GOLD TRIED 550 TIMES in the FIRE Timothy Alborn
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GOLD TRIED 550 TIMES IN THE FIRE Timothy Alborn Historians inevitably face the challenge of selecting a subset of primary sources to stand for a much larger body of research. This challenge is magnified in the case of the history of ideas, where the need to provide closer readings tends to diminish that already small sample size. My article, “The Greatest Metaphor Ever Mixed,” distilled hundreds of sources from numerous genres down to a few dozen. A section on the various uses of the metaphor of gold tried in the fire, for instance, quotes twenty-eight sources that employ that metaphor, or roughly five percent of the sources I consulted. To find all these sources, I pursued two parallel tracks. The first was part of a larger project on the cultural and economic history of gold in Britain from 1780 to 1850, which will soon be published by Oxford University Press. For this project, I spent the last eight years looking for references to gold wherever they showed up: in treatises, novels, sermons, speeches, and newspaper articles, among many other sources. The bulk of my research utilized such online databases as Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Making of the Modern World, and Google Books. After realizing, a few years into this research, that gold appeared frequently and with interesting variations in numerous religious contexts, I did more targeted search in these databases (see my full list of search terms below for “gold tried in the fire”). In a blog post accompanying a different article I published two years ago in the Journal of Victorian Culture, I made a first foray into providing access to the larger cultural world that historians must curtail in order to “see the forest for the trees.” (link). Here, I follow the model I used in that post, through the creation of a web page that breaks down my research notes for the “crucible” section of my article into several different topics (including references to affliction, illness or death, persecution, temptation, and secular uses). In the vast majority of cases where Google Books enabled this, I have linked these entries to the passages in the books and periodicals where I found them, to enable readers to explore their “natural habitat”; and I’ve identified each author by religious denomination where I was able to discover that information. I’ve also included a link to two Excel files I used: one tabulates my notes in order to locate patterns across these denominations (this includes some sources I didn’t transcribe in my notes), and the other (which I constructed by going through the Bible chapter by chapter using the service BibleGateway.com) identifies every Biblical passage that refers to gold. Readers should feel free to use this collection however they see fit: as a resource for their own research; as an introduction to my own idiosyncratic research methodology (and in my experience every historian’s research methodology errs on the side of idiosyncrasy); or as an entertaining anthology, with plenty of amazing books titles such as The Gospel Recovered from its Captive State, and Restored to its Original Purity. Gold references in the Bible, accessed using BibleGateway.com (Excel file) Crucible references (Excel file) Search terms: forth as gold come forth purified forth like gold gold in the fire gold from the fire out of the furnace furnace of affliction out of the fire tried in the fire purified in the fire purified by fire as refined gold like pure gold seven times purified purified seven times seven times in the fire gold shines brightest purer and brighter passed through the fire fiery trial With a few exceptions, these sources were all published in the United Kingdom (or, rarely, one of its colonies) between 1750 and 1850—including sources that originally appeared in print prior to 1750 but were published at least once between 1750 and 1850. I have reproduced the notes I took from each source, which are organized by topic and, within each topic, chronologically by original year of publication. In most cases you can click the title to get to the book or article via Google Books; the link should land you at the section quoted, and you can fan out from there to discover its context. RELIGIOUS USES General sources William Goode, Essays on all the Scriptural Names and Titles of Christ (London: L.B.Seeley, 1822), series 4 in a survey of the “scriptural names and titles of Christ” includes a section “Refiner—Purifier” (2: 303-322): “Sin is the pollution of the soul: it is that corrupt principle that, entering in, defiled the pure creation of God; that drossy and earthly mixture which still injures and debases the gracious principles of the renewed heart… An infectious and diseased leper could not be more loathsome with his boils to the pure Israelite; a den of unclean beasts, or a cage of unclean birds cannot be more unsightly and unwelcome to the most delicate feelings, or a sepulchre with its noisome odours cannot be more offensive to the most refined smell, or with its putrifying carcasses to the most exact observing eye, than the heart denied with sin in the eyes of Infinite and Unchanging Purity. The grand design and ultimate effect of redeeming love is, its complete purification; this must be effected before it can again dwell in his immediate presence; this the true believer desires may be effected; and to produce this is the great purpose of the word, the works, and all the gracious and providential ways and dispensations of the Lord; and especially of those trying, afflictive, and gloomy paths in which his people are led; and the end and object of which, through the remaining carnality of the mind, and the power of unbelief, they are often unable now to perceive” (303). “May every trial which the reader or the writer experiences forward this design, and it will be well! May they all promote this end, and terminate in this happy state! and the eternal glory must be given to that wisdom which directed them, that power that turned them into the means of blessings, that grace that sanctified them to purge away the dross and refine the gold” (304). Anglican Goode 1822: “He comes to break the chain and bands of sin, and we reluctantly yield; to shew the emptiness and vanity of the world and earthly possessions, by the loss, or temporary suspension, of their enjoyments, and we murmur. He comes to exercise and strengthen faith by the trial of faith, and it excites our doubts, suspicions, and alarm. We are ready to say, "By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation!" (Psal. Ixv. 5.) But this is the Lord's own peculiar work. ‘The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but the Lord trieth the hearts.’ (Prov. xvii. 3.)” (2: 314). “Refining is always a fiery process, and is intended to be a searching one; and is the more necessary, as the dross is more intermixed, or the gold more valuable: and the object is not its destruction, nor the loss even of a single particle, but its extrication from the impure mixture, and its refinement, that it may be more suited to the purposes for which the owner hath designed it. This affords a pleasing, though a serious, view of the trying dispensations of providence” (315). Anglican Goode 1822: “The idea is interesting and solemn; his people are his gold and silver, they are his… ‘peculiar treasure;’ he is anxious that they should appear as such; that they should shine to his glory; and therefore he determines to refine and purify them from earthly dross. He assumes, therefore, the office, and casts them into the furnace of trial; but he sits by observing the whole: he has well observed the need they stand in of the trying dispensation / what peculiar trials are suited to their state; and what degrees they may be able to endure. He sees how they bear under it, the effects which it produces. He is intent upon and examining the process: it shall neither be too little nor too much; but, in time, in nature, and in measure, suited to answer the purpose of the great Redeemer in the purification and preservation of bis people. So that every believer may be confident with holy Job, though be may not discern the work or design of the Lord, that "he knoweth the path which he takes, and when he hath tried him, he shall come forth as gold." (Job xxiii. 10.)” (2: 316- 317). “Let, then, the believer be induced to look upon his present afflictions, of whatever kind, in a very different light from what unbelief would represent them. The Gospel opens a most encouraging view to the mind” (319). Anglican Christian Lady’s Magazine 1845: “Believers are … represented [in Scripture] as polished stones: but they cannot at once attain that beauty and smoothness which is to the praise of God, for we are his workmanship (Eph. ii.) Again, they are as gold refined, but then the process must be gradually accomplished. We do not at once behold the full corn in the ear, but first the blade, then the ear. God will not look for fruits if he has not himself tended the vineyard, fenced it, and placed it on a fruitful hill, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine. How tenderly, how infinitely above our thoughts of him does he deal with his creatures” (24: 444).