* Our blessed Lord improved upon these two articles of mortification and chastity, and sets them before every preacher of the gospel in a yet fuller light. It is needless to shew how much he speaks of the nature and necessity of a total self-denial; but what he says of the virgin life, as to be chosen by those who are able to chuse it, for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, _Matthew_ xix. 12. is more than a volume of human eloquence in praise of it. What wonder is it, if after this, great numbers both of men and women were found in the first ages of the church, that chose to know no love, but that of God in a single life? * St. _Paul_ has done every thing to hinder a minister of Jesus Christ from entering into marriage, except calling it a sinful state, when he says, _He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife_; and how could he more powerfully press the virgin life upon the clergy, than when he says, _He that is unmarried, careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord_. * 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.