(_a_) Zeal is _good for a Christian's own soul_. We all know that exercise is good for the health, and that regular employment of our muscles and limbs promotes our bodily comfort, and increases our bodily vigour. Now that which exercise does for our bodies, zeal will do for our souls. It will help mightily to promote inward feelings of joy, peace, comfort, and happiness. None have so much enjoyment of Christ as those who are ever zealous for His glory,--jealous over their own walk,--tender over their own consciences,--full of anxiety about the souls of others,--and ever watching, working, labouring, striving, and toiling to extend the knowledge of Jesus Christ upon earth. Such men live in the full light of the sun, and therefore their hearts are always warm. Such men water others, and therefore they are watered themselves. Their hearts are like a garden daily refreshed by the dew of the Holy Ghost. They honour God, and so God honours them. I would not be mistaken in saying this. I would not appear to speak slightingly of any believer. I know that "the Lord takes pleasure in all His people." (Ps. cxlix. 4.) There is not one, from the least to the greatest,--from the smallest child in the kingdom of God, to the oldest warrior in the battle against Satan,--there is not one in whom the Lord Jesus Christ does not take great pleasure. We are all His children,--and however weak and feeble some of us may be, "as a father pitieth his children, so does the Lord pity them that love and fear Him." (Ps. ciii. 13.) We are all the plants of His own planting;--and though many of us are poor, weakly exotics, scarcely keeping life together in a foreign soil,--yet as the gardener loves that which his hands have reared, so does the Lord Jesus love the poor sinners that trust in Him. But while I say this, I do also believe that the Lord takes special pleasure in those who are _zealous_ for Him,--in those who give themselves body, soul, and spirit, to extend His glory in this world. To them He reveals Himself, as he does not to others. To them He shows things that other men never see. He blesses the work of their hands. He cheers them with spiritual consolations, which others only know by the hearing of the ear. They are men after His own heart, for they are men more like Himself than others. None have such joy and peace in believing,--none have such sensible comfort in their religion,--none have so much of "heaven upon earth" (Deut. xi. 21),--none see and feel so much of the consolations of the Gospel as those who are zealous, earnest, thorough-going, devoted Christians. For the sake of our own souls, if there were no other reason, it is good to be zealous,--to be very zealous in our religion.