A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale | Page 4

sweet incense unto the Lord, without which no burnt offering was
acceptable.
_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. Aguish heats breede flushings, & are more seen in the
face, then natural warmth at the heart. Schollers count hiding of Art the
best Art: the godly man studies by all meanes how to conceale the one
hand from the other, in doing well; hiding of zeale is the best zeale.
Secondly, of Ahabs disease exceeding in externall humiliation, affected
gestures, passionate sighes, lowdnesse of voyce, odde attires & such
like: These know how to rend the garment, hang the head with the
bulrush, to whip and launce their skinnes with Baals Priests; and yet
strangers to a wounded spirit: not but that true and hearty zeale doth lift
up the eyes, knocke the breast, dance before the Arke. Therefore this
character may deceive the unwarie; Let Ely take heede of judging
_Hanna's_ Spirit rashly by the mooving of her lips: yet hypocrites so
usually straine nature and without a cause exceed, and that in publique,
and upon the stage, that for the most part, their actions and affections
are palpable: as _Jesuites, Cappuchins_, &c. yea in many histrionicall
Protestants: Horse-coursers jades will bound, curvet and shew more
tricks, then a horse well mettled for the rode or cart.
[Sidenote: 3 Complementall.]
Thirdly, you may know them by their diligence and curiositie in lighter
matters joyned with omission and neglect of greater, wise in
circumstance, and carelesse in substance, tithing mint, straining at gnats,
&c. In all cheape and easie duties, prodigall: niggardly & slothfull in
the waighty things of the Law: these have at command good words,
countenance, yea teares from their eyes, sooner then a farthing from
their purse, having this worlds goods, and see their brother want; these
sticke up feathers for the carcasse, beguiling the simple, couzening the
world, but cheefly themselves.
[Sidenote: 4 Pragmaticall.]
[Sidenote: 5 Censorious.]
[Sidenote: 6 Cruell.]

Fourthly, these fires cannot keepe themselves within their owne hearths,
these spirits cannot keepe themselves within their owne circles. True
zeale loves to keepe home, studieth to bee quiet in other mens Dioces:
false zeale loves to be gadding, is eagle-ey'd abroad and mole-ey'd at
home: Insteed of burning bright and shining cleere; like brinish lights,
they sparkle & spet at others, or like ill couched fire-workes let fly on
all sides: onely out of their wisdome they know how to spare Agag and
the great ones, and bee sure they anger not their great Masters, and
meddle with their matches: whereas it is the property of fire that comes
from above, to spare the yeelding sheath, and melt the resisting mettall,
to passe by the lower roofes, and strike the towred pinacle, as _Nathan,
David; Elias, Ahab; John, Herod; Jonas, Ninivie; &c._ Note also in all
their proceeding with others, in steede of wholesome severity (which
rightly zealous men never come unto but by compulsion, and not
without compassion of the offender, weeping with Moses and Samuel
over the people, beeing sory with the Emperour, that they know how to
write sentences of condemnation) These delight