From The Christian Reader:
The Principle of a Heavenly Life
Holiness consisteth not in a mere forbearance of a sensual life, but principally in living unto God. The principle, or heart of holiness is within, and consisteth in the love of God, and of his word, and ways, and servants, and honour, and interest in the world, and in the soul’s delight in God, and the word and ways of God, and in its inclination towards him, and desire after him, and care to please him, and loathness to offend him. The expression of it in our lives, consisteth in the constant, diligent exercise of this internal life, according to the directions of the Word of God.
If thou be a believer, and hast subjected thyself to God, as thy absolute sovereign, king, and judge, it will then be thy work to obey and please him, as a child his father, or a servant his master (Mal. 1:6). Do you think that God will have servants, and have nothing for them to do? Will one of you commend or reward your servant for doing nothing, and take it at the year’s end for a satisfactory answer or account, if he say, I have done no harm? God calleth you not only to do no harm, but to love and serve him with all your heart, and soul, and might.
If you have a better master than you had before, you should do more work than you did before. Will you not serve God more zealously than you served the devil? Will you not labour harder to save your souls than you did to damn them? Will you not be more zealous in good, than you were in evil? “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Rom. 6:21-22). If you are true believers, you have now laid up your hopes in heaven, and will therefore set yourselves to seek it, as worldlings set themselves to seek the world. And a sluggish wish, with heartless, lazy, dull endeavours, is no fit seeking of eternal joys. A creeping pace beseemeth not a man that is in the way to heaven; especially who went faster in the way to hell.
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This is not running as for our lives. You may well be diligent and make haste, where you have so great encouragement and help, and where you may expect so good an end, and where you are sure you shall never, in life or death, have cause to repent of any just endeavours, and where every step of your way is pure, and clean, and delectable, and paved with mercies, and fortified and secured by Divine protection; and where Christ is your conductor, and so many have sped so well before you, and the wisest and best in the world are your companions. Live then as men that have changed their master, their end, their hopes, their way and work. Religion layeth not men to sleep, though it be the only way to rest. It awakeneth the sleepy soul to higher thoughts, and hopes, and labours, than ever it was well acquainted with before. “He that is in Christ, is a new creature; old things are past away, behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
You never sought which would pay for all your cost and diligence till now; you never were in a way that you might make haste in, without repenting of your haste, till now. How glad should you be that mercy hath brought you into the right way, after the wanderings of such a sinful life? And your gladness and thankfulness should now be shewed, by your cheerful diligence and zeal. As Christ did not raise up Lazarus from the dead, to do nothing, or live to little purpose (though the Scripture giveth us not the history of his life); so did he not raise you from the death of sin, to live idly, or to be unprofitable in the world. He that giveth you his Spirit, to be a principle of heavenly life within you, expecteth that you stir up the gift that he hath given you, and live according to that heavenly principle.
by Richard Baxter, from A Christian Directory
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