‘A lazy Christian shall always want four things, viz., comfort, content, confidence, and assurance. God hath made a separation between joy and idleness, between assurance and laziness; and therefore it is impossible for thee to bring these together that God hath put so far asunder. Assurance and joy are choice donatives that Christ gives only to laborious Christians. The lazy Christian hath his mouth full of complaints, when the active Christian hath his heart full of comforts. God would have the hearts of his children to be hot in religious services. ‘Be fervent’ (or seething hot, as it is in the original) ‘in spirit, serving the Lord,’ Rom. 12:11.
That service that hath not heavenly heat, that hath not divine fire in it, is no service, it is lost service. A lazy spirit is always a losing spirit. Oh! remember, lazy Christians, that God is a pure act, therefore he loves activeness in religious services. Remember the angels, those princes of glory, are full of life and activity, and they always behold the Father’s face in glory, Mat. 18:10. Remember, he that will find rich minerals must dig deep, he that will be rich must sweat for it, he that will taste the kernel must crack the shell, he that will have the marrow must break the bone, he that will wear the garland must run the race, he that will ride in triumph must get the victory; so be that will get assurance must be active and lively in duty, Prov. 2:4–6.’
Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 387.