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Ward, Samuel

"A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich"



_The Second Part._
But now, as then, there are certaine false fires, abhominable to God,
odious to men, dangerous to the _Nadabs_ and _Abihues_ that meddle with
them, bringing thereby coales upon their owne heads, & ill favor upon
all their services; & not onely so, but that which is worse, an ill
report and surmize even on those that offer the right fire, & serve the
Lord in spirit and truth: yet for their sakes is the name of zeale
blasphemed all the day long.
Against these, as then, so now severe caveats and cleere distinctions
must bee laid, lest such as have not their senses exercised to put a
difference, mistake poysonfull weedes for wholesome hearbes, to their
owne destruction; and for the sake of the one, revile the other to the
wrong of God and his Saints.
It fares not otherwise with the soule then with the body: besides the
native & radicall heat, the principall instrument of life, there are
aguish and distempered heats, the causes of sicknesse and death.
To discerne of those, requires some skill and judgement: yet a good
Empirick, a Christian of experience will give a shrewd ghesse at them,
the easier & the better if he marke these following signes and
symptomes, common to all the kinds of false zeale, here also following.
[Sidenote: 1 Ostentation.]
First, they are deeply sicke of the pharisaicall humor, they love to be
seene of men, and say with _Jehu, Come and see how zealous I am for the
Lord of hosts_: they proclaime their almes with a trumpet, paint their
good deedes upon Church windowes, engrave their legacies upon tombes,
have their acts upon record: Thus, Comets blaze more then fixed Starres.


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