1. God hath many ways and means to do it. (1.) Partly by his judgments he doth it more and more : Mat. iii. 12, ' His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner ; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.' As the chaft' from corn, so dross from metal : Isa. iv. 4, ' When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughter 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 ; ' that is, by the judgment executed upon the evil among them : Ezek. xx. 38, 'And I will purge out from among them the rebels, and them that transgress
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against mc' This God doth hy destroying, wasting judgments. (2.) Partly by the censures of the church : 1 Cor. v. 9, ' Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.' And partly by the stroke of the civil magistrate, and their punishments : Prov. xxv. 4, 5, ' Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer. Take away the wicked from before the king, and his tlirono shall be established in righteousness.' Thus doth God do it now, but he will fully and finally do it at the last judgment, when there shall be a perfect separation of them, and all the wicked shall be cast away as refuse : Mat. xxv. 32, 33, ' Before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left hand ; ' there is a congregation and then a segregation, never to meet more, nor be mingled more. Now God doth it in part, but then more fully.
2. The reasons. (1.) God doth so, lest the silver itself should be turned into dross. We are apt to corrupt one another, natural cor- ruption within meeting with examples without : Isa, vi. 5, ' Woe is me, I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips ; ' as a man that hath the matter of a disease prej)ared, coming into infectious company, is soon infected. God's choicest people have much dross in them, therefore the Lord needeth to purge out their dross. Tlie purest church is apt to contract pollu- tion and to degenerate, and the choice plants of the covenant-stock to run wild, were it not for these dispensations. (2.) That impunity may not harden the wicked and encourage others. God sufifereth it as long as hejudgeth it expedient: Eccles. viii. 11, 'Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil ;' Ps. ix. 16, ' The Lord is known by the judgments he executeth ; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.' Men sin more freely and securely when a judgment doth not presently overtake them, when sinners go on without any mark of God's vengeance ; but God will in every age clear his providence, by bringing of judgments upon wicked men. (3.) The nearer they are to God, the more hateful their provocations are, and more severely punished : Amos iii. 2, ' You have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.' For their sins the valley of vision is brought to barrenness. They sin against the clearest light, the dearest love, the highest engagements to the contrary ; and therefore, when they are mingled among his people as dross with the silver, God putteth them away.
tise 1. To inform us that God in his judicial proceedings will dis- tinguish ; he Avill divide the dross from the other metal, that he may destroy the one, and preserve the other. David prayeth, Ps. xxvi. 9, ' Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men ;' that God would not lay liim common with the wicked. God hath his harvest, for cutting down, for cutting and binding together those that sinned. Now David prayeth that he, that had severed himself in his course of life, might not be gathered with them in their punishment. God will distinguish; his judgments are for the destruction of the worser sort, and the amendment of the better; when he severeth the
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dross, he hath a care of the silver. Though never so terrible to the wicked, still he will be comfortable to his own: 2 Peter ii. 9, ' The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to re- serve the nnjust to the day of judgment to be punished.' His own jewel, that lieth hidden among them : when all is shaken round about them, God can hide them in the secret of his presence, and preserve them as he did Lot and Noah, His own are wonderfully preserved in common judgments ; several scriptures speak to this: Eccles. viii. 12, 13, ' Surely it shall be well with them that fear God, but it shall not be well with the wicked ; ' and Josh. iii. 10, ' Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites ; ' Isa. iii. 10, 11, ' Say unto the righteous. It shall be well with him ; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him ; for the reward of his hands shall be given him.' God will make a difference between good and bad.