A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian EcclesiasticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
32. Here we cry to him as the blind man, Mark x. 51, "Lord, that I may
receive my sight." We cry here to the watchmen, Cant. iii. 3, "Saw ye
him whom my soul loveth." Here we are in his "banqueting house," under
the "banner of his love," Cant. ii. 4. We have here the sealing and
quickenings of his Spirit, the mortification of our sin, the increase
of grace, and a prospect into eternal life, and a foresight of the
endless happiness there. See then that you come to the worship of God
with these intentions and expectations; that if God or conscience call
to you, (as God did sometime to Elias,) "What dost thou here?" you may
truly answer, I came to seek the Lord my God, and to learn his will
that I might do it. And that your sweet delights may make you say,
Psal. lxxxiv. 4, "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they will
be still praising thee." If thou come to the worship of God in mere
custom, or to make thy carnal heart believe that God will forgive thee
because thou so far servest him, or to quiet thy conscience with the
doing of a formal task of duty, or to be seen of men, or that thou
mayst not be thought ungodly, if these be thy ends, thou wilt speed
accordingly. A holy soul cannot live upon the air of man's applause,
nor upon the shell of ordinances, without God who is the kernel and
the life of all: it is the love of God that brings them thither, and
it is love that they are exercising there, and the end of love, even
the nearer approach of the soul to God, which they desire and intend.
Be sure then that these be the true and real intentions of thy heart.
[Sidenote: How to know that we have the right ends in worship.]
_Quest._ But how shall I know whether indeed it be God himself that I
am seeking, and that I perform his worship to the appointed ends?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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