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I. OUR ZEAL FOR RELIGION SHOULD BE REAL AND CONSCIENTIOUS. There is a zeal of sympathy, which is awakened and kept alive by the zeal of others with whom we happen to come in contact. Be "renewed in the spirit of your minds," that religion may appear to you in all its genuine excellence, and that it may hold that place in your regard to which it is justly entitled. Meditate seriously on the interest which you personally have in all that it requires you to believe, and in all that it commands you to do. Think of its necessity to the redemption and well-being of every one of the human race.

II. OUR ZEAL FOR RELIGION MUST BE INTELLIGENT, OR ACCOMPANIED WITH KNOWLEDGE.

III. THERE MUST BE PRUDENCE IN THE EXERCISE AND MANIFESTATION OF OUR RELIGIOUS ZEAL. Prudence does not damp nor discourage our zeal. It only prevents us from giving those expressions to it which, on the one hand, would be attended with no benefit, and, on the other, might involve us in difficulties and embarrassments.

IV. OUR ZEAL FOR RELIGION MUST ALWAYS CONSIST WITH MORAL INTEGRITY. It never can be allowable for us to do what is morally wrong, whatever be the advantageous consequences that are to follow it. And least of all, one should suppose, can such a proceeding be allowable, when we are striving to advance the interests of religion.

V. OUR RELIGIOUS ZEAL MUST BE UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF CHARITY. Our zeal being awakened to care for men, charity comes in to soften that aspect of sternness and severity, which it might otherwise assume, and to mould it into a form more consonant to the nature and circumstances of those for whom it is to labour, as well as to the spirit and precepts of that religion which it is desirous to propagate.

VI. OUR ZEAL MUST BE IN PROPORTION TO THE VALUE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE OBJECTS WHICH EXCITE IT, AND TO THE EXIGENCIES IN WHICH THESE MAY HAPPEN TO BE PLACED. Every system has certain leading principles and properties of which it cannot be divested, while there are other subordinate principles and properties, which appear, neither in themselves nor in their relations, to be necessary to its existence, and to its ultimate purpose. And so is it with Christianity. Being a plan of Divine contrivance, all that is to be found in it, must be considered as important and useful; but it is evident that there are some things more important and useful than others. And this being the case, it follows, of course, that whether we be cherishing Christianity in ourselves, or pressing it on the attention of others, our zeal must not operate with equal ardour upon every subject, but bear some sort of proportion to the real or the relative importance which they possess — the most important receiving its highest, and the less important its lower measure of warmth and energy

(A. Thomson, D. D.)

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KJV: As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

WEB: As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.