51. * It is a fatal deception to imagine, that the life of a minister of God is ever to be a life of ease and worldly repose. For tho’ the temporal sword be not always drawn against them, nor they forced to flee from one city to another, yet the world, the flesh and the devil, are never so difficult to be resisted, as in temporal prosperity; nor have the ministers of Christ ever more occasion to put on all their armour, than when the world is given up to ease, and peace, and plenty. Swarms of vices steal in upon us in these seasons; the spirit and life of religion is in danger of being lost, and the salvation of souls is made more difficult, than in the most perilous times. And how is such a state of temptation to be resisted, such a torrent of vice to be suppressed, but by the clergy’s shewing themselves _visible_ and _notorious_ examples of all the contrary virtues? When mankind are wallowing in debauchery, wantoning in pleasures, and given up to vanity and luxury in all shapes, it is then the duty of the faithful minister, by his being crucified to the world, to proclaim himself a messenger of a crucified Saviour, and to make his own self-denying, mortified, and heavenly life, a plain, open, and constant reproof of all vain indulgences. But to proceed, “To what a height of fanatic madness in doctrine as well as practice, says the Doctor, are some advanced, who set out at first with an appearance of more than ordinary sanctity only.” Is not this calling upon the clergy to beware, how they admit these beginnings of a more than ordinary sanctity of life, either in themselves, or those committed to their care? Is it not plainly telling them, that they must stick _closely_ and _steadily_ to such sanctity of practice, as may be called _ordinary_, or else they will be in fanatic madness? Nay, it is no force put upon his words, to suppose, _a more than ordinary sanctity in practice only_, is marked out as the genuine, natural cause of _fanatic madness_, and therefore the cause is equally condemned with the effect. Had he meant that his reader should not have the same dislike of the one, as of the other, would he not have put in a word in favour of a _more than ordinary_ sanctity of life? Would he not have said, that he did not intend to _blame that_, or at least not _so much_ as the other? But not a word of this. A more than ordinary sanctity in _practice_ only, and fanatic _madness_ are considered as cause and effect, and left in the same state of condemnation, to be equally guarded against, and avoided, by the reader.