Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation Part 16

VINCENT: Marry, uncle, that way they will not forget, I warrant you, as near as their wits will serve them. But yet have I known some who have ere this thought that they had hid their money safe and sure enough, digging it full deep in the ground, and yet have missed it when they came again and found it digged out and carried away to their hands.

ANTHONY: Nay, from their hands, I think you would say. And it was no marvel. For some such have I known, too, but they have hid their goods foolishly in such place as they were well warned before that they should not. And that were they warned by him whom they well knew for such a one as knew well enough what would come of it.

VINCENT: Then were they more than mad. But did he tell them too where they should have hid it, to make it sure?

ANTHONY: Yea, by St. Mary, did he! For else he would have told them but half a tale. But he told them a whole tale, bidding them that they should in no wise hide their treasure in the ground. And he showed them a good cause, for there thieves dig it out and steal it away.

VINCENT: Why, where should they hide it, then, said he? For thieves may hap to find it out in any place.

ANTHONY: Forsooth, he counselled them to hide their treasure in heaven and there lay it up, for there it shall lie safe. For thither, he said, there can no thief come, till he have left his theft and become a true man first. And he who gave this counsel knew well enough what he said, for it was our Saviour himself, who in the sixth chapter of St. Matthew saith, "h.o.a.rd not up your treasures in earth, where the rust and the moth fret it out and where thieves dig it out and steal it away. But h.o.a.rd up your treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth fret them out, and where thieves dig them not out nor steal them away. For where thy treasure is, there is thine heart too."

If we would well consider these words of our Saviour Christ, methinketh we should need no more counsel at all, nor no more comfort either, concerning the loss of our temporal substance in this Turk's persecution for the faith. For here our Lord in these words teacheth us where we may lay up our substance safe, before the persecution come. If we put it into the poor men's bosoms, there shall it lie safe, for who would go search a beggar's bag for money? If we deliver it to the poor for Christ's sake, we deliver it unto Christ himself. And then what persecutor can there be, so strong as to take it out of his hand?

VINCENT: These things, uncle, are undoubtedly so true that no man can with words wrestle therewith. But yet ever there hangeth in a man's heart a lothness to lack a living!

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ANTHONY: There doth indeed, in theirs who either never or but seldom hear any good counsel against it, or who, when they hear it, hearken to it but as they would to an idle tale, rather for a pastime or for the sake of manners than for any substantial intent and purpose to follow good advice and take any fruit by it. But verily, if we would lay not only our ear but also our heart to it, and consider that the saying of our Saviour Christ is not a poet's fable or a harper's song but the very holy word of almighty G.o.d himself, we would be full sore ashamed of ourselves--and well we might! And we would be full sorry too, when we felt in our affection those words to have in our hearts no more strength and weight but what we remain still of the same dull mind as we did before we heard them.

This manner of ours, in whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s the great good counsel of G.o.d no better settleth nor taketh no better root, may well declare to us that the thorns and briars and brambles of our worldly substance grow so thick and spring up so high in the ground of our hearts that they strangle, as the Gospel saith, the word of G.o.d that was sown therein. And therefore is G.o.d a very good lord unto us, when he causeth, like a good husbandman, his folk to come on the field--for the persecutors are his folk, to this purpose--and with their hooks and their stocking-irons to grub up these wicked weeds and bushes of our earthly substance and carry them quite away from us, that the word of G.o.d sown in our hearts may have room there, and a glade round about for the warm sun of grace to come to it and make it grow. For surely those words of our Saviour shall we find full true, "Where thy treasure is, there is also thine heart." If we lay up our treasure in earth, in earth shall be our hearts. If we send our treasure into heaven, in heaven shall we have our hearts. And surely, the greatest comfort any man can have in his tribulation is to have his heart in heaven.

If thine heart were indeed out of this world and in heaven, all the kinds of torments that all this world could devise could put thee to no pain here. Let us then send our hearts hence thither in such a manner as we may, by sending hither our worldly substance hence.

And let us never doubt but we shall, that once done, find our hearts so conversant in heaven, with the glad consideration of our following the gracious counsel of Christ, that the comfort of his Holy Spirit, inspired in us for that, shall mitigate, diminish, a.s.suage, and (in a manner) quench the great furious fervour of the pain that we shall happen to have by his loving sufferance of our further merit in our tribulation.

If we saw that we should be within a while driven out of this land, and fain to fly into another, we would think that a man were mad who would not be content to forbear his goods here for the while and send them before him into that land where he saw he should live all the rest of his life. So may we verily think yet ourselves much more mad--seeing that we are sure it cannot be long ere we shall be sent, spite of our teeth, out of this world--if the fear of a little lack or the love to see our goods here about us and the lothness to part from them for this little while that we may keep them here, shall be able to keep us from the sure sending them before us into the other world. For we may be sure to live there wealthily with them if we send them thither, or else shortly leave them here behind us and then stand in great jeopardy there to live wretches for ever.

VINCENT: In good faith, good uncle, methinketh that concerning the loss of these outward things, these considerations are so sufficient comforts, that for mine own part I would methinketh desire no more, save only grace well to remember them.

XVI

ANTHONY: Much less than this may serve, cousin, with calling and trusting upon G.o.d's help, without which much more than this cannot serve. But the fervour of the Christian faith so sore fainteth nowadays and decayeth, coming from hot unto luke-warm and from luke-warm almost to key-cold, that men must now be fain to lay many dry sticks to it, as to a fire that is almost out, and use much blowing at it.

But else I think, by my troth, that unto a warm faithful man one thing alone, of which we have spoken yet no word, would be comfort enough in this kind of persecution, against the loss of all his goods.

VINCENT: What thing may that be, uncle?

ANTHONY: In good faith, cousin, even the bare remembrance of the poverty that our Saviour willingly suffered for us. For I verily suppose that if there were a great king who had so tender love for a servant of his that he had, to help him out of danger, forsaken and lost all his worldly wealth and royalty and become poor and needy for his sake, that servant could scantly be found who would be of such a base unnatural heart that if he himself came afterward to some substance he would not with better will lose it all again than shamefully to forsake such a master.

And therefore, as I say, I surely suppose that if we would well remember and inwardly consider the great goodness of our Saviour toward us, when we were not yet his poor sinful servants but rather his adversaries and his enemies, and what wealth of this world he willingly forsook for our sakes--for he was indeed universal king of this world, and so having the power in his own hand to have used it if he had wished, instead of which, to make us rich in heaven, he lived here in neediness and poverty all his life and neither would have authority nor keep either lands or goods. If we would remember this, the deep consideration and earnest advis.e.m.e.nt of this one point alone would be able to make any true Christian man or woman well content rather for his sake in return to give up all that ever G.o.d hath lent them (and lent them he hath, all that they have) than unkindly and unfaithfully to forsake him. And him they forsake if, for fear, they forsake the confessing of his Christian faith.

And therefore, to finish this piece withal, concerning the dread of losing our outward worldly goods, let us consider the slender commodity that they bring; with what labour they are bought; what a little while they abide with whomsoever they abide with longest; what pain their pleasure is mingled with; what harm the love of them doth unto the soul; what loss is in the keeping if Christ's faith is refused for them; what winning is in the loss, if we lose them for G.o.d's sake; how much more profitable they are when well given than when ill kept; and finally what ingrat.i.tude it would be if we would not forsake them for Christ's sake rather than for them to forsake Christ unfaithfully, who while he lived for our sake forsook all the world, beside the suffering of shameful and painful death, of which we shall speak afterward.

If we will consider well these things, I say, and will pray G.o.d with his holy hand to print them in our hearts, and will abide and dwell still in the hope of his help, his truth shall, as the prophet saith, so compa.s.s us about with a s.h.i.+eld that we shall not need to be afraid of this incursion of this midday devil--this plain open persecution of the Turk--for any loss that we can take by the bereaving from us of our wretched worldly goods. For their short and small pleasure in this life forborne, we shall be with heavenly substance everlastingly recompensed by G.o.d, in joyful bliss and glory.

XVII

VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, as for these outward goods, you have said enough. No man can be sure what strength he shall have or how faint and feeble he may find himself when he shall come to the point, and therefore I can make no warranty of myself, seeing that St. Peter so suddenly fainted at a woman's word and so cowardly forsook his master, for whom he had so boldly fought within so few hours before, and by that fall in forsaking well perceived that he had been too rash in his promise and was well worthy to take a fall for putting so full trust in himself. Yet in good faith methinketh now (and G.o.d will, I trust, help me to keep this thought still) that if the Turk should take all that I have, unto my very s.h.i.+rt, unless I would forsake my faith, and should offer it all to me again with five times as much if I would fall into his sect, I would not once stick at it--rather to forsake it every whit, than to forsake any point of Christ's holy faith.

But surely, good uncle, when I bethink me further on the grief and the pain that may turn unto my flesh, here find I the fear that forceth my heart to tremble.

ANTHONY: Neither have I cause to marvel at that, nor have you, cousin, cause to be dismayed for it. The great horror and fear that our Saviour had in his own flesh, against his painful pa.s.sion, maketh me little to marvel. And I may well make you take this comfort, too, that for no such manner of grudging felt in your sensual parts, the flesh shrinking in the meditation of pain and death, your reason shall give over, but resist it and manly master it. And though you would fain fly from the painful death and be loth to come to it, yet may the meditation of our Saviour's great grievous agony move you. And he himself shall, if you so desire him, not fail to work with you therein, and to get and give you the grace to submit and conform your will unto his, as he did his unto his Father. And thereupon shall you be so comforted with the secret inward inspiration of his Holy Spirit, as he was with the personal presence of that angel who after his agony came and comforted him.

And so shall you as his true disciple follow him, and with good will, without grudge, do as he did, and take your cross of pain and suffering upon your back and die for the truth with him, and thereby reign with him crowned in eternal glory.

And this I say to give you warning of the truth, to the intent that when a man feeleth such a horror of death in his heart, he should not thereby stand in outrageous fear that he were falling. For many such a man standeth, for all that fear, full fast, and finally better abideth the brunt, when G.o.d is so good unto him as to bring him to it and encourage him therein, than doth some other man who in the beginning feeleth no fear at all. And yet may he never be brought to the brunt, and most often so it is. For G.o.d, having many mansions, and all wonderful wealthful, in his Father's house, exalteth not every good man up to the glory of a martyr. But foreseeing their infirmity, that though they be of good will before and peradventure of right good courage too, they would yet play St.

Peter if they were brought to the point, and thereby bring their souls into the peril of eternal d.a.m.nation, he provideth otherwise for them before they come there. And he findeth a way that men shall not have the mind to lay any hands upon them, as he found for his disciples when he himself was willingly taken. Or else, if they set hands on them, he findeth a way that they shall have no power to hold them, as he found for St. John the Evangelist, who let his sheet fall from him, upon which they caught hold, and so fled himself naked away and escaped from them. Or, though they hold them and bring them to prison too, yet G.o.d sometimes delivereth them hence, as he did St. Peter. And sometimes he taketh them to him out of the prison into heaven, and suffereth them not to come to their torment at all, as he hath done by many a good holy man. And some he suffereth to be brought into the torments and yet suffereth them not to die in them, but to live many years afterward and die their natural death, as he did by St. John the Evangelist and by many another more, as we may well see both by sundry stories and in the epistles of St. Ciprian also. And therefore, which way G.o.d will take with us, we cannot tell.

But surely, if we be true Christian men, this can we well tell: that without any bold warranty of ourselves or foolish trust in our own strength, we are bound upon pain of d.a.m.nation not to be of the contrary mind but what we will with his help, however loth we feel in our flesh thereto, rather than forsake him or his faith before the world--which if we do, he hath promised to forsake us before his Father and all his holy company of heaven--rather, I say, than we would do so, we would with his help endure and sustain for his sake all the tormentry that the devil with all his faithless tormentors in this world would devise. And then, if we be of this mind, and submit our will unto his, and call and pray for his grace, we can tell well enough that he will never suffer them to put more upon us than his grace will make us able to bear, but will also with their temptation provide for us a sure way. For "G.o.d is faithful," saith St. Paul, "who suffereth you not to be tempted above what you can bear, but giveth also with the temptation a way out." For either, as I said, he will keep us out of their hands, though he before suffered us to be afraid of them to prove our faith (that we may have, by the examination of our mind, some comfort in hope of his grace and some fear of our own frailty to drive us to call for grace), or else, if we call into their hands, provided that we fall not from the trust of him nor cease to call for his help, his truth shall, as the prophet saith, so compa.s.s us about with a s.h.i.+eld that we shall not need to fear this incursion of this midday devil. For these Turks his tormentors, who shall enter this land and persecute us, shall either not have the power to touch our bodies at all, or else the short pain that they shall put into our bodies shall turn us to eternal profit both in our souls and in our bodies too. And therefore, cousin, to begin with, let us be of good comfort. For we are by our faith very sure that holy scripture is the very word of G.o.d, and that the word of G.o.d cannot but be true. And we see by the mouth of his holy prophet and by the mouth of his blessed apostle also that G.o.d hath made us faithful promise that he will not suffer us to be tempted above our power, but will both provide a way out for us and also compa.s.s us round about with his s.h.i.+eld and defend us that we shall have no cause to fear this midday devil with all his persecution. We cannot therefore but be very sure (unless we are very shamefully cowardous of heart and out of measure faint in faith toward G.o.d, and in love less than luke-warm or waxed even key-cold) we may be very sure, I say, either that G.o.d will not suffer the Turks to invade this land; or that, if they do, G.o.d shall provide such resistance that they shall not prevail; or that, if they prevail, yet if we take the way that I have told you we shall by their persecution take little harm or rather none harm at all, but that which shall seem harm indeed be to us no harm at all but good. For if G.o.d make us and keep us good men, as he hath promised to do if we pray well therefore, then saith holy scripture, "Unto good folk all things turn them to good."

And therefore, cousin, since G.o.d knoweth what shall happen and not we, let us in the meanwhile with a good hope in the help of G.o.d's grace have a good purpose of standing sure by his holy faith against all persecutions. And if we should hereafter, either for fear or pain or for lack of his grace lost in our own default, mishap to decline from his good purpose--which our Lord forbid--yet we would have won the well-spent time beforehand, to the diminishment of our pain, and G.o.d would also be much the more likely to lift us up after our fall and give us his grace again.

Howbeit, if this persecution come, we are, by this meditation and well-continued intent and purpose beforehand, the better strengthened and confirmed, and much more likely to stand indeed.

And if it so fortune, as with G.o.d's grace at men's good prayers and amendment of our evil lives it may well fortune, that the Turks shall either be well withstood and vanquished or peradventure not invade us at all, then shall we, perdy, by this good purpose get ourselves of G.o.d a very good cheap thank!

And on the other hand, while we now think on it--and not to think on it, in so great likelihood of it, I suppose no wise man can--if we should for the fear of worldly loss or bodily pain, framed in our own minds, think that we would give over and to save our goods and lives forsake our Saviour by denial of his faith, then whether the Turks come or come not, we are meanwhile gone from G.o.d. And then if they come not indeed, or come and are driven to flight, what a shame should that be to us, before the face of G.o.d, in so shameful cowardly wise to forsake him for fear of that pain that we never felt or that never was befalling us!

VINCENT: By my troth, uncle, I thank you. Methinketh that though you never said more in the matter, yet have you, even with this that you have spoken here already of the fear of bodily pain in this persecution, marvellously comforted mine heart.

ANTHONY: I am glad, cousin, if your heart have taken comfort thereby. But if you so have, give G.o.d the thanks and not me, for that work is his and not mine. For neither am I able to say any good thing except by him, nor can all the good words in the world--no, not the holy words of G.o.d himself, and spoken also with his own holy mouth--profit a man with the sound entering at his ear, unless the Spirit of G.o.d also inwardly work in his soul. But that is his goodness ever ready to do, unless there be hindrance through the untowardness of our own froward will.

XVIII

And now, being somewhat in comfort and courage before, we may the more quietly consider everything, which is somewhat more hard and difficult to do when the heart is before taken up and oppressed with the troublous affection of heavy sorrowful fear. Let us therefore examine now the weight and the substance of those bodily pains which you rehea.r.s.ed before as the sorest part of this persecution. They were, if I remember you right, thraldom, imprisonment, and painful and shameful death. And first let us, as reason is, begin with the thraldom, for that was, as I remember it, the first.

VINCENT: I pray you, good uncle, say then somewhat of that. For methinketh, uncle, that captivity is a marvellous heavy thing, namely when they shall (as they most commonly do) carry us far from home into a strange unknown land.

ANTHONY: I cannot deny that some grief it is, cousin, indeed. But yet, as for me, it is not half so much as it would be if they could carry me out into any such unknown country that G.o.d could not know where nor find the means to come at me!

But now in good faith, cousin, if my migration into a strange country were any great grief unto me, the fault should be much in myself. For since I am very sure that whithersoever man convey me, G.o.d is no more verily here than he shall be there, if I get (as I can, if I will) the grace to set mine whole heart upon him and long for nothing but him, it can then make no matter to my mind, whether they carry me hence or leave me here. And then, if I find my mind much offended therewith, that I am not still here in mine own country, I must consider that the cause of my grief is mine own wrong imagination, whereby I beguile myself with an untrue persuasion, thinking that this were mine own country. Whereas in truth it is not so, for, as St. Paul saith, "We have here no city nor dwelling-country at all, but we seek for one that we shall come to." And in whatsoever country we walk in this world, we are but as pilgrims and wayfaring men. And if I should take any country for mine own, it must be the country to which I come and not the country from which I came. That country, which shall be to me then for a while so strange, shall yet perdy be no more strange to me--nor longer strange to me, neither--than was mine own native country when first I came into it. And therefore if my being far from hence be very grievous to me, and I find it a great pain that I am not where I wish to be, that grief shall in great part grow for lack of sure setting and settling my mind in G.o.d, where it should be. And when I mend that fault of mine, I shall soon ease my grief.

Now, as for all the other griefs and pains that are in captivity, thraldom, and bondage, I cannot deny that many there are and great.

Howbeit, they seem yet somewhat the more--what say I, "somewhat"? I may say a great deal the more--because we took our former liberty for a great deal more than indeed it was.

Let us therefore consider the matter thus: Captivity, bondage, or thraldom, what is it but the violent restraint of a man, being so subdued under the dominion, rule, and power of another that he must do whatever the other please to command him, and may not do at his liberty such things as he please himself? Now, when we shall be carried away by a Turk and be fain to be occupied about such things as he please to set us, we shall lament the loss of our liberty and think we bear a heavy burden of our servile condition. And we shall have, I grant well, many times great occasion to do so. But yet we should, I suppose, set somewhat the less by it, if we would remember well what liberty that was that we lost, and take it for no larger than it was indeed. For we reckon as though we might before do what we would, but in that we deceive ourselves. For what free man is there so free that he can be suffered to do what he please? In many things G.o.d hath restrained us by his high commandment--so many, that of those things which we would otherwise do, I daresay it be more than half. Howbeit, because (G.o.d forgive us) we forbear so little for all that, but do what we please as though we heard him not, we reckon our liberty never the less. But then is our liberty much restrained by the laws made by man, for the quiet and politic governance of the people. And these too would, I suppose, hinder our liberty but little, were it not for the fear of the penalties that fall thereupon. Look then, whether other men who have authority over us never command us some business which we dare not but do, and therefore often do it full sore against our wills. Some such service is sometimes so painful and so perilous too, that no lord can command his bondsmen worse, and seldom doth command him half so sore. Let every free man who reckoneth his liberty to stand in doing what he please, consider well these points, and I daresay he shall then find his liberty much less than he took it for before.

And yet have I left untouched the bondage that almost every man is in who boasteth himself for free--the bondage, I mean, of sin. And that it be a true bondage, I shall have our Saviour himself to bear me good record. For he saith, "Every man who committeth sin is the thrall, or the bondsman, of sin." And then if this be thus (as it must needs be, since G.o.d saith it is so), who is there then who can make so much boast of his liberty that he should take it for so sore a thing and so strange to become through chance of war, bondsman unto a man, since he is already through sin become willingly thrall and bondsman unto the devil?

Let us look well how many things, and of what vile wretched sort, the devil driveth us to do daily, through the rash turns of our blind affections, which we are fain to follow, for our faultful lack of grace, and are too feeble to refrain. And then shall we find in our natural freedom our bondservice such that never was there any man lord of any so vile a bondsman that he ever would command him to so shameful service. And let us, in the doing of our service to the man that we be slave unto, remember what we were wont to do about the same time of day while we were at our free liberty before, and would be well likely, if we were at liberty, to do again. And we shall peradventure perceive that it were better for us to do this business than that. Now we shall have great occasion of comfort, if we consider that our servitude, though in the account of the world it seem to come by chance of war, cometh unto us yet in very deed by the provident hand of G.o.d, and that for our great good if we will take it well, both in remission of sins and also as matter of our merit.

The greatest grief that is in bondage or captivity, I believe, is this: that we are forced to do such labour as with our good will we would not. But then against that grief, Seneca teacheth us a good remedy: "Endeavour thyself evermore that thou do nothing against thy will, but the things that we see we shall needs do, let us always put our good will thereto."

VINCENT: That is soon said, uncle, but it is hard to do.

ANTHONY: Our froward mind maketh every good thing hard, and that to our own more hurt and harm. But in this case, if we will be good Christian men, we shall have great cause gladly to be content, for the great comfort that we may take thereby. For we remember that in the patient and glad doing of our service unto that man for G.o.d's sake, according to his high commandment by the mouth of St. Paul, _"Servi obedite dominis carnalibus,"_ we shall have our thanks and our whole reward of G.o.d.

Finally, if we remember the great humble meekness of our Saviour Christ himself--that he, being very almighty G.o.d, "humbled himself and took the form of a bondsman or slave," rather than that his Father should forsake us--we may think ourselves very ungrateful caitiffs (and very frantic fools, too) if, rather than to endure this worldly bondage for awhile, we would forsake him who hath by his own death delivered us out of everlasting bondage to the devil, and who will for our short bondage give us everlasting liberty.