Proverbs 17:3

The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the Lord trieth the hearts.

God’s fining pot and furnace

The text is a parabolical description of God’s almighty power and wisdom, for the discovery and reformation of the closest, and subtlest, and perfectest thing in the world, which is the heart of man.

I. The proposition. First part of the verse. The metals mentioned are silver and gold. The instruments are the fining pot and the furnace. Good men are like gold and silver in sundry regards.

1. From the solidity and substantialness of their principles.

2. From the purity and sincerity of their conversation.

3. From the splendour of their example.

Their hearts are like gold and silver, but it is like gold and silver in the ore, which has a great deal of dross mixed with it, and must be separated from it by God’s instruments of purification. The “fining pot” represents the Word of God, the “furnace” represents the rod of God, or affliction. The furnace is not for the hurt of the gold, but for its advantage. Labour to be bettered by every hand of God upon us, that so therein we may close with His gracious ends.

II. The reddition. “But the Lord trieth the hearts.” This adversative particle hath a threefold emphasis in it.

1. An emphasis of proportion. Taking “but” for “so.” The Lord is no less able or careful to try the hearts of the sons of men than the goldsmith is his silver and gold. God tries the heart either in a way of discovery or of purification. He tries them so as to discern them, and make known what they are. This kind of trial has two seasons, this present time and the world to come. He tries them to purge them, and remove their corruptions from them. This He does out of love to themselves, that He may make them vessels of honour. In reference to their works, that they may bring forth more fruit. For the sake of others.

2. An emphasis of exception. As restraining the skill of the refiner in this particular. He may be able to refine his metals, but he cannot try the heart.

3. An emphasis of appropriation. “The Lord trieth the hearts,” i.e., the Lord alone does it. This is His prerogative. None other can try the heart thus authoritatively, and none can try it so effectually. (T. Horton, D. D.)

Heart tests

The chemical analyst has different tests for different poisons. If he suspect the presence of arsenic, he will use one thing to detect that; if he is looking for antimony, he will take another to discover that; if he is trying for strychnine, he will employ quite another to bring that to light. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Religious lessons from metallurgy

To get the dross out of us, this is the sovereign aim of our training in this world. In education the main purpose is to free the mental faculties of the dross of sloth and prejudice. In active life the great success is in confirming the fibre of energy and character. In higher relations the object of the Almighty is to burn out the dross of the spirit and make us noble and pure. What is dross in human character? Suppose you are inclined to avarice, the excessive love of money. If you think of your own character as strengthened, made better, do you think of that quality of avarice as untouched? Do you think of it as stronger than it is now? Or do you think of it as weaker, as melted down in part, and poured off from your soul like scum? Now consider profanity, levity, intemperance, lust, moral sluggishness, vanity, haughtiness, insolence of words or manners, irreverence, rebellion in feeling against Providence--translate these into natural language, into the language of metals and the crucible, what are they?--valuable elements or foul ones, dross or gold? But take the converse qualities--reverence, purity, zeal for good, aspiration, generous use of money, the spirit of sacrifice, charity, devotion to the will of God--how do you represent these in your imagination? You say at once these are the precious elements of human nature and human life. These are the pure silver and gold of the moral world. Now, God is seeking to bring out these qualities into greater concentration and prominence by His moral government. Left to ourselves, to the wandering, undirected impulses of our constitution, mentally and morally, we should always be in the ore state. The hardships of life, the tough conditions that surround the attainment of truth and the training of character, are God’s reducing and refining processes. I do not mean to maintain here that all the hard conditions of life can be explained by this figure, or by any figure or theory of man’s device. But a world without hardships to such beings as we are would be a far worse, a far more disastrous world than the present. What would a ton of ore, taken out in one slab, be likely to say if it could be conscious, when carried to the batteries of the mill, and then washed for gold, and roasted to drive off sulphur, and pounded again, and mixed with quicksilver, and heated once more to drive off the mercury, and melted again into a mixed bar, and assayed, and still once more melted and granulated into cold water, and then gnawed by nitric acid, to take up the silver and leave the gold as sediment, and then precipitated from the acid as pure silver powder, and washed, and packed into cakes by hydraulic presses to squeeze the water out of it, and melted again in bars, and run through rollers, and punched, and milled, and stamped--thus becoming fit to serve the daily necessities of civilisation? Suppose it should be told, half-way in the process, that all this was good for it, was part of a great plan, supremely wise, for its permanent benefit I Would it not be likely to say, “Why did you not leave me in my sluggish content in the darkness of the mine? I was happy there. I had no dream there of a higher and better lot. I should have never known these terrible buffets and scourgings and bitings and pressures if I had been left there. Oh, for that gloom and calm again!” In its silver-bar state, afterwards in its coin-state, will it say so? It can look back then on the trials and pains, and see their meaning and read their bitter but splendid benevolence. We see enough now to show that the best qualities of human nature are brought out and tested by difficulty and suffering. To the choice characters of the world God can say now, as the Spirit said through Isaiah, “I have refined thee, but not with silver: I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” And if this world is designed not as the final state for the enjoyment of God, but as the state in which we get the preparation of quality within for the true knowledge and enjoyment of Him, we find the whole secret of life--of its terrors and its hidden mercy--when we follow the ore from its cave to its appearance as the clean silver and the flaming gold. Do not fail either to receive the searching lesson as to judgment hidden in this analogy. The ore is tested thoroughly at the final process of its history. The assayer, by balance and fire, determines exactly what its quality is and its worth. And the processes of God’s government are taking us to judgment. It is to be known and seen one day just what we are. To the great judgment of truth you and I, and all the millions living, are moving with every heart-beat, and nothing can save us from its severity and its rewards. “The fining-pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but the Lord trieth the hearts.”

1. If we pass now to consider sectarian divisions and strifes in the Christian Church, we can gain some help in a right estimate of them and for a wise charity, from analogies in the science of metallurgy. The great object of the New Testament and of Christianity is to increase religious qualities practically in the world, to add pure working forces to life, so that men will be nobler and happier in themselves and in their relations to each other. God has made different kinds of ores, and equally rich in different kinds. For some kinds of mineral one process is admirable; for other kinds a very different treatment is essential. And human nature is analogous. Evils are thrown off from men, and good is practically brought out, by a variety of spiritual methods; and that Church or system of training is the best for a soul which fits its temperament and quickens its will. In some men the good is quickly and easily appealed to and developed. A simple faith and administration will reach and awaken it. Others have the sulphurets in the soul. They are obstinate. Common batteries and cool washings do not do the work. They need heat, fire, the treatment of the element of fear; that takes hold of them. Calvinism is the process that reduces their stubborn self-will and makes them agents of good. Give the proper temperaments to each Church: let the Episcopalians take those that can be best reached by their methods, and the Methodists take their natural material, and the Swedenborgians and the Quakers and the Calvinists theirs, and the Unitarians theirs, and great good will be done. The world of character will be richer. The work of the Spirit will be variously and properly performed. “There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.” In science men appeal to the facts. If you put in a ton of ore and take out a pound of gold, you may say that there ought to be two pounds, but you can’t say that the process does not produce any gold. And if a system of Christian administration produces honesty, integrity, principle, charity, interest in worship, interest in good ideas and good government and liberty and order, quiet and elevated homes, readiness to serve others and to hold gifts and treasures partly in trust for others--are these qualities to be denied to be good because the process which produces them is different from the ordinary customs? The melter and assayer does not make coin; society does not allow him to put his stamp on money and say, “All gold is spurious which is not poured from my crucibles.” It is his office to produce gold. The Government coins and issues it, and allows that great office to no private hands. So the business of Churches is to produce purity, reverence integrity, charity, readiness to do good in all forms. God rates and stamps the products, and His judgment is the final and the only one as to the honesty or spuriousness of the products of the sanctuaries. There is one other point upon which I wish to make our subject bear in illustration.

2. There is a great discussion now about the Bible, especially the Old Testament, and its religious value. Is it a verbally inspired, completely accurate, and authoritative revelation? The Old Testament is a very wonderful book, and its value in the religious and providential training of the world cannot readily be stated. But it is not a continuous revelation. It does not offer you concentrated spiritual truth in all its pages, the pure silver and gold of the Spirit. The Old Testament is a great lode, or precious mineral vein, upheaved and winding through the strata of a national history. There are different kinds and qualities of ore in it, some easy, some difficult of reduction to the pure standard of moral truth. The Old Testament, compared with all other ancient national literatures, is a religious gold and silver vein immensely, incalculably, divinely rich. That is its distinction in the world, and will be its distinction for ever. And by the statement and authority of Jesus Himself, we get its concentrated value in the laws of love to God and our neighbour. If you understand little of commentaries and theological discussion and council lore, and have these, you have what Jesus Christ called the essentials. Knowledge of mining is good, but its practical value is in furnishing the silver for human use. This spirit of love is the silver into which the inspiration collected from the ore of the Bible is finally reduced. If you do not possess this spirit, your Biblical learning is only intellectual wisdom, your soundness of faith is only correct thinking; and though you may be baptized every day in the name and forms of the most orthodox creed, you advance not by a step towards the kingdom of heaven. (T. Starr King.)