IV. But, further, this figure teaches that the same divine fire may
become destructive.

The emblem of fire suggests a double operation, and the very felicity of
it as an emblem is that it has these two sides, and with equal
naturalness may stand for a power which quickens, and for one which
destroys. The difference in the effects springs not from differences in
the cause, but in the objects with which the fire plays. The same God is
the fire of life, the fire of love, of purifying and transformation and
glad energy to whosoever will put his trust in Him, and a fire of
destruction and anger unto whosoever resists Him. The alternative stands
before every soul of man, to be quickened by fire or consumed by it. We
may make the furnace of God our blessedness and the reservoir of a far
more joyful and noble life than ever we could have lived in our
coldness; or we may make it terror and destruction. There lie the two
possibilities before every one of us. We cannot stand apart from Him; we
have relations with Him, whether we will or no; He is something to us.
He is, and must be for all, a flaming fire. We can settle whether it
shall be a fire which is life-giving unto life, or a fire which is
death-giving unto death.

Here are two buildings: the one the life of the man that lives apart
from God, and therefore has built only with wood, hay, and stubble; the
other the life of the man that lives with God and for Him, and so has
built with gold, silver, and precious stones. The day and the fire come;
and the fates of these two are opposite effects of the same cause. The
licking tongues surround the wretched hut, built of combustibles, and up
go wood and hay and stubble, in a smoking flare, and disappear. The
flames play round the gold and silver and precious stones, and every