eth 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 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