"The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."--John, ii. 17.
"Zeal, is a principle; enthusiasm is a feeling. The one is a spark of a
sanguine temperament and overheated imagination. The other, a sacred
flame kindled at God's altar, and burning in God's
shrine."--(_Vaughan._) Such was the holy, heavenly zeal of our Great
Exemplar! His were no transient outbursts of ardor, which time cooled
and difficulties impeded. His life was one indignant protest against
sin;--one ceaseless current of undying love for souls, which all the
malignity of foes, and unkindness of friends, could not for one moment
divert from its course. Even when He rises from the dead, and we
imagine His work at an end, His zeal only meditates fresh deeds of love.
"Still His heart and His care," says Godwin, "is upon doing more. Having
now dispatched that great work on earth, He sends His disciples word
that He is hastening to heaven as fast as He can, to do another." (John,
xx. 17).
Reader! do you know any thing of this zeal, which "many waters could not
quench"? See that, like your Lord's, it be steady, sober, consistent,
undeviating. How many are, like the children of Ephraim, "carrying
bows"--all zealous when zeal demands no sacrifice, but "turning their
backs in the day of battle!" Others "running well" for a time, but
gradually "hindered," through the benumbing influences of worldliness,
selfishness, and sin. Two disciples, apparently equally devoted and
zealous, send through Paul, in one of his epistles, a conjoint Christian
salutation--"Luke and Demas greet you." A few years afterward, thus he
writes from his Roman dungeon--"Only _Luke_ is with me," "_Demas_ hath
_forsaken_ me, having loved this present world!"
While zeal is commendable, remember the Apostle's qualification, "It is
good to be zealously affected always in a _good_ thing." There is in
these days much base coin current, _called_ "zeal," which bears not the
image and superscription of Jesus. There is zeal for church-membership
and party; zeal for creeds and dogmas; zeal for figments and
non-essentials. "From such turn aside." Your Lord stamped with His
example and approval no such counterfeits. _His_ zeal was ever brought
to bear on two objects, and two objects alone--_the glory of God_ and
_the good of man_. Be it so with _you_. Enter, first of all (as He did
the earthly temple), the sanctuary of _your own heart_, with "the
scourge of small cords." Drive out every unhallowed intruder there. Do
not suffer yourself to be deceived. Others may call such jealous
searchings of spirit "sanctimoniousness" and "enthusiasm." But remember,
to be _almost saved_, is to be _altogether lost_!--to be zealous about
every thing but "the one thing needful," is an insult to God and your
everlasting interests!
Have a zeal for _others_. Dying myriads are around you. As a member of
the Christian priesthood, it becomes you to rush in with your censer and
incense between the living and the dead, "that the plague may be
stayed!"
Be it yours to say, "Blessed Jesus! I am _Thine_!--Thine only!--Thine
wholly!--Thine for ever! I am willing to follow Thee, and (if need be)
to _suffer_ for Thee. I am ready at Thy bidding to leave the homestead
in the valley, and to face the cutting blasts of the mountain. Take
me--use me for Thy glory. 'Lord! what wilt Thou have me to do?'"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-third Day.