約伯倫理 第 472 章

Ibid. And thinketh himself born free like a wild ass's colt. 23. By the wild ass indeed is expressed every kind of wild creature, which, given over to the motions of nature, is not held by the reins of masters. For the beasts of the field have it in their liberty both to go where they desire and to rest when they are wearied. And although man is by far better than senseless animals, yet this is very often not permitted to man which is permitted to brute animals. For the motions of those creatures which are kept for no other purpose are, without doubt, in no way restrained under discipline.

But man, who is led toward the life to come, must without doubt in all his motions be bound under the ordering of discipline, and, like a domestic animal tied with reins, serve, and live restrained by eternal ordinances. He, therefore, who seeks through unbridled liberty to fulfill all that he desires, what else does he covet but to be like a wild ass's colt, so that the reins of discipline may not hold him, but he may run boldly and wandering through the forest of desires? 24. The reins by which God restrains and rules us. But often the divine mercy shatters, by the interposition of hastening adversity, those whom it beholds going forth into the unbridledness of unlawful liberty, so that, cast down, they may learn how they had swelled with a reprobate self-exaltation;

so that now, tamed by the trials of the scourge, like domestic beasts of burden they may bow their necks under the reins of the precepts of the mind, and travel the paths of the present life at the beck of him who presides. Well did he know himself bound with such reins, who said: I am become as a beast of burden before thee, and I am ever with thee (Ps. lxxii, 23). Hence too that fierce persecutor, led from the field of faithless pleasure to the house of faith, pricked by the spurs of his Ruler, heard: It is hard for thee to kick against the goad (Acts ix, 5). It remains, therefore, that if we do not wish now to be like a wild ass's colt, in all things we desire we should first seek the beck of the inmost dispensation, so that our mind may in everything to which it strives be held by the rein of the supernal governance;

and thence rather fulfill its own vows unto life, whence it treads down the pursuits of its own life even against its proper will. Zophar brought forth many mighty things, but he knows not that he speaks these to a better man than himself. Hence, still rebuking, he subjoins: