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Massillon speaks with awful solemnity of the case of a formal Minister—‘He contracts a callousness by his insensible way of handling Divine matters; by which he becomes hardened against them, and by which he is so far put out of the reach of conviction, in all the ordinary means of grace, that it is scarcely possible he can ever be awakened, and by consequence, that he can be saved.’ Not less awful is the language of Dr. Owen—‘He that would go down to the pit in peace, let him obtain a great repute for religion; let him preach and labour to make others better than he is himself, and yet in the meantime not neglect to humble his own heart to walk with God in a manifest holiness and usefulness: and he will not fail of his end.’ Sermons and Tracts, folio, p. 47. ‘It is shocking’ (as an old writer pointedly remarks) ‘to fall into hell from under the pulpit—how much more so from out of the pulpit! Is it supposed, that a holy office makes us holy? Let it be remembered, that those who from their earliest childhood were fed with consecrated food, and breathed the air of incense, “were sons of Belial—they knew not the Lord” (1Sam. 2.12.) Can we forget, that Judas “fell from his Apostleship, that he might go to his own place?” Acts 1.25. Does not every unconverted Minister carry about with him in his very commission his own sentence of condemnation? Mark 16.16.