(1) If zeal be true, it will be a _zeal according to knowledge_. It must not be a blind, ignorant zeal. It must be a calm, reasonable, intelligent principle, which can show the warrant of Scripture for every step it takes. The unconverted Jews had zeal. Paul says, "I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, _but not according to knowledge_." (Rom. x. 2.) Saul had zeal when he was a persecuting Pharisee. He says himself, in one of his addresses to the Jews, "I was _zealous_ toward God as ye all are this day." (Acts xxii. 3.)--Manasseh had zeal in the days when he was an idolater. The man who made his own children pass through the fire,--who gave up the fruit of his body to Moloch, to atone for the sin of his soul,--that man had zeal.--James and John had zeal when they would have called down fire on a Samaritan village. But our Lord rebuked them.--Peter had zeal when he drew his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus. But he was quite wrong.--Bonner and Gardiner had zeal when they burned Latimer and Cranmer. Were they not in earnest? Let us do them justice. They were zealous, though it was for an unscriptural religion.--The members of the Inquisition in Spain had zeal when they tortured men, and put them to horrible deaths, because they would not forsake the Gospel. Yes! they marched men and women to the stake in solemn procession, and called it "An Act of Faith," and believed they were doing God service.--The Hindoos, who used to lie down before the car of Juggernaut and allow their bodies to be crushed under its wheels:--had not they zeal?--The Indian widows, who used to burn themselves on the funeral pile of their deceased husbands,--the Roman Catholics, who persecuted to death the Vaudois and Albigenses, and cast down men and women from rocks and precipices, because they were heretics;--had not they zeal?--The Saracens--the Crusaders,--the Jesuits,--the Anabaptists of Munster--the followers of Joanna Southcote,--had they not all zeal? Yes! Yes! I do not deny it. All these had zeal beyond question. They were all zealous. They were all in earnest. But their zeal was not such zeal as God approves,--it was not a "zeal according to knowledge." (2) Furthermore, if zeal be true, it will be a zeal _from true motives_. Such is the subtlety of the heart that men will often do right things from wrong motives. Amaziah and Joash, kings of Judah, are striking proofs of this. Just so a man may have zeal about things that are good and right, but from second-rate motives, and not from a desire to please God. And such zeal is worth nothing. It is reprobate silver. It is utterly wanting when placed in the balance of God. Man looks only at the action: God looks at the motive. Man only thinks of the quantity of work done: God considers the doer's heart.