Cultivating a Virtuous Life

• Trust: “Remember that thou must trust in God, or in nothing.” Learn what God actually promised.
• Thankfulness: give God’s mercies as much room in prayer as your sins and needs.
• Delight: faith should show steady gladness in God, not gloom.
• Stewardship: keep accounts of every day “in your conscience, not in papers.”
• Heavenly-mindedness: live on earth as a citizen of heaven.
• Self-denial: the lifelong battle against putting self first in pleasure, money and honour.

• Unbelief is doubting that God’s Word is true. Warning signs: love and obedience grow faint, and settled questions get reopened in dark moods.
• Obey what you already know. Don’t judge big questions in a moment of temptation, and take hard questions to wise Christians.
• Hardness of heart leaves you, in Baxter’s words, “unmoved, unaffected, and disobedient” after correction, kindness and hardship.
• Dwell on Christ’s love and sufferings, and spend time with the sick and dying. “Read thy lesson in the churchyard.”

• Let health be the measure of what you eat, how much, and when. “Stop at the first cup” (his direction against drunkenness).
• When an appetite rises against reason, settle once that it won’t be fed. Wavering keeps it alive.
• Dress for warmth, modesty and sober dignity. Neither showy nor deliberately shabby: both are vanity.

Today’s application (ours, not Baxter’s): constant snacking makes appetite easy to obey, and curating an image online is today’s costly apparel. Vanity and neglect of the body both forget that the body belongs to God.

• When low or anxious: shorter times alone, brief prayer, cheerful company, look outward to Christ, stay busy, and see a physician. Trust a wise guide over your own judgment while low.
• Reading: Scripture first, then solid practical writers, then history. Podcasts and feeds count as reading too.
• Company: “He that travelleth with speedy travellers, will be willing to keep pace with them.” Choose friends who will correct you and pray with you.

• God accepts true repentance at any point in life. If you fear you’ve committed the unpardonable sin, Baxter says you almost certainly haven’t.
• If you want Christ more than your sin, the covenant is made. Weak grace is still grace.
• Write out God’s promises, and keep a record of his kindnesses to you.
• Rejoicing is commanded too. Move from the problem to the remedy.

Baxter’s twelve time-thieves: idleness and procrastination; too much sleep; time on appearance; show and status; long meals and drinking; idle talk; bad company; excessive amusements; too much business; daydreaming; empty reading; and the master thief, a heart not turned to God.

• Exercise: Baxter told people who sit at their work to use physical activity for recreation. Most of us now sit all day.
• Sleep: sleep what health needs, not what laziness wants. Baxter suggested five to seven hours; modern guidance generally recommends at least seven for adults.

• Against truth: lying, false witness, hypocrisy.
• Against others: slander, backbiting, rash judgment, flattery, scorning, cursing.
• Against self-control: boasting, idle chatter, foolish jesting, filthy talk.
• The ear: beware the itching ear that chases novelty and the selfish ear that only wants to be agreed with. Feeds and algorithms are built to serve both.

• Is there a duty I know clearly and am putting off?
• Was I bolder in private than I would be in public?
• What do I think about most easily: money, business, pleasure, or Christ?
• What am I loving too much, that I’d grieve too much to lose?
• Is my work serving my calling, or crowding God out?

Daily: morning prayer and Scripture; plan the day; short prayers through it; catch sin at the first spark; evening reckoning. Weekly: keep the Lord’s Day; give deliberately; meet a friend who will correct you; rest with family.