* The knowledge and love of the virgin state began with Christianity, when the nature of our corruption, and the nature of our redemption were so fully discovered by the gospel. Then it was, that a new degree of heavenly love was kindled in the human nature, and brought forth a state of life that had not been desired, till the son of the virgin came into the world. _John_ the _Baptist_ was the beginner of the gospel dispensation; this _burning and shining light_ was in his person, the figure of _Judaism_ ending in Christianity. In his outward state he was a _Jew_, in his inward spirit and character he belonged to the gospel. He came out of the wilderness burning and shining, to preach the kingdom of heaven _at hand_. This may shew us that heat and light from above, kindled in a state of great self-denial, are necessary to make us able ministers of the gospel; and that if we pretend to the ministry, without these qualifications, and come only burning and shining with the spirit of this world, we are as well fitted to hinder, as the Baptist was to prepare the way to the kingdom of heaven. Look at this great saint, all ye that desire to preach the gospel. He came forth in the highest degrees of mortification and chastity of life. But why did he so come? It was to shew the world that these virtues must form the spirit of every preacher of the gospel. His character does not call you to a wilderness beyond _Jordan_, or to be cloathed with camel’s hair. Such circumstances are particular to himself; but it calls you to his inward spirit of self-denial, to his death to the world, and all carnal love, if you would not only preach, but prove the perfection of the gospel: For if the _Baptist_ was to be thus dead to the flesh and the world, that he might preach thus much, _the kingdom of heaven is at hand_; can less self-denial be required of those, who are to preach that which is much more, namely, that _the kingdom of heaven is come_? * Now if this holy _Baptist_, when he had preached awhile upon penitence, and the kingdom of heaven _at hand_, had made an offering of his heart to some fine _young lady of great accomplishments_, had not this put an end to all that was burning and shining in his character? And if those clergy who date their mission from Jesus Christ himself, sent by him as he was by his Father, to stand as his representatives, applying the means and mysteries of salvation to all that desire to be _born again_; if they, whether they be vicars, rectors, arch-deacons, deans, or bishops, should look upon their office to be as sacred, and their station as high in the kingdom of God, as the _Baptist_’s was; if they should look upon love addresses to the sex, as unbecoming, as foreign, to their character, as to the _Baptist_’s, could any one say, that they took too much upon them, or paid too great a reverence to the holiness of the priesthood, which they derived from the very person and office of Jesus Christ?