美国语文第六册 第192期:新英格兰清教徒先辈的品格(4)（在线收听）

As deeply seated as was the principle of liberty and resistance to arbitrary power in the breasts of the Puritans,

自由的原则和对专制势力奋起反抗，在清教徒心中深深扎根，

it was not more so than their piety and sense of religious obligation.

这与他们的虔诚和宗教责任感如出一辙。

They were emphatically a people whose God was the Lord.

他们都强调以上帝为君主的人。

Their form of government was as strictly theocratical, if direct communication be excepted, as was that of the Jews;

如果接受直接交流的话，他们的政府体制严格符合犹太人的神权政治；

insomuch that it would be difficult to say where there was any civil authority among them entirely distinct from ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

就此程度而言，很难说在他们中间存在完全有别于教会裁判权的民权。

Whenever a few of them settled a town, they immediately gathered themselves into a church;

一旦他们中有些人在一座城镇定居下来，他们很快就会组建一个教堂；

and their elders were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch.

其中年长者是地方法官，所依据的法典则是《摩西五书》。

These were forms, it is true, but forms which faithfully indicated principles and feelings;

这些虽然是一些组织形式，但实际上忠实于原则和情感，

for no people could have adopted such forms, who were not thoroughly imbued with the spirit, and bent on the practice, of religion.

因为没有谁会采纳这样没有完全激发基督教精神，而倾向于宗教常规的形式。

God was their King; and they regarded him as truly and literally so, as if he had dwelt in a visible palace in the midst of their state.

上帝是他们的王；他们将上帝视为真正和真实的存在，仿佛他就住在他们国家一个能看得见的宫殿里似的。

They were his devoted, resolute, humble subjects; they undertook nothing which they did not beg of him to prosper;

他们是他虔敬、坚决且谦恭的臣民；他们只要祈求他保佑他们繁荣兴旺，什么都可以承担；

they accomplished nothing without rendering to him the praise;

他们不吝对他的赞美，任何事业都可以完成；

they suffered nothing without carrying their sorrows to his throne; they ate nothing which they did not implore him to bless.

只要向他倾诉衷肠，任何困苦都不在话下。