39. As if he said in plain terms, ‘I for mine own part both search myself strictly, and am not able to know myself thoroughly; yet He, Whom I have not power to see, seeth most minutely all the things that I do.’ It goes on; And He shall try me like gold which passeth through the fire.
Gold in the furnace is advanced to the brightness of its nature, whilst it loses the dross. And so like ‘gold that passeth through the fire’ the souls of the righteous are tried, which by the burning of tribulation through and through, both have their defects removed, and their good points increased. Nor was it of pride that the holy man likened himself as set in tribulation to gold, in that he who, by the voice of God, was pronounced righteous before the stroke, was not for this reason permitted to be tried that bad qualities might be cleared off, but that excellences might be heightened; but gold is purified by fire; less then than he was did he think of his own self, in that, being delivered over ...
