I SHALL not insist upon the particular opening of these words, but only take some observations from them : —
First, This is a very instructive similitude this of silver and dross; therefore it is often made use of by the Holy Ghost: Isa. i. 21, 22, "How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judg ment ; righteousness lodged in it ; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross." " Thy silver is become dross ;" — this is God's ex pression of the condition of an apostate people. " Thy silver is become dross." He uses it again, Jer. vi. 29, 30, " The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder rnelteth in vain : for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver," refuse silver, drossy silver, "shall men call them." And so here, in this place of the prophet, " Thy silver is become dross."
Secondly, There are two sorts of things that are called the dross of silver. The first is the scoria, that which remains after the fur nace, and which manifests, the whole not being departed, the whole to be dross ; that is, to be refuse and reprobate silver, — that is, the dross after a trial. There is, secondly, a dross that is called so, which is nothing but the ore the silver is mixed withal before a trial. That is the dross here mentioned,— brass, tin, iron, lead ; such
494 THE FURNACE OF DIVINE WRATH.
things as are mixed with the silver before the trial. When God promises a purification, " I will take away all thy tin/' saith he. Now, whenever a nation is thus dross, there is yet some good silver in it. When there is nothing but refuse silver after a trial, then is all thrown away ; but when there is a multitude of dross before a trial, there is always some good silver, or else no trial would be made. God is not an unskilful founder, to make a trial when there is no silver in the material. So here, in the text, "As silver is melted in the furnace;" — " as silver."
Thirdly, When the dross is greatly increased, and the silver will not be otherwise separated from it, both dross and silver must into the same furnace. That is the case here; and you will excuse me if I judge it to be the case with ourselves. Both dross and silver must go into the same furnace ; for we must observe, — 1. That the furnace belongs to God's covenant. There is nothing in the furnace but that the best silver may be brought into it; and it needs to be brought into it, if it be but a furnace. In the day that God made a covenant with Abraham, Gen. xv. 1 7, " it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between the pieces of his sacrifice." There the furnace is dedi cated, God's furnace, in those words, for the use of the church. If it be but a furnace, it is in the covenant for the use of the church : for, — 2. God hath an oven as well as a furnace; but the oven belongs not to the church at all: Mai. iv. 1, " Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble : and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." When was this? Why, first, Christ came as " a refiner and purifier of silver," chap. iii. 3 ; and they are not purified by Christ. And " the day cometh that shall burn as an oven;" that was the day when Jerusalem was burned, and all that wicked, apostate church was consumed. God left them neither root nor branch, when eleven hundred thousand of them were destroyed in that city. That was God's oven, which burned up that wicked, apostate church. Truly, brethren, if we had complied with Christ as a refiner, in the day of his refining, we might have prevented the day of the coming of his oven. However, that is not the thing here threatened ; but it is a furnace in common for the silver and for the dross, — the same furnace.
Why then, observe, that when God brings both silver and dross, both good and bad, into the same furnace, it is the highest token of God's displeasure. So it is here in the text, * Ye shall know that I do it in my fury, and in mine anger, and in my displeasure/ There is nothing more to be trembled at than when all must go into the same furnace. ' I will gather the silver, and the brass, and
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the iron, and the lead, and the tin together, and they shall go into the same furnace/ God sometimes makes a distinction; as Isa. xxxi. 9, " Saith the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jeru salem." The "fire" there is the fire of a fining-pot ; the "furnace" is a burning furnace. There is such a time, there may be, there hath been such a time, when God will bring his own Zion only to the fining-pot, and they shall not be in the furnace with wicked ones. I am afraid the cleansing of the churches is beyond the fining- pot; however, here in my text they are put into the same furnace.