羅馬書講道集 第 25 章 第 2/2 段

For they, though wholly inexperienced in all things, when they heard that the city would be overthrown, not only did not disbelieve, but even groaned and put on sackcloth and were dismayed, and did not desist, doing everything, until they had turned away the wrath;

but you, who have taken so great an experience of events, do you by mere words set at naught what has been spoken? Then the contrary shall come to pass.

For just as those men, having feared the words, did not undergo the punishment from the events,

so you also, despising the threatening that comes from words, shall undergo the punishment that comes from events.

And if now the words seem to you to be a fable, yet not so when the events convince you at that time.

Do you not see even here what He has done? How, taking two robbers, He did not count them worthy of the same things, but brought the one into the kingdom and sent the other away into hell? And why do I speak of a robber and a murderer? For neither did He spare the apostle, when he became a traitor, but even as He beheld him rushing to the noose, and being strangled and bursting asunder in the midst (for indeed 'he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out')

yet nevertheless, though He foreknew all these things, He let him suffer all this, assuring you from things present concerning all things yonder as well.

Do not, therefore, cheat yourselves by being persuaded by the devil;

for these notions are his.

For if even judges and masters and teachers and barbarians honor the good but punish the wicked,

how could there be any reason that with God the contrary should take place, and that both the good man and the one who is not such should be counted worthy of the same things? And when will there ever be a riddance of wickedness? For even those who now expect punishment, and are amid so many fears from the judges and from the laws, yet do not desist from wickedness;

When, having departed to that place, they have laid aside even this fear, and not only do not fall into hell but even obtain the kingdom, when then will they who work wickedness ever cease? Is this then, tell me, a mark of loving-kindness: to aggravate wickedness, to set a prize upon vice, to count the temperate and the licentious worthy of the same things, the faithful and the ungodly, Paul and the devil? But how long shall we too keep talking foolishly? Wherefore I exhort you, being delivered from this madness and coming to your own selves, persuade your soul to fear and to tremble, that so it may both be delivered from the hell to come, and, having lived its life here in temperance, may attain the good things to come, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, and honour, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.