature to be I am not what I am; I am not by myself what I am, but by the indulgence of another. I was nothing formerly, I may be nothing again, unless he that is I am make me to subsist what I now am. Nothing is as much the title of the creature, as being is the title of God. Nothing is so holy as God, because nothing hath being as God: 1 Sam. 2:2, ‘There is none holy as the Lord; for there is none besides thee.’ Man’s life is an image, a dream, which are next to nothing; and if compared with God, worse than nothing, a nullity as well as a vanity; because ‘with God only is the fountain of life,’ Ps. 36:9. The creature is but a drop of life from him, dependent on him. A drop of water is a nothing, if compared with the vast conflux of waters, and numberless drops in the ocean.
How unworthy is it for dust and ashes, kneaded together in time, to strut against the Father of eternity! Much more unworthy for that which is nothing, worse than nothing, to quarrel with that which is only being, and equal himself with him that inhabits eternity.

Charnock, S. (1864–1866). The Complete Works of Stephen Charnock (Vol. 1, pp. 368–369). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson; G. Herbert.