Religious zeal

“ Provided we guard against the grave error, so prevalent in the last century, of despising and condemning all religious zeal, it is well to entertain this suspicion—of ourselves, I mean—till we have proved it to be false, or by repentance and amendment have made it false. For who does not know how much a proud, carnal, selfish, ill-tempered man or woman may do in the service of self, which has the appearance of zeal for God? What pious labours men will undertake, if they happen to be in the path of their natural inclinations! ”

“ Do you not see, in fact, the excesses to which fanaticism and zeal drive the wisest and best meaning men? Princes, magistrates, and judges become inhuman and pitiless as soon as there is a question of the interests of religion. Men of the gentlest disposition, the most indulgent, and the most equitable, upon every other matter, religion transforms to ferocious beasts. ”

“ To produce the little zeal for heaven which Christians have, it is requisite to torment them, and thus lead them to the practice of those marvellous virtues in which they imagine is placed all their safety. A strange religion, which, practised in all its rigor, would drag society to ruin! The sincere devotee proposes impossible attainments, of which human nature is not capable ”

“ If sometimes his zeal outran his wisdom and judgment, if sometimes his enthusiasm seemed to reach what we might call a religious frenzy in which he heard supernatural voices and saw visions, we can but believe in his sincerity and admire his boldness and commend his fearless exposure of sin. ”

“ We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires. Love, Zeal, Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Trust, are each of them specified; and are not allowed to us as weaknesses, but enjoined on us as our bounden duty, and commended to us as our acceptable worship. ”

“ Religious zealots who believe in the efficacy of prayer are the dupes of their own imagination; and yet no one can doubt that certain of these petitions appear to have been granted by a beneficent deity. ”

“ But holy zeal is tempered with love to God and truth, and springing from a real spiritual knowledge, can never be a bad spirit.—The many storms a child of God meets with from Satan, the world, a body of sin and death, persecution, and infirmities, these wean him from the world, while the love of God sweetly operating upon his mind, he longs to be dissolved and be with Christ, which is far better for him. ”

“ But whatever you do, let it be done in charity, in love and meekness of wisdom. Be zealous for God: but remember, that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God: that angry zeal, though opposing sin, is the servant of sin; that true zeal is only the flame of love. Let this be your truly Protestant zeal: while you abhor every kind and degree of persecution, let your heart burn with love to all mankind, to friends and enemies, neighbours and strangers; to Christians, Heathens, Jews, Turks, Papists, Heretics; to every soul which God hath made. ”

“ Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying to the Church, and more pleasing to God — setting aside the good example they would give — if they would spend at least one half their time in prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love. ”

“ II. Now I have given you two striking instances of zeal for God's honour, one in a man, and one in a woman. Have you any such zeal in you? Are your thoughts at all taken up with God's church, God's altar, God's worship? Are you eager that all should be beautiful and seemly in the temple of God? Does it pain you above every other pain when you know of something which is to the dishonour of God and of His Church? Have you any zeal at all like that of David? ”

“ It is not the display of power and pomp, cavalcades of retainers, and richly-houseled palfreys, or by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true, but by seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth. ”

“ Offer him not the sacrifice of fools, who know not that they do evil, and are adding to their sins, while they think they are pleasing him. Bring no false fire unto his altars: let your zeal of God be according to knowledge. For no zeal will make a corrupt, unlawful kind of worship, to be acceptable unto God. ”

“ Now it is precisely these “fixed, calm, and Christian views in divinity” which, in this age, and especially in this country, are most wanted—which are sought for in vain in the din of religious controversy and the stir of religious excitement—and for the want of which, to the joy of the infidel, and to the shame and grief of the meek searcher after truth, who would walk humbly with his God, Christianity, at times, appears almost unchristianised. ”

“ And this antipathy to religion finds an echo within the very science of religions itself. The cultivator of this science has to become acquainted with so many groveling and horrible superstitions that a presumption easily arises in his mind that any belief that is religious probably is false. In the 'prayerful communion' of savages with such mumbo-jumbos of deities as they acknowledge, it is hard for us to see what genuine spiritual work—even though it were work relative only to their dark savage obligations—can possibly be done. ”

“ This distortion of character, this fungus growth in one direction and utter barrenness in others, evinces a want of grace altogether. Such persons are not temples framed by the Holy Ghost. Rather are they like rude, unsightly structures reared by some unskilful hands. Remember, if you are a Christian, you must exhibit the work of religion in your whole character. You cannot cultivate one grace at the expense of another. You cannot be all faith and no love; all humility and no self-denial; all zeal and no charity. It is not in that way the Holy Spirit works. ”

“ Thus are these things, which have any resemblance of piety, and, at best, are but means for obtaining it, or particular exercises of it, frequently mistaken for the whole of religion; nay, sometimes wickedness and vice pretend to that name. I speak not now of those gross impieties wherewith the Heathens were wont to worship their gods: there are but too many Christians, who would consecrate their vices, and hallow their corrupt affections; whose rugged humour and sullen pride, must pass for Christian severity; whose fierce wrath, and bitter rage against their enemies, must be called holy zeal ”

“ The human heart, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Where true godliness wanes false religions rush in to fill the void; and the intensity of zeal which false religions awaken measures the declension that has befallen true faith. ”

“ She professes zeal for God’s house and service, while she is offending Him by heretical doctrine, and insulting Him by the fascinations of idolatrous worship, with which she beguiles unwary souls to commit spiritual fornication with her. ”

“ Indeed, and in this again you have sinned, it seemed to me as if you set God on one side, as if for you religion lay solely in a certain bent of the soul, a florescence of love and charity, which sufficed one to work one’s salvation. But that is execrable heresy. God is ever present, master of souls and bodies; and religion remains the bond, the law, the very governing power of mankind, apart from which there can only be barbarism in this world and damnation in the next. And, once again, forms are of no importance; it is sufficient that dogma should remain. ”

“ Notwithstanding the rage of persecution, a calm, devout, earnest, patient protest against the prevailing corruption of religious faith continued for centuries to be uttered. The Christians of that early time had only a partial knowledge of the truth, but they had learned to love and obey God's word, and they patiently suffered for its sake. ”

“ This belief and this desire, it must be owned, were founded on a great truth which man could rightly apprehend only through Christianity; and this desire was a kind of intimation which pointed to Christianity. From the nature of the case, however, it is clear that a fanatical zeal, where the heat of passion concealed from man the hollowness and falsehood of his faith, might be created for a religion, to which man only betook himself as a refuge in his misery, and in his dread of the abyss of unbelief ”

“ Have you considered that much of all that you call morals is indeed the effect of their religious teaching?”
“That is religion not the priest.”
“I speak for the instrument, I confess; but a clergyman is to religion what an army is to a war—and you might as well think of conducting a national contest without officer and soldier, as a moral, religious contest without a clergy. And I doubt whether you have any idea of religion, unless it be a sort of restraint upon certain actions and passions. ”

“ Have I not often seen you uncertain yourself whether you ought to sigh or smile at the self-depreciation of devotees ridiculously inflamed by that religious vanity which grows out of sectarian conventionalities? You also see them participating in theological quarrels, in which, without comprehending their nature or purport, they believe themselves conscientiously obliged to mingle. ”

“ And their adoration of angels and departed saints, is only as of mediators and intercessors, who may present their prayers, and obtain favor for them—the very idolatry of paganism.
In these things there is a shew of wisdom and humility—wisdom to devise means to impress a sense of religion, and humility to draw nigh to God by the intervention of those more worthy than themselves; and the means seem not destitute of influence; they produce warm zeal, and all the fervor of devotion; yea, all those feelings and emotions which are thought by some to constitute the offence of religion. ”

“ We sometimes see religious persons, or seculars who make a profession of piety, nourish secret aversions, envenomed jealousies, dangerous affections, a spirit of bitterness or murmuring against their superiors, a fund of self-love and pride, that diffuses itself over almost all their actions, and other failings of a like nature. ”

“ Apart from the consideration of the dishonour done to the ever-blessed God by worship rendered to images representing gods that are no gods—by which, if a Christian, he must be painfully affected—there is much in the scene before [Pg 66] him to impress him with the sottish folly into which man can sink in his religious views and practices ”

“ This sect of mental idolators have formed a tenet, that declares morality inimical to religion, and that a man obtains the recompense of heaven for credulity alone. The blindness of zeal has led these enthusiasts to produce more evidence in favor of natural religion and truth, than the most ingenious and elaborate arguments of a child of Nature. ”

“ What but the Holy Spirit, who is the author and giver of the life of grace, could have wrought such a change from the once dark, perverse, and ignorant heathen, to this now convinced, enlightened, humble, and believing Christian! How manifestly is the uncontrolled sovereignty of the Divine will exercised in the calling and translating of sinners from darkness to light! What a lesson may the nominal Christian of a civilized country sometimes learn from the simple, sincere religion of a converted heathen! ”

“ Yes, we sin also against it by idolatry, superstition, witchcraft, sacrilege, and simony.
25. When does a person commit idolatry?
He commits idolatry (worship of images) when he pays divine honor to any creature or thing, as the heathens did.
26. When do we sin by superstition?
1. When we honor God or the Saints in a manner contrary to the doctrine or practice of the Church; 2. When we attribute to things a certain power which they cannot have, either by nature, or by the prayers of the Church, or by virtue of Divine dispensation. ”

“ Men have displayed unaffected zeal, and endeavoured to support and propagate the most benevolent and rational of all religions, by actions [360] worthy of demons, and arguments which shock common sense. ”

“ Could anything alienate the true initiate from public prayers and temples, could anything raise his disgust or indignation against religious forms of all kinds, it would be the manifest unbelief of priests or people, want of dignity in the ceremonies of the cultus—in a word, the profanation of holy things. God is truly present when He is worshipped by recollected souls and feeling hearts ”

“ Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire,—to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell—her devil and her God? ”

“ Let us, then, labor to banish the wide-spread delusion believed and taught by a thousand systems of worship—Jew, Pagan and Christian—that "religion is of supernatural or divine origin," and the many ruinous errors; senseless dogmas and deplorable soul-crushing superstitions so thoroughly inwrought into the Christian system will vanish like fog before the morning sun, and be replaced by a religion which sensible, intelligent and scientific men and women can accept, and will delight to honor and practice. ”

“ There are many periods in the history of human life, when the power of religious principles over the mind commands the respect, and excites the admiration of the most inveterate infidel. Go and see the poor Christian, contented amidst his privations—the suffering Christian, patient under his protracted affliction—the dying Christian, resigned and happy in prospect of his approaching dissolution ”

“ When this is the case, the religious taste becomes fastidious—a roving habit is often indulged—the customs of the world are yielded to, and the principle of sin, which once lay dormant in the heart, rises up with renewed strength, and breaks forth in open manifestations of evil. ”