Fanaticism.
Fanaticism has one respectable feature, that it is sincere. The fanatic believes what he asserts to be true, and he is earnest and zealous in the maintenance and propagation of his belief. But when we have said thus much we have said all that can be said in his favor. In fanaticism there is a culpable neglect of the reason which God has given to man to be his guide. The fanatic shuts his eyes and closes his ears, and rushes on his way with no more reflection or discrimination than a wild bull in its fury. Fanaticism, too, has a fatal tendency to deaden all moral considerations and to blunt a man's perceptions of right and wrong. It is in vain to look for justice, or fairness, or truth, or mercy, from a fanatic. There is no violence of which he is not capable if he thinks his faith is in danger, no wiles and baseness to which he will not stoop if he thinks it necessary for the defense of his cause. Murder, perjury, bribery, subornation of witnesses, and defamation of opponents by lies and slander, have constantly been the weapons by which fanaticism of various kinds has ever defended itself. The end justified the means. It is, however, a curious feature in the history of fanaticism that it is often so closely allied with self-interest. And this is a feature which derogates considerably from its only merit, that of sincerity. In a pure love of truth there is no thought of self-interest. Truth, is a holy, Divine thing, loved for its own sake. But the fanatic's creed is not pure truth; and so it seems it cannot be loved with the same pure, disinterested love with which truth is loved. Hence it has often been the parent of crime; and hence it is, as we have just said, often allied with self-interest. It is so with Mohammedan fanaticism; it has been so and still is with Romish and specially Jesuitical fanaticism; it was so with Puritan and fifth-monarchy fanaticism; it is so with other existing forms of fanatical and unreasonable zeal. In the case before us in this chapter we need not doubt that these Hellenistic Jews had a very strong and ardent attachment to the Law of Moses, and that their dread and dislike of Stephen's teaching arose from their apprehension that Christian doctrine was in its nature destructive of their own tenets. But if their attachment to the Law of Moses had been intelligent and pure, they would have welcomed the gospel of Christ as being the fulfillment of the Law. If they had been actuated by a holy love of God's truth, they would not have sought to uphold the Mosaic institutions By violence, by injustice, and by fraud. Nor can we doubt that, as in the case of the chief priests and scribes and elders, who conspired to take away the life of Jesus Christ, so in the case of these heated partisans, the fear of losing their own places of influence and power, and having to yield the place of honor to the Galilaean teachers whom they hated and despised, had much to do with the unrighteous zeal of the members of the Hellenistic synagogues. The Christian should strive to have a zeal for Christ and Ms glory quite as ardent as that of any fanatic, but at the same time to keep the eyes and ears of his reason always open for the correction of any error into which he may inadvertently have fallen, and for the addition of any truth which he may not hitherto have known. Above all, he will never seek to bear down reason by violence, or to defend truth with the carnal weapons of unrighteousness, whether violence or fraud.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON