If your zeal grows dull, you will not pray well in the pulpit; you will pray worse in the family, and worst in the study alone. When your soul becomes lean, your hearers, without knowing how or why, will find that your prayers in public have little savour for them; they will feel your barrenness, perhaps, before you perceive it yourself.Lectures to My Students (Kindle Locations 191-194). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
As fire has various operations on things of a different nature, either to congregate or separate through burning; in the same manner, holy zeal in those hearts in which God has kindled it, into much heat for good, and against evil. And as fire which burns on the hearth, warms, the whole room; in the same manner the flame of holy zeal in the soul, is influential in its operations, through the Christians whole conversion.The Zealous Christian
would it not be a commendable Christian compassion to save such with godly fear, pulling them out of the fire, and rather scorch them with the flame of zeal, then give them liberty to go securely to hell (Jude 23)
To seem to be zealous, if it be not according to the word, is not obedience, but will-worship. Popish traditions which have no footing in the word, are abominable; and God will say, Quis quiaesivit haec? 'Who hath required this at your hand?' Isa i 12.The Ten Commandments, 1
Are you clear what zeal is? It is not fanaticism; it is not wildness; it is not irresponsible enthusiasm; it is not any form of push egoism. It is, rather, a humble, revent, businesslike, single-minded commitment to the hallowing of God's name and the doing of his will.A Passion for Faithfulness