The blackest hypocrisy was made use of to sanctify the foulest murder. The iniquity could not be complete without solemnly thanking God for its success. The Pope and Cardinals proceeded to St. Mark's Church where they praised the Almighty for so great a blessing conferred on the See of Rome, and the Christian world. A solemn Jubilee completed the preposterous mummery. ~This zeal of devotion was as much worse than even the zeal of murder, as thanking God for enabling us to commit a sin is worse than the commission itself. A wicked piety is still more disgusting than a wicked act. God is less offended by the sin itself than by the thank-offering of its perpetrators. It looks like a black attempt to involve the Creator in the crime.*

It was this exterminating zeal which made the fourteenth Louis, bad in the profligacy of his youth, worse in the superstition of his age, revoke the tolerating Edict which might have drawn down a blessing on his kingdom. Que species of crime was called on, in his days of blind devotion, to expiate another committed in his days of mad ambition. But the expiation was even more intolerable than the offence. The havoc made by the sword of civil persecution was a miserable atonement for the blood which unjust aggression had shed in foreign

wars.

It was this impious and cruel zeal which inspired the Monk Dominic in erecting the most infernal Tribunal which ever inventive bigotry projected to dishonour the Christian name, and with which pertinacious barbarity has continued for above six centuries, to afflict the hu

man race.

For a complete contrast to this pernicious zeal we need not, blessed be God, travel back into remote history, nor abroad into distant realms. This happy land of civil and religious liberty can furnish a countless catalogue of instances of a pure, a wise, and a well directed zeal. Not to swell the list, we will only mention that it has in our own Age, produced the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. Three as noble, and which will, we trust, be as lasting monuments as ever national Virtue erected to true piety. These are

"

* See Thuanus for a most affecting and, exact account of this direful massacre.

institutions which bear the genuine stamp of Christiani ty, not originating in party, founded in disinterestedness, and comprehending the best interests of almost the whole habitable globe-" without partiality and without bypocrisy."

Why we hear so much in praise of zeal from a certain class of religious characters, is partly owing to their hav ing taken up a notion that its required exertions relate to the care of other people's salvation rather than to their own; and indeed the casual prying into a neigh bour's house, though much more entertaining, is not near so troublesome as the constant inspection of one's own. It is observable that the outcry against zeal among the irreligious is raised on nearly the same ground, as the clamour in its favour by these professors of religion. The former suspect that the zeal of the religionist evaporates in censuring their impiety, and in eagerness for their con version, instead of being directed to themselves. This supposed anxiety they resent, and give a practical proof of their resentment by resolving not to profit by it.

Two very erroneous opinions exist, respecting zeal. It is commonly supposed to indicate a want of charity, and the two principles are accused of maintaining separate interests. This is so far from being the case, that charity is the firm associate of that zeal of which it is suspected to be the enemy. Indeed, this is so infallible a criterion by which to try its sincerity, that we should be apt to suspect the legitimacy of the zeal which is unaccompanied by this fair ally.

Another opinion equally erroneous is not a little prevalent-that where there is much zeal there is little or no prudence. Now a sound and sober zeal is not such an idiot as to neglect to provide for its own success; and would that success be provided for, without employing for its accomplishment, every precaution which prudence can suggest? True zeal therefore will be as discreet as it is fervent, well knowing that its warmest efforts will be neither effectual, nor lasting, without those provisions which discretion alone can make. No quality is ever. possessed in perfection where its opposite is wanting; zeal is not Christian fervor, but animal heat, if not asso ciated with charity and prudence.

»Zeal indeed, like other good things, is frequently caumniated because it is not understood; and it may sometimes deserve censure, as being the effervescence of

that weak but well meaning mind which will defeat the efforts not only of this, but of every other good propensity.

That most valuable faculty therefore of intellectual man, the judgment, the enlightened, impartial, unbiassed judgment, must be kept in perpetual activity, not only in order to ascertain that the cause be good, but to determine also the degree of its importance in any given case, that we may not blindly assign an undue value to an inferior good: for want of this discrimination we may be fighting a windmill, when we fancy we are attacking a fort. We must prove not only whether the thing contended for be right, but wheth er it be essential; whether in our eagerness to attain this subordinate good we may not be sacrificing, or neglecting, things of more real consequence. Whether the value we assign to it may not be even imaginary.

Above all, we should examine whether we do not contend for it chiefly because it happens to fall in with our own humour, or our own party, more than on account of its intrinsic worth; whether we do not wish to distinguish ourselves by our pertinacity, and to append ourselves to the party rather than to the principle; and thus,as popularity is often gained by the worst part of a man's character, whether we do not principally persist from the hope of becoming popular. The favourite adage that le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle might serve as an appropriate motto to one half of the contentions which divide and distract the world.

This zeal, hotly exercised for mere circumstantials, for ceremonies different in themselves, for distinctions rather than differences, has unhappily assisted in causing irreparable separations and dissentions in the Christian world, even where the champions on both sides were great and good men. Many of the points which have been the sources of altercation were not worth insisting upon, where the opponents agreed in the grand fundamentals of faith and practice.

But to consider zeal as a general question, as a thing of every day experience. He whose piety is most sincere will be likely to be the most zealous. But thongh zeal is an indication, and even a concomitant of sincerity, a burning zeal is sometimes seen where the sincerity is somewhat questionable.

For where zeal is generated by ignorance it is commonly fostered by self-will. That which we have embraced through false judgment we maintain through false honour. Pride is generally called in to nurse the offspring of er. ror. It is from this confederacy that we frequently see those who are perversely zealous for points which can add nothing to the cause of Christian truth, whether they are rejected or retained, cold and indifferent about the great things which involve the salvation of man.

Though all momentous truths, all indispensable duties, are, in the luminous volume of inspiration, made so obvious that those may read who run, the contested matters are not only so comparatively little as to be by no means worthy of the heat they excite, but are rendered so doubtful, not in themselves, but by the opposite systems built on them, that he who fights for them is not always sure whether he be right or not; and if he carry his point he can make no moral use of his victory. This indeed is not his concern. It is enough that he has conquered. The importance of the object having never depended on its worth, but on the opinion of his right to maintain that worth.

The Gospel assigns very different degrees of impor tance to allowed practices and commanded duties. It by no means censures those who were rigorons in their payment of the most inconsiderable tythes; but seeing this duty was not only put in competition with, but preferred before, the most important duties, even judgment, mercy, and faith, the flagrant hypocrisy was pointedly censured by MEEKNESS itself.

This opposition of a scrupulous exactness in paying the petty demand on three paltry herbs, to the neglect of the three cardinal christian virtues, exhibits as complete and instructive a specimen of that frivolous and false zeal which, evaporating in trifles, wholly overlooks those grand points on which hangs eternal life, as can be conceived.

This passage serves to corroborate a striking fact, that there is scarcely in Scripture any precept enforced which has not some actual exemplification attached to it. The historical parts of the Bible, therefore, are of inestimable value, were it only on this single ground, that the appended truths and principles so abundantly scattered through them, are in general so happily illustrated by them. They

are not dry aphorisms and cold propositions, which stand singly, and disconnected, but truths suggested by the event, but precepts growing out of the occasion. The recollection of the principles recals to the mind the instractive story which they enrich, while the remembrance of the circumstance impresses the sentiment upon the heart. Thus the doctrine, like a precious gem, is at once preserved and embellished by the narrative being made a frame in which to enshrine it.

True zeal will first exercise itself in earnest desires, in increasing ardor to obtain higher degrees of illumination in our own minds; in fervent prayer that this growing light may operate to the improvement of our practice, that the influences of divine grace may become more outwardly perceptible by the increasing correctness of our habits; that every holy affection may be followed by its correspondent act, whether of obedience or of resignation, of doing, or of suffering.

But the effects of a genuine and enlightened zeal will not stop here. It will be visible in our discourse with those to whom we may have a probability of being useful. But though we should not confine the exercise of our zeal to our conversation, nor our attention to the opinions and practices of others, yet this, when not done with a bustling kind of interference, and offensive forwardness, is proper and useful. It is indeed a natural effect of zeal to appear where it exists, as a fire which really burns will not be prevented from emitting both light and heat, yet we should labour principally to keep up in our own minds the pious feelings which religion has excited there. The brightest flame will decay if no means are used to keep it alive. Pure zeal will cherish every holy affection, and by encreasing every pious disposition will animate us to every duty. It will add new force to our hatred of sin, fresh contrition to our repentance, additional vigour to our resolutions, and will impart augmented energy to every virtue. It will give life to our devotions, and spirit to all our actions.

When a true zeal has fixed these right affections in our own hearts, the same principle will, as we have already observed, make us earnest to excite them in others. No good man wishes to go to heaven alone, and none ever wished others to go tinther without earnestly endeavouring to awaken right affections in them. That will be a