The Institution of Christian Religion

But they have an invincible bulwark in Paul, which can not so §9easily be battered. If any man (saith he) build upon this foundation,¹ gold, silver, precious stones, timber, hey, stubble, the Lord shall show every mans work what it is: because it shall be revealed in fire, and the fire shall try every mans work what it is. If any mans work do burn, it shall suffer loss, but he shall be safe, but as through the fire. What fire (say they) can that be, but the fire of Purgatory? by which the filthinesses of sin are cleansed away, that we may enter pure in to the kingdom of God? But the most part of the old writers thought it to be an other fire,² that is to say, Trouble or the cross, by which the Lord trieth them that be his, that they should not rest in the filthiness of the flesh: and that is much more probable, than in feigning Purgatory. All be it I do neither agree with these men, because I think I have attained a certain and much plainer understanding of that place. But before that I utter it, I would have them answer me, whether the Apostles and all the saints must have gone through this fire of Purgatory? I know they will say, nay. For it were to much inconvenient that they must have needed to be purged, whose merits they dream to overflow above measure to all the men bres of the church. But the Apostle affirmeth it. For he doth not say that the work of some shall be proved, but the work of all. Neither is this my argument,³ but Augustine's, which so confuteth that exposition. And (which is more absurdity) he doth not say, that they shall pass through the fire for all works: but if they have faithfully builded the church, they shall receive reward when their work is examined with fire. First we see that the Apostle used a Metaphor, when he called the doctrines invented by mans brains, wooed, hey, and stubble. And the Metaphor hath an apparent rescue: that as wood so soon as it is put in the fire, consumeth and wasteth, so can not those doctrines continue when they come to be examined. Now no man is ignorant that such trial cometh of the holy Ghost. Therefore to follow the true cause of his metaphor, and match the parts together with just relation, he called the trial of the holy Ghost, fire.