評論
打印
But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet-'out of the belly of hell'--when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten--his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean-Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!
我們已經看到,上帝用大鯨去突襲他,把他一口吞進了活地獄里,一陣疾風便把他刮到海中心去了,在那里,急卷急旋的深淵直把他吸到一萬的海底,海草纏繞他的頭，災難的海水全都把他淹沒。然而,當大鯨躺在海底,即使是在任何鉛錘都沉不到底...處在陰間的深處的時候,即使就在這種時候,那個在魚腹里的悔罪的先知一聲叫嚷,上帝就聽到了。于是,上帝吩咐魚;那條大鯨就從那冷得教人打顫和兇險的大海里,尾巴往上一甩。沖向那溫暖而悅人的太陽,沖向那充滿生氣的太空和大地;把約拿吐在旱地上,等到耶和華的話二次臨到約拿的時候;遍體鱗傷的約拿...他那兩只活象貝殼的耳朵,還在嗡響著海里各式各樣的雜音...便遵照全能之神的命令了。那么,是什么命令呢?船友們?就是敢于面向虛偽傳播真理!就是這個。
This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it.
這個,船友們,這個就是第二個教訓;愿那個玩忽永生之主的教訓的舵工受難。
Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty!
愿那個被這世界誘惑得離棄了福音的本份的人受難!
Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal!
愿那個當上帝把海釀起了大風他卻想把油倒在海上的人受難!愿那個愛討好人家而不敢得罪人家的人受難!
