Some Papists have alleged this text for their purgatory. Here is indeed a purgatory, and a fire of purgatory, and such a purgatory that we must needs go through it before we can come to heaven. But this purgatory is in this world, not in the world to come. The flesh must go through it, and not the soul separated: and it must purge us from mortal, not from venial sins; and by a spiritual, not a material fire.
I will now come to the particulars: Christ [pg 7-010] is to us as a refiner's fire, and as fuller's soap, three ways: in respect of, 1. Reformation; 2. Tribulation; 3. Mortification;—which make not three different senses, but three harmonious parts of one and the same sense.
I begin with reformation; concerning which I draw this doctrine from the text:—
“The right reformation of the church, which is according to the mind of Jesus Christ, is not without much molestation and displeasure to men's corrupt nature. It is a very purgatory upon earth: it is like the fire to drossy silver, and like fuller's soap to slovenly persons, who would rather keep the spots in their garments than take pains to wash them out.”[1406]
Look but upon one piece of the accomplishment of this prophecy, and by it judge of the rest. When Christ cometh to Jerusalem, “meek, and sitting upon an ass” (as the Prophet said), all the city is troubled at his coming, Matt. xxi. 5,10; when he had but cast out the buyers and sellers out of the temple, the priests and scribes begin to plot his death, Luke xix. 45, 47; nay, where Christ and the gospel cometh, there is a shaking of heaven and earth, Hag. ii. 6. The less wonder if I call reformation like a refiner's fire. The dross of a church is not purged away without this violence of fire.
This is the manner of reformation held forth in Scripture, and that in reference, 1. To magistrates and statesmen; 2. To ministers; 3. To a people reformed; 4. To a people not reformed.
In reference to magistrates and statesmen, reformation is a fire that purgeth away the dross: Isa. i. 25, “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin.” Here is the refiner's fire; and the Chaldee Paraphrase addeth the fuller's borith. Then followeth, ver. 26, “And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, The faithful city.” Interpreters note upon that place, that no effectual reformation can be looked for till rulers and magistrates be reformed; and that therefore the Lord promiseth to purge away the dross and tin of corrupt rulers and judges, and to give his people such judges and rulers as they had [pg 7-011] of old, Moses, Joshua, the judges, David, Solomon, and the like.
In reference to ministers the doctrine is most clear. The next words after my text tell you, that this refining fire is specially intended for purifying the sons of Levi. The same thing we have more largely, though more obscurely, in 1 Cor. iii. 12-15. I do not say that the Apostle there meaneth only of times of reformation, but this I say, that it holdeth true, and most manifestly, too, of times of reformation; and that this is not to be excluded, but to be taken in as a principal part of the Holy Ghost's intendment in that scripture.[1407] He is speaking of the ministers of the gospel and their ministry, supposing always that they build upon Christ, and hold to that true foundation. Upon this foundation some build gold, silver, precious stones; that is, such preaching of the word, such administration of the sacraments, such a church discipline, and such a life as is according to the word, and savoureth of Christ: others build wood, hay, stubble; whereby is meant whatsoever in their ministry is unprofitable, unedifying, vain, curious, unbeseeming the gospel; for the ministers of Christ must be purified, not only from heresy, idolatry, profaneness, and the like, but even from that which is frothy and unedifying, which savoureth not of God's Spirit, but of man's. Now, saith the Apostle, “Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.” The church shall not always be deluded and abused with vanities that cannot profit. A time of light and reformation discovereth the unprofitableness of those things wherewith men did formerly please and satisfy themselves. There is a fire which will prove every man's work, even an accurate trial and strict examination thereof, according to the rule of Christ; a narrow inquiry into, and exact discovery of every man's work (for so do our divines[1408] understand the fire there spoken of), whether this fiery trial be made by the searching and discovering light of the word in a time [pg 7-012] of reformation, or by afflictions, or in a man's own conscience at the hour of death. If by some or all of these trials, a minister's work be found to be what it ought to be, he shall receive a special reward and praise; but if he have built wood, hay, and stubble, he shall be like a man whose house is set on fire about his ears; that is, he shall suffer loss, and his work shall be burnt, yet himself shall escape, and get his life for a prey, “so as by fire;” that is, so that he can abide that trial and examination whereby God distinguisheth between sincere ones and hypocrites; or, so that he be found to have been otherwise a faithful minister, and to have built upon a right foundation.
In the third place, you shall find reformation to be a refining fire in reference to a people or church reformed: “He that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy,” saith the Prophet; “when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning,” Isa. iv. 3, 4. Where you may understand[1409] by the filth of the daughters of Zion, their former idolatries, and such like abominations against the first table (which the prophets call often by the name of filth and pollution); and by the blood of Jerusalem, the sins against the second table. These the Lord promiseth to purge away by the spirit of judgment; that is, by a spirit of reformation (according to that John xii. 31, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out”). Which spirit of reformation is also a spirit of burning; even as the Holy Ghost is elsewhere called fire (Matt. iii. 11), and did come down upon the apostles in the likeness of cloven tongues of fire (Acts ii. 3). The spirit of reformation may be the rather called the spirit of burning, because ordinarily reformation is not without tribulation (as we shall hear) and by the voice of the rod doth the Spirit speak to men's consciences. When the Lord hath thus washed away the filthy spots, and burnt away the filthy dross of his church, then (Isa. iv. 5) she becomes a glory or a praise in the earth; and the promise is, that “upon all the glory shall be a defence:” but, you see, she is not brought [pg 7-013] to that condition till she go through the refiner's fire. It is no easy matter to cast Satan out of a person,—how much less to cast his kingdom out of a land? Another place for the same purpose we find, Zech. xiii. 9: When two parts of the land are cut off, the remnant which escape, the third part which is “written to life in Jerusalem,” even they must be brought through the fire. “I will bring the third part through the fire (saith the Lord), and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried.” This is the fiery trial of affliction, but the fruit of it is a blessed reformation, to make the church as most pure refined gold: “They shall call on my name, and I will hear them;” that is, they shall no longer worship idols, but me only, and they shall offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness, which shall be accepted. And what more? “I will say It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” Behold, a reforming people and a covenanting people. But he that hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. xxxi. 9), doth first refine them and purify them. We are not reformed, in God's account, till the refining fire have purged away our dross; till we be refined as silver is refined, and tried as gold is tried.
Lastly, In reference to a people not reformed, hear what the Prophet saith: Jer. vi. 28-30, “They are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melteth in vain; for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.” The Chaldee Paraphrase expoundeth it of the prophets who laboured in vain, and spent their strength for nought, speaking to the people in the name of the Lord, to turn to the law and to the testimony; but they would not turn.