But now, if our natural life is a corrupt, bestial, diabolical life brought forth by the fall, if we want to be born again of the Holy Spirit, because our natural birth is according to the spirit of this world; if nothing of the beast, or the devil, no kind or degree of envy, pride and vanity can enter into the kingdom of God, then it is plain, that all religion which leaves this nature unrenounced, which lets pride, wrath, and vanity subsist in us, which brings us to our graves in the same nature in which we were born, is not the religion that can save us. If this nature in all its most secret workings is not renounced, it matters not what we are, or what we have been doing, it signifies little in what chair we have sat, whether in _Italy_, or _England_, how long we have been preachers, how many hereticks and schismaticks we have opposed, or how many books we have written in defence of orthodoxy; it is as vain to appeal to this, as to our having preached and _prophesied_ in the name of Christ: for if this nature is allowed to live in us, all our good works have been governed by it, they are animated with pride, and only serve to gratify our own natural passions. When therefore the Doctor calls upon young divines to have _more grace_ and _sense_ than to be driven from thoughts of advancing themselves by _preferments and rich marriages_, he would do well to consider, how little short this is of calling them to break their very baptismal vow, of _renouncing the pomps and vanities of the world_. And if young candidates for holy orders, looking only at their baptismal vow, should be led into this degree of self-denial and detachment from the world, does the Doctor think, that the apostles, from whom this baptismal vow is descended, will rise up in the day of judgment, and condemn such abuse of it? Does he think, that there are any departed saints that will join with him in saying, such a spirit is a _reproach_ to the gospel? What more favourable disposition could the adversary of mankind wish to see, either in young or old divines, than a wanting and desiring to have figure in the world, either by preferments or rich marriages? Would he find it difficult to enter into those hearts, where the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life has thus entered? Or would he look upon such as but half fitted for him, in comparison of those who entered into holy orders in a spirit of self-denial, and renunciation of the pomps and vanities of the world?
* _John_ the _Baptist_ was but the preparer of the way for evangelical purity of life; but does, the Doctor think that if the _Baptist_ was now to come amongst us, he would look at things as the Doctor does, that he would see such perfections and such corruptions, such orthodoxy and such enthusiasm as the Doctor sees; that this _burning and shining light_ would see no _generation of vipers_ but where the Doctor sees them; that he would preach no where but in churches; that he would spare no clergy, nor any church, but that which is established in this island; that he would complain of the hardships of our clergy, and the suffering spirit which they are forced to practise, that he would plead for a priestly liberty of coveting preferments and rich marriages, that he would recommend the Doctor’s discourse of the _folly, sin, and danger of being righteous over-much_, as the true fruits of that spirit which first preached the gospel? He that can believe this, must believe that the Baptist was come to confess the errors of his first appearance in the world.