約伯倫理 第 657 章

Verse 8. — For he has put his foot into a net, and walks amid its meshes. 13. When the sinner strives to be freed from the snares of sin, he learns by what hard bonds he is held, especially at the end of life. — He who puts his feet into a net does not cast them out when he wishes; so he who casts himself down into sins does not rise as soon as he wishes; and he who walks amid the meshes of a net entangles his own steps by walking, and when he strives to free himself for walking, he is bound so that he cannot walk. For it often happens that someone, persuaded by the delight of this world, attains in it to the glory of honour, so that he arrives at the effect of his desires, and rejoices that he has attained to what he sought.

But because the goods of the world, when not possessed, are objects of love, and very often when possessed grow cheap, he learns by perceiving how cheap is what he sought. Whence, recalled to his mind, he searches how he may flee without fault from what he perceives himself to have obtained with fault; but the very dignity which entangled him holds him, and he cannot flee without other faults from where he did not arrive without fault. He has therefore put his feet into a net, and walks amid its meshes, because when he strives to be freed, then he truly beholds by what hard bonds he is held. For neither do we truly recognize our bondage except when, striving to escape, we as it were attempt to lift our feet. Whence he also discloses this same bondage, subjoining: Verse 9. — His heel shall be held by a snare.

Because, forsooth, his end shall be bound fast in sin. And because the enemy of the human race, when he binds the life of each one in guilt, anxiously pants after his death, it is rightly subjoined: