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Sermon LXXVI
作者Author  /  John  Donne  約翰.唐恩

Sermon LXXVI

 
 
 
 

 

When Gods hand is bent to strike,it is a fearful

 

thing to fall into the hands of the lining God; but to

 

fall out of the hands of the living god is a horror beyond

 

our expression, beyond our imagination. That God should

 

let my soul fall out of his hand into a bottomless pit and

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roll an unremovable stone upon it and leave it to that

 

which it finds there (and it shall find that there which it

 

never imagined till it came thither) and never think more

 

of that soul, never have more to do with it; that of that

 

providence of God that studies the life of every weed

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and worm and ant and spider and toad and viper there should

 

never, never any beam flow out upon me; that that God

 

who looked upon me when I was nothing and called me

 

when I was not, as though I had been, out of the womb

 

and depth of darkness, will not look upon me now, when

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though a miserable and a banished and a damned creature,

 

yet I am his creature still and contribute something to his

 

glory even in my damnation; that that God who hath

 

often looked upon me in my foulest uncleanness and when

 

I had shut out the eye of the day, the sun, and the eye of

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the night, the taper, and the eyes of all the world with

 

curtains and windows and doors, did yet see me and see

 

me in mercy by making me se that he saw me and

 

sometimes brought me to a present remorse and (for that

 

time) to a forbearing of that sin, should so turn himself

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from me to his glorious saints and angels as that no saint

 

nor angel nor Christ Jesus himself should ever pray him

 

to look towards me, never remember him that such a

 

soul there is; that that God who hath so often said to my

 

soul, Quare morieris? why wilt thou die? And so often

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sworn to my soul, Vivit Dominus, as the Lord liveth, I

 

would not have thee die but live, will neither let me die

 

nor let me live, but die an everlasting life and live an

 

everlasting death; that that God who, when he could not

 

get into me by standing and knocking, by his ordinary

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means of entering, by his word, his mercies, hath applied

 

his judgments and hath shaked the house, this body, with

 

agues and palsies, and frighted the master of the house, my

 

soul, with horrors and heavy apprehensions and so made

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an entrance into me; that that God should frustrate all his

 

own purposes and practices upon me and leave me and

 

cast me away as though I had cost him nothing; that this

 

God at last should let this soul go away as a smoke, as

 

a vapor, as a bubble; and that then this soul cannot be a

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smoke, a vapor, not a bubble, but must lie in darkness

 

as long as the Lord of light is light itself, and never spark

 

of that light reach to my soul; what Tophet is not

 

paradise, what brimstone is not amber, what gnashing is not a

 

comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling,

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what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to

 

be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight

 

of God?

 

 
 
 

 

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bottomless pit                        無底坑(指獄)。

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providence of God                神意;天道。

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foulest                                     最骯髒。

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taper                                        蠟燭。

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forbearing                               容忍。

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Quare morieris?                   why wilt thou die?之意。

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Vivit Dominus                       the Lord liveth之意。

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agues and palsies                 打擺子和半身不遂。

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calentures                               熱帶地方之一種熱病

                                               病水手常誤認海為陸地

                                                而欲跳進)。

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frustrate                                  破壞。

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practices                                 詭計。

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Tophet                                    地獄。

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brimstone                               硫黃石;地獄的燃料。

gnashing                                咬牙切齒。

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be secluded                            被隔絕。

 
 
   
 
   
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