約伯倫理 第 753 章

Verse 17. — 'How often is their lamp extinguished, and a flood comes upon them, and He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath.' 55. With how many and how great punishments the evil are afflicted. — Often the ungodly man esteems his children's life to be his lamp; but when the son who is loved too much is taken away, the lamp of the ungodly, which seemed to shine, is extinguished. Often the ungodly man reckons the glory of present honor to be his lamp; but when, his dignity being removed, he is cast down, the lamp is extinguished which shone for him according to his desire. Often the ungodly man reckons the wealth of earthly substance being present to himself to be, as it were, a great lamp of light; but when, loss rushing in, he has lost the riches which he loved more than himself, what else has he lost than the lamp in whose light he rejoiced?

Whoever therefore does not desire to rejoice in eternal things, cannot continually be glad even here where he wishes to establish himself. For how often is the lamp of the ungodly extinguished, and a flood comes upon them, and He distributes the sorrows of His wrath. A flood comes upon the ungodly, when they suffer waves of sorrows from some adversity. For almighty God, when He sees Himself despised and Himself rejoiced over amid earthly concupiscence, strikes with sorrow this very thing which He sees preferred before Himself in the thought of the ungodly. And well is it said: 'And He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath.' For He who keeps eternal sorrows for the ungodly by retribution, sometimes also pierces through his mind even with temporal sorrow:

because He strikes both here and there, He distributes the sorrows of His wrath upon the ungodly. For neither does the present punishment, which does not change the unjust soul from its depraved desires, free it from the eternal torments. Whence also through the Psalmist it is said: 'He shall rain snares upon sinners; fire, brimstone, and the spirit of storms, is the portion of their cup' (Psalm 10:7). For by saying 'snares, fire, brimstone, and the spirit of storms,' He has indeed brought in many sorrows. But because from those sorrows the sinner who is not corrected is called to eternal torments, He called those same sorrows not yet the whole cup, but a portion of the cup: because indeed their suffering is here begun through sorrows, but is consummated in perpetual vengeance.

Concerning whose end it is still subjoined: