Zeal, Cloak of – Charles Spurgeon

THOUSANDS of our church members are locked in the deadly arms of an Arctic propriety. They are proper, very proper. They are always afraid of being fanatical, even more than of being worldly or backsliding. When religious work is being done in earnest, they say it is exciting and irregular, and they therefore avoid it. They have heard of unwise excitement attending some religious meetings, and they at once conceive a great dread of everything like excitement, however holy and useful; and therefore, in order to avoid as much as possible that which is at all unusual, they make to their tents, and shun the very angels of God, lest they should become too enthusiastic by conversing with them. So far am I from commending them for this, I am persuaded there is no cloak in which a man can be so well wrapped up against the trials of the world and the temptations of business as a cloak of zeal that covers him all over. The devil cannot so readily assail a zealous man. There is a point, of course, at which he can overthrow him by turning that zeal into unhallowed passion, fierce bigotry, or unbridled rant; but still, in the ordinary temptations of life, the man who is thoroughly and heartily possessed by the spirit of true and thoroughly Christian zeal, throws off the blows of the enemy as the shields of the ancient warrior hurled off the fiery darts of the foe.