Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation Part 9

Of the man may you gather them, if you can peradventure show him that in such-and-such a point he is waxed worse since such revelations have haunted him than he was before--as, in those who are deluded, whosoever be well acquainted with them shall well mark and perceive. For they wax more proud, more wayward, more envious, suspicious, misjudging and depraving other men, with the delight of their own praise, and such other spiritual vices of the soul.

Of the matter may you gather, if it has happened that his revelations before have proved false, or if they be strange things rather than profitable ones. For that is a good mark between G.o.d's miracles and the devil's wonders. For Christ and his saints have their miracles always tending to fruit and profit. The devil and his witches and necromancers, all their wonderful works tend to no fruitful end, but to a fruitless ostentation and show, as it were a juggler who would for a show before the people play feats of skill at a feast.

Of the law of G.o.d you must draw your reasons in showing by the scripture that the thing which he thinketh G.o.d biddeth by his angel, G.o.d hath by his own mouth forbidden. And that is, you know well, in the case that we speak of, so easy to find that I need not to rehea.r.s.e it to you. For among the Ten Commandments there is plainly forbidden the unlawful killing of any man, and therefore of himself, as (St. Austine saith) all the church teacheth, unless he himself be no man.

VINCENT: This is very true, good uncle, nor will I dispute upon any glossing of that prohibition. But since we find not the contrary but that G.o.d may dispense with that commandment himself, and both license and command also, if he himself wish, any man to go kill either another man or himself, this man who is now by such a marvellous vision induced to believe that G.o.d so biddeth him, and therefore thinketh himself in that case discharged of that prohibition and charged with the contrary commandment--with what reason can we make him perceive that his vision is but an illusion and not a true revelation?

ANTHONY: Nay, Cousin Vincent, you shall in this case not need to ask those reasons of me. But taking the scripture of G.o.d for a ground for this matter, you know very well yourself that you shall go somewhat a shorter way to work if you ask this question of him: Since G.o.d hath forbidden once the thing himself, though he may dispense with it if he will, yet since the devil may feign himself G.o.d and with a marvellous vision delude one, and make as though G.o.d did it; and since the devil is also more likely to speak against G.o.d's commandment than G.o.d against his own; you shall have good cause, I say, to demand of the man himself whereby he knoweth that his vision is G.o.d's true revelation and not the devil's false delusion.

VINCENT: Indeed, uncle, I think that would be a hard question to him. Can a man, uncle, have in such a thing even a very sure knowledge of his own mind?

ANTHONY: Yea, cousin, G.o.d may cast into the mind of a man, I suppose, such an inward light of understanding that he cannot fail but be sure thereof. And yet he who is deluded by the devil may think himself as sure and yet be deceived indeed. And such a difference is there in a manner between them, as between the sight of a thing while we are awake and look thereon, and the sight with which we see a thing in our sleep while we dream thereof.

VINCENT: This is a pretty similitude, uncle, in this thing! And then is it easy for the monk that we speak of to declare that he knoweth his vision for a true revelation and not a false delusion, if there be so great a difference between them.

ANTHONY: Not so easy yet, cousin, as you think it would be. For how can you prove to me that you are awake?

VINCENT: Marry, lo, do I not now wag my hand, shake my head, and stamp with my foot here on the floor?

ANTHONY: Have you never dreamed ere this that you have done the same?

VINCENT: Yes, that have I, and more too than that. For I have ere this in my sleep dreamed that I doubted whether I were asleep or awake, and have in good faith thought that I did thereupon even the same things that I do now indeed, and thereby determined that I was not asleep. And yet have I dreamed in good faith further, that I have been afterward at dinner and there, making merry with good company, have told the same dream at the table and laughed well at it, to think that while I was asleep I had by such means of moving the parts of my body and considering thereof, so verily thought myself awake!

ANTHONY: And will you not now soon, think you, when you wake and rise, laugh as well at yourself when you see that you lie now in your warm bed asleep again, and dream all this time, while you believe so verily that you are awake and talking of these matters with me?

VINCENT: G.o.d's Lord, uncle, you go now merrily to work with me indeed, when you look and speak so seriously and would make me think I were asleep!

ANTHONY: It may be that you are, for anything that you can say or do whereby you can, with any reason that you make, drive me to confess that you yourself be sure of the contrary. For you cannot do or say anything now whereby you are sure to be awake but what you have ere this, or hereafter may, think yourself as surely to do the selfsame thing indeed while you be all the while asleep and do nothing but lie dreaming.

VINCENT: Well, well, uncle, though I have ere this thought myself awake while I was indeed asleep, yet for all this I know well enough that I am awake now. And so do you too, though I cannot find the words by which I may with reason force you to confess it, without your always driving me off by the example of my dream.

ANTHONY: Meseemeth, cousin, this is very true. And likewise meseemeth the manner and difference between some kind of true revelations and some kind of false illusions is like that which standeth between the things that are done awake and the things that in our dreams seem to be done when we are sleeping. That is, he who hath that kind of revelation from G.o.d is as sure of the truth as we are of our own deeds while we are awake. And he who is deluded by the devil is in such wise deceived as they are by their dream, and worse, too. And yet he reckoneth himself for the time as sure as the other, saving that one believeth falsely, the other truly knoweth. But I say not, cousin, that this kind of sure knowledge cometh in every kind of revelation. For there are many kinds, of which it would be too long to talk now. But I say that G.o.d doth certainly send some such to a man in some thing, or may.

VINCENT: Yet then this religious man of whom we speak, when I show him the scripture against his revelation and therefore call it an illusion, may bid me with reason go mind my own affairs. For he knoweth well and surely himself that his revelation is very good and true and not any false illusion, since for all the general commandment of G.o.d in the scripture, G.o.d may dispense where he will and when he will, and may command him to do the contrary. For he commanded Abraham to kill his own son, and Sampson had, by inspiration of G.o.d, commandment to kill himself by pulling down the house upon his own head at the feast of the Philistines.

Now, if I would then do as you bade me right now, tell him that such apparitions may be illusions, and since G.o.d's word is in the scripture against him plain for the prohibition, he must perceive the truth of his revelation whereby I may know it is not a false illusion; then shall he in turn bid me tell him whereby I can prove myself to be awake and talk with him and not be asleep and dream so, since in my dream I may as surely think so as I know that I do so. And thus shall he drive me to the same bay to which I would bring him.

ANTHONY: This is well said, cousin, but yet could he not escape you so. For the dispensation of G.o.d's common precept, which dispensation he must say that he hath by his private revelation, is a thing of such sort as showeth itself naught and false. For it never hath any example like, since the world began until now, that ever man hath read or heard of, among faithful people commended.

First, as for Abraham, concerning the death of his son: G.o.d intended it not, but only tempted the towardness of the father's obedience. As for Sampson, all men make not the matter very sure whether he be saved or not, but yet therein some matter and cause appeareth. For the Philistines being enemies of G.o.d and using Sampson for their mocking-stock in scorn of G.o.d, it is well likely that G.o.d gave him the mind to bestow his own life upon the revenging of the displeasure that those blasphemous Philistines did unto G.o.d. And that appeareth clear enough by this: that though his strength failed him when he lacked his hair, yet had he not, it seemeth, that strength evermore at hand while he had his hair, but only at such times as it pleased G.o.d to give it to him. This thing appeareth by these words, that the scripture in some place of that matter saith, "The power or might of G.o.d rushed into Sampson." And so therefore, since this thing that he did in the pulling down of the house was done by the special gift of strength then at that point given him by G.o.d, it well declareth that the strength of G.o.d, and with it the spirit of G.o.d, entered into him for it.

St. Austine also rehea.r.s.eth that certain holy virtuous virgins, in time of persecution, being pursued by G.o.d's enemies the infidels to be deflowered by force, ran into a water and drowned themselves rather than be bereaved of their virginity. And, albeit that he thinketh it is not lawful for any other maid to follow their example, but that she should suffer another to do her any manner of violence by force and commit sin of his own upon her against her will, rather than willingly and thereby sinfully herself to become a homicide of herself; yet he thinketh that in them it happened by the special instinct of the spirit of G.o.d, who, for causes seen to himself, would rather that they should avoid it with their own temporal death than abide the defiling and violation of their chast.i.ty.

But now this good man neither hath any of G.o.d's enemies to be revenged on by his own death, nor any woman who violently pursues him to bereave him by force of his virginity! And we never find that G.o.d proved any man's obedient mind by the commandment of his own slaughter of himself. Therefore is both his case plainly against G.o.d's open precept, and the dispensation strange and without example, no cause appearing nor well imaginable. Unless he would think that G.o.d could neither any longer live without him, nor could take him to him in such wise as he doth other men, but must command him to come by a forbidden way, by which, without other cause, we never heard that ever he bade any man else before.

Now, you think that, if you should after this bid him tell you by what way he knoweth that his intent riseth upon a true revelation and not upon a false illusion, he in turn would bid you tell him by what means you know that you are talking with him well awake and not dreaming it asleep. You may answer him that for men thus to talk together as you do and to prove and perceive that they do so, by the moving of themselves, with putting the question unto themselves for their pleasure, and marking and considering it, is in waking a daily common thing that every man doth or can do when he will, and when they do it, they do it but for pleasure. But in sleep it happeneth very seldom that men dream that they do so, and in the dream they never put the question except for doubt. And you may tell him that, since this revelation is such also as happeneth so seldom and oftener happeneth that men dream of such than have such indeed, therefore it is more reasonable that he show you how he knoweth, in such a rare thing and a thing more like a dream, that he himself is not asleep, than that you, in such a common thing among folk that are awake and so seldom happening in a dream, should need to show him whereby you know that you be not asleep.

Besides this, he to whom you should show it seeth himself and perceiveth the thing that he would bid you prove. But the thing that he would make you believe--the truth of his revelation which you bid him prove--you see not that he knoweth it well himself.

And therefore, ere you believe it against the scripture, it would be well consonant unto reason that he should show you how he knoweth it for a true waking revelation and not a false dreaming delusion.

VINCENT: Then shall he peradventure answer me that whether I believe him or not maketh to him no matter; the thing toucheth himself and not me, and he himself is in himself as sure that it is a true revelation as that he can tell that he dreameth not but talketh with me awake.

ANTHONY: Without doubt, cousin, if he abide at that point and can by no reason be brought to do so much as doubt, nor can by no means be shogged out of his dead sleep, but will needs take his dream for a very truth, and--as some men rise by night and walk about their chamber in their sleep--will so rise and hang himself; I can then see no other way but either bind him fast in his bed, or else essay whether that might hap to help him with which, the common tale goeth, a carver's wife helped her husband in such a frantic fancy. When, upon a Good Friday, he would needs have killed himself for Christ as Christ did for him, she said to him that it would then be fitting for him to die even after the same fas.h.i.+on. And that might not be by his own hands, but by the hand of another; for Christ, perdy, killed not himself. And because her husband would take no counsel (for that would he not, in no wise), she offered him that for G.o.d's sake she would secretly crucify him herself upon a great cross that he had made to nail a new-carved crucifix upon. And he was very glad thereof. Yet then she bethought her that Christ was bound to a pillar and beaten first, and afterward crowned with thorns. Thereupon, when she had by his own a.s.sent bound him fast to a post, she left not off beating, with holy exhortation to suffer, so much and so long that ere ever she left work and unbound him (praying nevertheless, that she might put on his head, and drive well down, a crown of thorns that she had wrought for him and brought him), he said he thought this was enough for that year. He would pray G.o.d to forbear him of the rest till Good Friday came again! But when it came again the next years, then was his desire past; he longed to follow Christ no further.

VINCENT: Indeed, uncle, if this help him not, then will nothing help him, I suppose.

ANTHONY: And yet, cousin, the devil may peradventure make him, toward such a purpose, first gladly suffer other pain; yea, and diminish his feeling in it, too, that he may thereby the less fear his death. And yet are peradventure sometimes such things and many more to be essayed. For as the devil may hap to make him suffer, so may he hap to miss, namely if his friends fall to prayer for him against his temptation. For that can he himself never do, while he taketh it for none.

But, for conclusion: If the man be surely proved so inflexibly set upon the purpose to destroy himself, as being commanded by G.o.d to do so, that no good counsel that men can give him nor any other thing that men may do to him can refrain him, but that he would surely shortly kill himself; then except only good prayer made by his friends for him, I can find no further s.h.i.+ft but either to have him ever in sight or to bind him fast in his bed.

And so must he needs of reason be content to be ordered. For though he himself may take his fancy for a true revelation, yet since he cannot make us perceive it for such, likewise as he thinketh himself by his secret commandment bound to follow it, so must he needs agree that, since it is against the plain open prohibition of G.o.d, we are bound by the plain open precept to keep him from it.

VINCENT: In this point, uncle, I can go no further. But now, if he were, on the other hand, perceived to intend his destruction and go about it with heaviness of heart and thought and dullness--what way would there be to be used to him then?

ANTHONY: Then would his temptation, as I told you before, be properly pertaining to our matter, for then would he be in a sore tribulation and a very perilous. For then would it be a token that the devil had either, by bringing him into some great sin, brought him into despair, or peradventure, by his revelations being found false and reproved or by some secret sin of his being deprehended and divulged, had cast him both into despair of heaven through fear and into a weariness of this life for shame. For then he seeth his estimation lost among other folk of whose praise he was wont to be proud.

And therefore, cousin, in such a case as this, the man is to be fairly handled and sweetly, and with tender loving words to be put in good courage, and comforted in all that men goodly can. Here must they put him in mind that, if he despair not, but pull up his courage and trust in G.o.d's great mercy, he shall have in conclusion great cause to be glad of this fall. For before he stood in greater peril than he was aware of, while he took himself for better than he was. And G.o.d, for favour that he beareth him, hath suffered him to fall deep into the devil's danger, to make him thereby know what he was while he took himself for so sure.

And therefore, as he suffered him then to fall for a remedy against over-bold pride, so will G.o.d now--if the man meek himself, not with fruitless despair but with fruitful penance--so set him up again upon his feet and so strengthen him with his grace, that for this one fall that the devil hath given him he shall give the devil a hundred.

And here must he be put in remembrance of Mary Magdalene, of the prophet David, and especially of St. Peter, whose high bold courage took a foul fall. And yet because he despaired not of G.o.d's mercy, but wept and called upon it, how highly G.o.d took him into his favour again is well testified in his holy scripture and well known through Christendom.

And now shall it be charitably done if some good virtuous folk, such as he himself somewhat esteemeth and hath afore longed to stand in estimation with, do resort sometimes to him, not only to give him counsel but also to ask advice and counsel of him in some cases of their own conscience. For so may they let him perceive that they esteem him now no less, but rather more than they did before, since they think him now by this fall better expert of the devil's craft and so not only better instructed himself but also better able to give good advice and counsel to others. This thing will, to my mind, well amend and lift up his courage from the peril of that desperate shame.

VINCENT: Methinketh, uncle, that this would be a perilous thing.

For it may peradventure make him set the less by his fall, and thereby it may cast him into his first pride or into his other sin again, the falling in to which drove him into this despair.

ANTHONY: I do not mean, cousin, that every fool should at adventure fall in hand with him, for so might it happen to do harm indeed.

But, cousin, if a learned physician have a man in hand, he can well discern when and how long some certain medicine is necessary which, if administered at another time or at that time over-long continued, might put the patient in peril. If he have his patient in an ague, for the cure of which he needeth his medicines in their working cold, yet he may hap, ere that fever be full cured, to fall into some other disease such that, unless it were helped with hot medicine, would be likely to kill the body before the fever could be cured. The physician then would for the while have his most care to the cure of that thing in which would be the most present peril. And when that were once out of jeopardy, he would do then the more exact diligence afterward about the further cure of the fever.

And likewise, if a s.h.i.+p be in peril to fall into Scilla, the fear of falling into Charibdis on the other side shall never hinder any wise master thereof from drawing himself from Scilla toward Charibdis first, in all that ever he can. But when he hath himself once so far away from Scilla that he seeth himself safe out of that danger, then will he begin to take good heed to keep himself well from the other.

And likewise, while this man is falling down to despair and to the final destruction of himself, a good wise spiritual leech will first look unto that, and by good comfort lift up his courage. And when he seeth that peril well past, he will care for the cure of his other faults afterward. Howbeit, even in the giving of his comfort, he may find ways enough in such wise to temper his words that the men may take occasion of good courage and yet far from occasion of new relapse into his former sin. For the great part of his counsel shall be to encourage him to amendment, and that is, perdy, far from falling into sin again.

VINCENT: I think, uncle, that folk fall into this ungracious mind, through the devil's temptation, by many more means than one.

ANTHONY: That is, cousin, very true. For the devil taketh his occasions as he seeth them fall convenient for him. Some he stirreth to it for weariness of themselves after some great loss, some for fear of horrible bodily harm, and some (as I said) for fear of worldly shame.

One I knew myself who had been long reputed for a right honest man, who was fallen into such a fancy that he was well near worn away with it. But what he was tempted to do, that would he tell no man. But he told me that he was sore c.u.mbered and that it always ran in his mind that folk's fancies were fallen from him, and that they esteemed not his wit as they were wont to do, but ever his mind gave him that the people began to take him for a fool. And folk of truth did not so at all, but reputed him both for wise and honest.

Two others I knew who were marvellous afraid that they would kill themselves, and could tell me no cause wherefore they so feared it except that their own mind so gave them. Neither had they any loss nor no such thing toward them, nor none occasion of any worldly shame (the one was in body very well liking and l.u.s.ty), but wondrous weary were they both twain of that mind. And always they thought that they would not do it for anything, and nevertheless they feared they would. And wherefore they so feared neither of them both could tell. And the one, lest he should do it, desired his friends to bind him.

VINCENT: This is, uncle, a marvellous strange manner.

ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, I suppose many of them are in this case.

The devil, as I said before, seeketh his occasions. For as St.

Peter saith, "Your adversary the devil as a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour." He marketh well, therefore, the state and condition that every man standeth in, not only concerning these outward things (lands, possessions, goods, authority, fame, favour, or hatred of the world), but also men's complexions within them--health or sickness, good humours or bad, by which they be light-hearted or lumpish, strong-hearted or faint and feeble of spirit, bold and hardy or timorous and fearful of courage. And according as these things minister him matter of temptation, so useth he himself in the manner of his temptation.