A Coal from the Altar, to Kindle the Holy Fire of Zeale: In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich

A coal taken from the altar, touched to trembling lips, purifies. This is the image Samuel Ward wields in his fiery 17th-century sermon, a warning to Christians who have grown spiritually complacent. Preached at a general visitation in Ipswich, the sermon takes as its text the letter to the Laodicean church in Revelation the lukewarm, the self-satisfied, the spiritually anaemic. Ward demands: can this be anything but a prophecy for our own degenerate age? The text distinguishes between authentic zeal which burns with love for God and counterfeit zeal all heat and show, hollow at its center. Ward was a Puritan who understood that faith which grows comfortable is faith that has already begun to die. He calls his listeners to examine whether their devotion is living coal or cooling ash, to stir the embers of genuine spirituality before they go out entirely. Four centuries later, the诊断 remains uncomfortably precise: we are still experts at making a faith that looks zealous while keeping our hearts at a safe distance.