* I shall conclude this matter with a passage taken from the _Serious Call to a devout and Holy Life_; it is a quotation from _Eusebius_, who lived at the time of the first general council, when the faith of our _Nicene Creed_ was established: his words are these, “There have been, saith he, instituted in the church of Christ, two ways or manners of living; the one raised above the ordinary state of nature, and common ways of living, rejects wedlock, possessions, and worldly goods, and being wholly separated and removed from the ordinary conversation of common life, is appropriated and devoted solely to the worship and service of God, through an _exceeding degree_ of _heavenly love_: they who are of this order of people, seem dead to the life of this world, and having their bodies only upon earth, are in their minds and contemplations dwelling in heaven; from whence, like so many heavenly inhabitants, they look down upon human life, making _intercessions_ and _oblations_ for the whole race of mankind; and this, not with the blood of beasts, or the fat, or smoak and burning of bodies, but with the highest exercises of true piety, with cleansed and purified hearts, and with a whole form of life strictly devoted to virtue: these are their sacrifices, which they are continually offering unto God, and implore his mercy and favour for themselves and their fellow-creatures. Christianity receives this as the perfect manner of life.
“The other is of a lower form, and suiting itself more to the condition of human nature, admits of chaste wedlock, the care of children and families, of trade and business, and goes through all the employments of life, under a sense of piety and fear of God: now, they who have chosen this manner of life, have their set times for retirement and spiritual exercise, and particular days are set apart for their hearing and learning the word of God: and this order of people are considered as in the second state of piety.”¹ Here you see the perfection of the Christian life plainly set out, and how it was, what numbers of private persons, men and women, who had no share in the ecclesiastical office, yet, by their perfection of life, were _holy and heavenly intercessors_ for the whole race of mankind. * Now, may we not suppose, that the clergy were in this number of people that were thus heavenly in the whole form of their life, thus devoted to God and the edification of the church, by embracing the perfect life of Christianity? If they were not, do they not stand plainly condemned, since _Christianity held this to be the perfect manner of life_? I shall only add, that till such a degree of heavenly love, such a sense of the holiness and heavenly nature of the sacred calling, till such a desire of perfection is awakened in the clergy, as shuts out all carnal love and worldly tempers from their hearts, they cannot be such priests and intercessors with God, such patterns of holiness, such kindlers of divine love and heavenly desires amongst men, as the nature of their office both intends and requires of them.
¹ Serious Call, &c. p. 134.
* If a candidate for holy orders dares not make this total donation of himself to God, to be an instrument of his good pleasure only in the service of the gospel, if it is not his real state, to wish nothing in this world but the most perfect purification of his nature, if he desires any thing in and by his office, but a concurrence with Jesus Christ in the salvation of souls; if he has any reserves of self-seeking, or self-advancement in the world, and fleshly passions which he hopes to make consistent with the duties of his profession: if he is not separated in will and desire from all that is not God, and the service of God, he must be said to want the best proofs of his being called by the Holy Ghost.