Now, who can help looking with _love_ and _compassion_ upon those poor souls, longing for that which has been so long lost; asking after that, which scarce any one will tell them any thing of, and wanting to enter upon paths where there are few or no footsteps to be seen, nor any travellers in motion? Had these awakened souls lived in the first ages of the church, nay, I may say in almost any till these very last ages of it, their zeal had not been in vain: they could have been at no loss to know _how_ they were to proceed in their heavenly purpose; because they would have been immediately directed to some living examples of the perfect spirit of the gospel, who were publicly known and acknowledged by all to be such, who had the same undisputed right, to point out the Christian profession, as _John_ the Baptist had to preach up _mortification_ and _self-denial_. Every age, and every sex, priests and people of all conditions, had their known standards to resort to, where every one was sure to be guided, assisted, and encouraged to live up to that height of holiness. 12. But now how does the Doctor deal with this sort of people? What _love_, _assistance_, and _encouragement_ does he reach out to them? Why, truly, he considers them as a _deluded_, _weak_, or _hypocritical_, or _half-thinking_ people, that disturb the Christian church with their projects; who are to be set right by returning to the instructions of common sense. He ridicules every step they must take in their intended progress, by adding absurdities of his own invention to it. There is nothing for such people throughout his whole discourse, but reproaches, and discouragement. Are they desirous of all that _self-denial_, all such _mortification_ of bodily appetites and sensual passions, as may best fit them to be temples of the Holy Spirit? He ridicules them, as holding the sinfulness of _smelling a rose_. Do they begin to discover the _deep corruption_ of their nature, the superficialness and weakness of their virtues, and to fear they have as yet scarce come up to the righteousness of the _Scribes_ and _Pharisees_? He tells them “The great enemy of souls adapts his temptations to all sorts of tempers and dispositions.” Those who are disposed to be good and virtuous, if he cannot prevail with them to be vicious, commonly so called, he labours to make them over virtuous, that is vicious, tho’ not commonly so called; and so involves them in dangers and mischiefs. Are they such as are desirous of reforming their own lives, by bringing all their actions to the standard of the gospel, and wholly intent upon their own advancement in merely _practical piety_? To these he shews, that they are in the very paths that lead, and always did lead to _fanatic madness_.