A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

his edition of the Dialogue of Comfort has been transcribed from

2 the 1557 version as it appears in Everyman's Library. The Everyman

3 edition is heartily recommended to readers who would like to taste

4 the dialogue in its original form.

5 The first plan was to change only the spelling. It soon became

6 evident that the punctuation would have to be changed to follow

7 present usage. The longest sentences were then broken up into two

8 or three, and certain others were rearranged into a word order

9 more like that of today. Nothing was omitted, however, and nothing

10 was added except relative pronouns, parts of "to be," and other

11 such neutral connectives. Finally, obsolete words were changed to

12 more familiar equivalents except when they were entirely clear and

13 too good to lose. Thus "wot" became "know" but "gigglot" and "galp

14 up the ghost" were retained. Words that have come to have a quite

15 different meaning for us, such as "fond" and "lust" were replaced

16 by less ambiguous ones—wherever possible, by ones that More

17 himself used elsewhere.

18 The text has not been cut or expanded, re-interpreted or edited.

19 Any transcription seems to involve some interpretation, conscious

20 or otherwise, but an effort has been made to keep it to a minimum.

21 Passages that seemed to make no sense have therefore been left

22 unaltered. If other readers find solutions for them their

23 suggestions will be welcomed.

24 This is not in any sense a scholarly piece of work. That would

25 require a very different method, as well as a far more thorough

26 knowledge of sixteenth-century English. It would be a most

27 commendable undertaking, but it might result in an edition for the

28 learned. This one is for everyone who has the two essentials,

29 faith and intelligence, presupposed by Anthony in Chapter II.

30 ##### MONICA STEVENS

31 Middlebury, Vermont.

32 Feast of St. Benedict, 1950.

33 ______________________________

BOOK I

4 VINCENT: Who would have thought, O my good uncle, a few years

5 past, that those in this country who would visit their friends

6 lying in disease and sickness would come, as I do now, to seek and

7 fetch comfort of them? Or who would have thought that in giving

8 comfort to them they would use the way that I may well use to you?

9 For albeit that the priests and friars be wont to call upon sick

10 men to remember death, yet we worldly friends, for fear of

11 discomforting them, have ever had a way here in Hungary of lifting

12 up their hearts and putting them in good hope of life.

13 But now, my good uncle, the world is here waxed such, and so great

14 perils appear here to fall at hand, that methinketh the greatest

15 comfort a man can have is when he can see that he shall soon be

16 gone. And we who are likely long to live here in wretchedness have

17 need of some comforting counsel against tribulation to be given us

18 by such as you, good uncle. For you have so long lived virtuously,

19 and are so learned in the law of God that very few are better in

20 this country. And you have had yourself good experience and assay

21 of such things as we do now fear, as one who hath been taken

22 prisoner in Turkey two times in your days, and is now likely to

23 depart hence ere long.

24 But that may be your great comfort, good uncle, since you depart to

25 God. But us of your kindred shall you leave here, a company of

26 sorry comfortless orphans. For to all of us your good help,

27 comfort, and counsel hath long been a great stay—not as an uncle

28 to some, and to others as one further of kin, but as though to us

29 all you had been a natural father.

30 ANTHONY: Mine own good cousin, I cannot much deny but what there

31 is indeed, not only here in Hungary but also in almost all places

32 in Christendom, such a customary manner of unchristian comforting.

33 And in any sick man it doth more harm than good, by drawing him in

34 time of sickness, with looking and longing for life, from the

35 meditation of death, judgment, heaven, and hell, with which he

36 should beset much of his time—even all his whole life in his best

37 health. Yet is that manner of comfort to my mind more than mad when

38 it is used to a man of mine age. For as we well know that a young

39 man may die soon, so are we very sure that an old man cannot live

40 long. And yet there is (as Tully saith) no man so old but that, for

41 all that, he hopeth yet that he may live one year more, and of a

42 frail folly delighteth to think thereon and comfort himself

43 therewith. So other men's words of such comfort, adding more sticks

44 to that fire, shall (in a manner) quite burn up the pleasant

45 moisture that should most refresh him—the wholesome dew, I mean,

46 of God's grace, by which he should wish with God's will to be

47 hence, and long to be with him in Heaven.

48 Now, as for your taking my departing from you so heavily (as that

49 of one from whom you recognize, of your goodness, to have had here

50 before help and comfort), would God I had done to you and to others

51 half so much as I myself reckon it would have been my duty to do!

52 But whensoever God may take me hence, to reckon yourselves then

53 comfortless, as though your chief comfort stood in me—therein

54 would you make, methinketh, a reckoning very much as though you

55 would cast away a strong staff and lean upon a rotten reed. For God

56 is, and must be, your comfort, and not I. And he is a sure

57 comforter, who (as he said unto his disciples) never leaveth his

58 servants comfortless orphans, not even when he departed from his

59 disciples by death. But he both sent them a comforter, as he had

60 promised, the Holy Spirit of his Father and himself, and he also

61 made them sure that to the world's end he would ever dwell with

62 them himself. And therefore, if you be part of his flock and

63 believe his promise, how can you be comfortless in any tribulation,

64 when Christ and his Holy Spirit, and with them their inseparable

65 Father, if you put full trust and confidence in them, are never

66 either one finger-breadth of space nor one minute of time from you?

67 VINCENT: O, my good uncle, even these selfsame words, with which

68 you prove that because of God's own gracious presence we cannot be

69 left comfortless, make me now feel and perceive how much comfort we

70 shall miss when you are gone. For albeit, good uncle, that while

71 you tell me this I cannot but grant it for true, yet if I had not

72 now heard it from you, I would not have remembered it, nor would it

73 have fallen to my mind. And moreover, as our tribulations shall

74 increase in weight and number, so shall we need not only one such

75 good word or twain, but a great heap of them, to stable and

76 strengthen the walls of our hearts against the great surges of this

77 tempestuous sea.

78 ANTHONY: Good cousin, trust well in God and he shall provide you

79 outward teachers suitable for every time, or else shall himself

80 sufficiently teach you inwardly.

81 VINCENT: Very well, good uncle, but yet if we would leave the

82 seeking of outward learning, when we can have it, and look to be

83 inwardly taught by God alone, then should be thereby tempt God and

84 displease him. And since I now see the likelihood that when you are

85 gone we shall be sore destitute of any other like you, therefore

86 methinketh that God bindeth me of duty to pray you now, good uncle,

87 in this short time that we have you, that I may learn of you such

88 plenty of good counsel and comfort, against these great storms of

89 tribulation with which both I and all mine are sore beaten already,

90 and now upon the coming of this cruel Turk fear to fall in far

91 more, that I may, with the same laid up in remembrance, govern and

92 stay the ship of our kindred and keep it afloat from peril of

93 spiritual drowning.

94 You are not ignorant, good uncle, what heaps of heaviness have of

95 late fallen among us already, with which some of our poor family are

96 fallen into such dumps that scantly can any such comfort as my poor

97 wit can give them at all assuage their sorrow. And now, since these

98 tidings have come hither, so hot with the great Turk's enterprise

99 into these parts here, we can scantly talk nor think of anything

100 else than his might and our danger. There falleth so continually

101 before the eyes of our heart a fearful imagination of this terrible

102 thing: his mighty strength and power, his high malice and hatred,

103 and his incomparable cruelty, with robbing, spoiling, burning, and

104 laying waste all the way that his army cometh; then, killing or

105 carrying away the people thence, far from home, and there severing

106 the couples and the kindred asunder, every one far from the other,

107 some kept in thraldom and some kept in prison and some for a

108 triumph tormented and killed in his presence; then, sending his

109 people hither and his false faith too, so that such as are here and

110 still remain shall either both lose all and be lost too, or be

111 forced to forsake the faith of our Saviour Christ and fall to the

112 false sect of Mahomet. And yet—that which we fear more than all

113 the rest—no small part of our own folk who dwell even here about

114 us are, we fear, falling to him or already confederated with him.

115 If this be so, it may haply keep this quarter from the Turk's

116 invasion. But then shall they that turn to his law leave all their

117 neighbours nothing, but shall have our goods given them and our

118 bodies too, unless we turn as they do and forsake our Saviour too.

119 And then—for there is no born Turk so cruel to Christian folk as

120 is the false Christian that falleth from the faith—we shall stand

121 in peril, if we persevere in the truth, to be more hardly handled

122 and die a more cruel death by our own countrymen at home than if we

123 were taken hence and carried into Turkey. These fearful heaps of

124 peril lie so heavy at our hearts, since we know not into which we

125 shall fortune to fall and therefore fear all the worst, that (as

126 our Saviour prophesied of the people of Jerusalem) many among us

127 wish already, before the peril come, that the mountains would

128 overwhelm them or the valleys open and swallow them up and cover

129 them.

130 Therefore, good uncle, against these horrible fears of these

131 terrible tribulations—some of which, as you know, our house hath

132 already, and the rest of which we stand in dread of—give us, while

133 God lendeth you to us, such plenty of your comforting counsel as I

134 may write and keep with us, to stay us when God shall call you

135 hence.

136 ANTHONY: Ah, my good cousin, this is a heavy hearing. And just as

137 we who dwell here in this part now sorely fear that thing which a

138 few years ago we feared not at all, so I suspect that ere long they

139 shall fear it as much who now think themselves very sure because

140 they dwell further off.

141 Greece feared not the Turk when I was born, and within a while

142 afterward that whole empire was his. The great Sultan of Syria

143 thought himself more than his match, and long since you were born

144 hath he that empire too. Then hath he taken Belgrade, the fortress

145 of this realm. And since that hath he destroyed our noble young

146 goodly king, and now two of them strive for us—our Lord send the

147 grace that the third dog carry not away the bone from them both!

148 What of the noble strong city of Rhodes, the winning of which he

149 counted as a victory against the whole body of Christendom, since

150 all Christendom was not able to defend that strong town against

151 him? Howbeit, if the princes of Christendom everywhere would, where

152 there was need, have set to their hands in time, the Turk would

153 never have taken any one of all those places. But partly because of

154 dissensions fallen among ourselves, and partly because no man

155 careth what harm other folk feel, but each part suffereth the other

156 to shift for itself, the Turk has in a few years wonderfully

157 increased and Christendom on the other hand very sorely decayed.

158 And all this is worked by our wickedness, with which God is not

159 content.

160 But now, whereas you desire of me some plenty of comforting things,

161 which you may put in remembrance, to comfort your company

162 with—verily, in the rehearsing and heaping of your manifold fears,

163 I myself began to feel that there would be much need, against so

164 many troubles, of many comforting counsels. For surely, a little

165 before you came, as I devised with myself upon the Turk's coming,

166 it happened that my mind fell suddenly from that to devising upon

167 my own departing. Now, albeit that I fully put my trust in God and

168 hope to be a saved soul by his mercy, yet no man is here so sure

169 that without revelation he may stand clean out of dread. So I

170 bethought me also upon the pain of hell, and afterward, then, I

171 bethought me upon the Turk again. And at first methought his terror

172 nothing, when I compared with it the joyful hope of heaven. Then I

173 compared it on the other hand with the fearful dread of hell,

174 casting therein in my mind those terrible fiendish tormentors, with

175 the deep consideration of that furious endless fire. And methought

176 that if the Turk with his whole host, and all his trumpets and

177 timbrels too, were to come to my chamber door and kill me in my

178 bed, in respect of the other reckoning I would regard him not a

179 rush. And yet, when I now heard your lamentable words, laying forth

180 as though it were present before my face that heap of heavy

181 sorrowful tribulations that (besides those that are already

182 befallen) are in short space likely to follow, I waxed myself

183 suddenly somewhat dismayed. And therefore I well approve your

184 request in this behalf, since you wish to have a store of comfort

185 beforehand, ready by you to resort to, and to lay up in your heart

186 as a remedy against the poison of all desperate dread that might

187 arise from occasion of sore tribulation. And I shall be glad, as my

188 poor wit shall serve me, to call to mind with you such things as I

189 before have read, heard, or thought upon, that may conveniently

190 serve us to this purpose.

BOOK I · CHAPTER I

7 First shall you, good cousin, understand this: The natural wise men

8 of this world, the old moral philosophers, laboured much in this

9 matter. And many natural reasons have they written by which they

10 might encourage men to set little by such goods—or such hurts,

11 either—the going and coming of which are the matter and cause of

12 tribulation. Such are the goods of fortune, riches, favour,

13 friends, fame, worldly honour, and such other things: or of the

14 body, as beauty, strength, agility, liveliness, and health. These

15 things, as you know, coming to us, are matter of worldly wealth.

16 And, taken from us by fortune or by force or the fear of losing

17 them, they are matter of adversity and tribulation. For tribulation

18 seemeth generally to signify nothing else but some kind of grief,

19 either pain of the body or heaviness of the mind. Now that the body

20 should not feel what it feeleth, all the wit in the world cannot

21 bring that about. But that the mind should not be grieved either

22 with the pain that the body feeleth or with occasions of heaviness

23 offered and given unto the soul itself, this thing the philosophers

24 laboured very much about. And many goodly sayings have they toward

25 strength and comfort against tribulation, exciting men to the full

26 contempt of all worldly loss and the despising of sickness and all

27 bodily grief, painful death and all.

28 Howbeit, indeed, for anything that ever I read in them, I never

29 could yet find that those natural reasons were ever able to give

30 sufficient comfort of themselves. For they never stretch so far but

31 that they leave untouched, for lack of necessary knowledge, that

32 special point which not only is the chief comfort of all but

33 without which also all other comforts are nothing. And that point

34 is to refer the final end of their comfort unto God, and to repute

35 and take for the special cause of comfort that by the patient

36 sufferance of their tribulation they shall attain his favour and

37 for their pain receive reward at his hand in heaven. And for lack

38 of knowledge of this end, they did, as they needs must, leave

39 untouched also the very special means without which we can never

40 attain to this comfort, which is the gracious aid and help of God

41 to move, stir, and guide us forward in the referring of all our

42 ghostly comfort—yea, and our worldly comfort too—all unto that

43 heavenly end. And therefore, as I say, for the lack of these

44 things, all their comforting counsels are very far insufficient.

45 Howbeit, though they be far unable to cure our disease of

46 themselves and therefore are not sufficient to be taken for our

47 physicians, some good drugs have they yet in their shops. They may

48 therefore be suffered to dwell among our apothecaries, if their

49 medicines be made not of their own brains but after the bills made

50 by the great physician God, prescribing the medicines himself and

51 correcting the faults of their erroneous recipes. For unless we

52 take this way with them, they shall not fail to do as many bold

53 blind apothecaries do who, either for lucre or out of a foolish

54 pride, give sick folk medicines of their own devising. For

55 therewith do they kill up in corners many such simple folk as they

56 find so foolish as to put their lives in the hands of such ignorant

57 and unlearned Blind Bayards.

58 We shall therefore neither fully receive these philosophers'

59 reasons in this matter, nor yet utterly refuse them. But, using

60 them in such order as may beseem them, we shall fetch the principal

61 and effectual medicines against these diseases of tribulation from

62 that high, great, and excellent physician without whom we could

63 never be healed of our very deadly disease of damnation. For our

64 necessity in that regard, the Spirit of God spiritually speaketh of

65 himself to us, and biddeth us give him the honour of all our

66 health. And therein he thus saith unto us: "Honour thou the

67 physician, for him hath the high God ordained for thy necessity."

68 Therefore let us pray that high physician, our blessed Saviour

69 Christ, whose holy manhood God ordained for our necessity, to cure

70 our deadly wounds with the medicine made of the most wholesome

71 blood of his own blessed body. And let us pray that, as he cured

72 our mortal malady by this incomparable medicine, it may please him

73 to send us and put in our minds at this time such medicines as may

74 so comfort and strengthen us in his grace against the sickness and

75 sorrows of tribulation, that our deadly enemy the devil may never

76 have the power, by his poisoned dart of murmur, grudge, and

77 impatience, to turn our short sickness of worldly tribulation into

78 the endless everlasting death of infernal damnation.

BOOK I · CHAPTER II

10 Since all our principal comfort must come from God, we must first

11 presuppose, in him to whom we shall give any effectual comfort with

12 any ghostly counsel, one ground to begin with, on which all that we

13 shall build may be supported and stand; that is, the ground and

14 foundation of faith. Without this, had ready before, all the

15 spiritual comfort that anyone may speak of can never avail a fly.

16 For just as it would be utterly vain to lay natural reasons of

17 comfort to him who hath no wit, so would it undoubtedly be

18 frustrate to lay spiritual causes of comfort to him who hath no

19 faith. For unless a man first believe that holy scripture is the

20 word of God, and that the word of God is true, how can he take any

21 comfort in that which the scripture telleth him? A man must needs

22 take little fruit of scripture, if he either believe not that it be

23 the word of God, or else think that, though it were, it might yet

24 for all that be untrue! As this faith is more strong or more faint,

25 so shall the comforting words of holy scripture stand the man in

26 more stead or less.

27 This virtue of faith can no man give himself, nor yet any man to

28 another. But though men may with preaching be ministers unto God

29 therein; and though a man can, with his own free will, obeying

30 freely the inward inspiration of God, be a weak worker with

31 almighty God therein; yet is the faith indeed the gracious gift of

32 God himself. For, as St. James saith, "Every good gift and every

33 perfect gift is given from above, descending from the Father of

34 lights." Therefore, feeling our faith by many tokens very faint,

35 let us pray to him who giveth it to us, that it may please him to

36 help and increase it. And let us first say with him in the gospel,

37 "I believe, good Lord, but help thou the lack of my belief." And

38 afterwards, let us pray with the apostles, "Lord, increase our

39 faith." And finally, let us consider, by Christ's saying unto them,

40 that, if we would not suffer the strength and fervour of our faith

41 to wax lukewarm—or rather key-cold—and lose its vigour by

42 scattering our minds abroad about so many trifling things that we

43 very seldom think of the matters of our faith, we should withdraw

44 our thought from the respect and regard of all worldly fantasies,

45 and so gather our faith together into a little narrow room. And

46 like the little grain of mustard seed, which is by nature hot, we

47 should set it in the garden of our soul, all weeds being pulled out

48 for the better feeding of our faith. Then shall it grow, and so

49 spread up in height that the birds—that is, the holy angels of

50 heaven—shall breed in our soul, and bring forth virtues in the

51 branches of our faith. And then, with the faithful trust that

52 through the true belief of God's word we shall put in his promise,

53 we shall be well able to command a great mountain of tribulation to

54 void from the place where it stood in our heart, whereas with a

55 very feeble faith and faint, we shall be scantly able to remove a

56 little hillock.

57 And therefore, as for the first conclusion, since we must of

58 necessity before any spiritual comfort presuppose the foundation of

59 faith, and since no man can give us faith but only God, let us

60 never cease to call upon God for it.

61 VINCENT: Forsooth, good uncle, methinks that this foundation of

62 faith which, as you say, must be laid first, is so necessarily

63 requisite, that without it all spiritual comfort would be given

64 utterly in vain. And therefore now shall we pray God for a full and

65 fast faith. And I pray you, good uncle, proceed you farther in the

66 process of your matter of spiritual comfort against tribulation.

67 ANTHONY: That shall I, cousin, with good will.

BOOK I · CHAPTER III

13 I will in my poor mind assign, for the first comfort, the desire

14 and longing to be comforted by God. And not without some reason

15 call I this the first cause of comfort. For, as the cure of that

16 person is in a manner desperate, who hath no will to be cured, so

17 is the comfort of that person desperate, who desireth not his own

18 comfort.

19 And here shall I note you two kinds of folk who are in tribulation

20 and heaviness: one sort that will not seek for comfort, and another

21 sort that will.

22 And again, of those that will not, there are also two sorts. For

23 the first there are the sort who are so drowned in sorrow that they

24 fall into a careless deadly dullness, regarding nothing, thinking

25 almost of nothing, no more than if they lay in a lethargy. With

26 them it may so befall that wit and remembrance will wear away and

27 fall even fair from them. And this comfortless kind of heaviness in

28 tribulation is the highest kind of the deadly sin of sloth.

29 Another sort there are, who will seek for no comfort, nor yet

30 receive none, but in their tribulation (be it loss or sickness) are

31 so testy, so fuming, and so far out of all patience that it

32 profiteth no man to speak to them. And these are as furious with

33 impatience as though they were in half a frenzy. And, from a custom

34 of such behaviour, they may fall into one full and whole. And this

35 kind of heaviness in tribulation is even a dangerous high branch of

36 the mortal sin of ire.

37 Then is there, as I told you, another kind of folk, who fain would

38 be comforted. And yet are they of two sorts too. One sort are those

39 who in their sorrow seek for worldly comfort. And of them shall we

40 now speak the less, for the divers occasions that we shall

41 afterwards have to touch upon them in more places than one. But

42 here will I say this, which I learned of St. Bernard: He who in

43 tribulation turneth himself unto worldly vanities, to get help and

44 comfort from them, fareth like a man who in peril of drowning

45 catcheth whatsoever cometh next to hand, and that holdeth he fast,

46 be it never so simple a stick. But then that helpeth him not, for

47 he draweth that stick down under the water with him, and there they

48 lie both drowned together. So surely, if we accustom ourselves to

49 put our trust of comfort in the delight of these childish worldly

50 things, God shall for that foul fault suffer our tribulation to

51 grow so great that all the pleasures of this world shall never bear

52 us up, but all our childish pleasure shall drown with us in the

53 depth of tribulation.

54 The other sort is, I say, of those who long and desire to be

55 comforted by God. And as I told you before, they undoubtedly have a

56 great cause of comfort even in that point alone, that they consider

57 themselves to desire and long to be comforted by almighty God. This

58 mind of theirs may well be cause of great comfort to them, for two

59 great considerations.

60 One is that they see themselves seek for their comfort where they

61 cannot fail to find it. For God both can give them comfort, and

62 will. He can, for he is all-mighty; he will, for he is all-good,

63 and hath himself promised, "Ask and you shall have." He who hath

64 faith—as he must needs have who shall take comfort—cannot doubt

65 but what God will surely keep his promise. And therefore hath he a

66 great cause to be of good comfort, as I say, in that he considereth

67 that he longeth to be comforted by him who, his faith maketh him

68 sure, will not fail to comfort him.

69 But here consider this: I speak here of him who in tribulation

70 longeth to be comforted by God, and who referreth the manner of his

71 comforting to God. Such a man holdeth himself content, whether God

72 comfort him by taking away or diminishing the tribulation itself,

73 or by giving him patience and spiritual consolation therein. For if

74 he long only to have God take his trouble from him, we cannot so

75 well warrant that mind for a cause of so great comfort. For a man

76 may desire that who never mindeth to be the better, and also may he

77 miss the effect of his desire, because his request is haply not

78 good for him. And of this kind of longing and requiring, we shall

79 have occasion hereafter to speak further. But he who, referring the

80 manner of his comforting to God, desireth of God to be comforted,

81 asketh a thing so lawful and so pleasing to God that he cannot fail

82 to fare well. And therefore hath he, as I say, great cause to take

83 comfort in the very desire itself.

84 Another cause hath he to take of that desire a very great occasion

85 of comfort. For since his desire is good, and declareth to him that

86 he hath a good faith in God, it is a good token unto him that he is

87 not an abject, cast out of God's gracious favour, since he

88 perceiveth that God hath put such a virtuous, well-ordered appetite

89 in his mind. For as every evil mind cometh of the world and

90 ourselves and the devil, so is every such good mind inspired into

91 man's heart, either immediately or by the mean of our good angel or

92 other gracious occasion, by the goodness of God himself. And what a

93 comfort then may this be to us, when we by that desire perceive a

94 sure undoubted token that towards our final salvation our Saviour

95 is himself so graciously busy about us!

BOOK I · CHAPTER IV

16 VINCENT: Forsooth, good uncle, this good mind of longing for God's

17 comfort is a good cause of great comfort indeed—our Lord in

18 tribulation send it to us! But by this I see well, that woe may

19 they be who in tribulation lack that mind and who desire not to be

20 comforted by God, but either are of sloth or impatience

21 discomfortless, or else of folly seek for their chief ease and

22 comfort anywhere else.

23 ANTHONY: That is, good cousin, very true, as long as they stand in

24 that state. But then you must consider that tribulation is a means

25 to drive them from that state, and that is one of the causes for

26 which God sendeth it unto man. For albeit that pain was ordained by

27 God for the punishment of sins (so that they who never do now but

28 sin cannot but be ever punished in hell) yet in this world, in

29 which his high mercy giveth men space to be better, the punishment

30 that he sendeth by tribulation serveth ordinarily for a means of

31 amendment.

32 St. Paul himself was sorely against Christ, till Christ gave him a

33 great fall and threw him to the ground, and struck him stark blind.

34 And with that tribulation he turned to him at the first word, and

35 God was his physician and healed him soon after both in body and in

36 soul by his minister Ananias and made him his blessed apostle. Some

37 are in the beginning of tribulation very stubborn and stiff against

38 God, and yet at length tribulation bringeth them home. The proud

39 king Pharaoh did abide and endure two or three of the first

40 plagues, and would not once stoop at them. But then God laid on a

41 sorer lash that made him cry to him for help. And then sent he for

42 Moses and Aaron and confessed himself for a sinner and God for good

43 and righteous. And he prayed them to pray for him and to withdraw

44 that plague, and he would let them go. But when his tribulation was

45 withdrawn, then was he wicked again. So was his tribulation

46 occasion of his profit, and his help in turn was cause of his harm.

47 For his tribulation made him call to God, and his help made hard

48 his heart again. Many a man who in an easy tribulation falleth to

49 seek his ease in the pastime of worldly fantasies, in a greater

50 pain findeth all those comforts so feeble that he is fain to fall

51 to the seeking of God's help.

52 And therefore is, I say, the very tribulation itself many times a

53 means to bring the man to the taking of the aforementioned comfort

54 therein—that is, to the desire of comfort given by God. For this

55 desire of God's comfort is, as I have proved you, great cause of

56 comfort itself.

BOOK I · CHAPTER V

19 Howbeit, though the tribulation itself be a means oftentimes to get

20 a man this first comfort in it, yet sometimes itself alone bringeth

21 not a man to it. And therefore, since unless this comfort be had

22 first, there can in tribulation no other good comfort come forth,

23 we must consider the means by which this first comfort may come.

24 Meseemeth that if the man of sloth or impatience or hope of worldly

25 comfort have no mind to desire and seek for comfort of God, those

26 who are his friends, who come to visit and comfort him, must before

27 everything put that point in his mind, and not spend the time (as

28 they commonly do) in trifling and in turning him to the fantasies

29 of the world. They must also move him to pray God to put this

30 desire in his mind. For when he once getteth it, he then hath the

31 first comfort—and, without doubt, if it be well considered, a

32 comfort marvellously great. His friends who thus counsel him must

33 also, to the attaining thereof, help to pray for him themselves,

34 and cause him to desire good folk to help him to pray for it. And

35 then, if these ways be taken to get it, I doubt not but the

36 goodness of God shall give it.

BOOK I · CHAPTER VI

22 VINCENT: Verily methinketh, good uncle, that this counsel is very

23 good. For unless a person have first a desire to be comforted by

24 God, I cannot see what it can avail to give him any further counsel

25 of any spiritual comfort.

26 Howbeit, what if the man have this desire of God's comfort: that

27 is, that it may please God to comfort him in his tribulation by

28 taking that tribulation from him—is not this a good desire of

29 God's comfort, and a desire sufficient for him who is in

30 tribulation?

31 ANTHONY: No, cousin, that it is not. I touched before upon this

32 point and passed it over, because I thought it would fall in our

33 way again, and so know I well that it will, oftener than once. And

34 now am I glad that you yourself move it to me here.

35 A man may many times, well and without sin, desire of God that the

36 tribulation be taken from him. But neither may we desire that in

37 every case, nor yet very well in any case (except very few) save

38 under a certain condition, either expressed or implied. For

39 tribulations are, as you know well, of many sundry kinds. Some are

40 by loss of goods or possessions, some by the sickness of ourselves,

41 and some by the loss of friends or by some other pain put unto our

42 bodies. Some are by the dread of losing these things that we fain

43 would save, under which fear fall all the same things that we have

44 spoken of before. For we may fear loss of goods or possessions, or

45 the loss of our friends, or their grief and trouble or our own by

46 sickness, imprisonment, or other bodily pain. We may be troubled

47 most of all with the fear of that thing which he feareth least of

48 all who hath most need to do so—that is, the fear of losing

49 through deadly sin the life of his blessed soul. And this last kind

50 of tribulation, as the sorest tribulation of all, though we may

51 touch some pieces of it here and there before, yet the chief part

52 and the principal pain will I reserve to treat apart effectually at

53 the end.

54 But now, as I said, since the kinds of tribulation are so diverse,

55 a man may pray God to take some of these tribulations from him, and

56 may take some comfort in the trust that God will do so. And

57 therefore against hunger, sickness, and bodily hurt, and against

58 the loss of either body or soul, men may lawfully many times pray

59 to the goodness of God, either for themselves or for their friends.

60 And toward this purpose are expressly prayed many devout orisons in

61 the common services of our mother Holy Church. And toward our help

62 in some of these things serve some of the petitions in the Pater

63 Noster, in which we pray daily for our daily food, and to be

64 preserved from the fall into temptation, and to be delivered from

65 evil.

66 But yet may we not always pray for the taking away from us of every

67 kind of temptation. For if a man should in every sickness pray for

68 his health again, when should he show himself content to die and to

69 depart unto God? And that mind must a man have, you know, or else

70 it will not be well with him. It is a tribulation to good men to

71 feel in themselves the conflict of the flesh against the soul and

72 the rebellion of sensuality against the rule and governance of

73 reason—the relics that remain in mankind of old original sin, of

74 which St. Paul so sore complaineth in his epistle to the Romans.

75 And yet may we not pray, while we stand in this life, to have this

76 kind of tribulation utterly taken from us. For it is left us by

77 God's ordinance to strive against it and fight with it, and by

78 reason and grace to master it and use it for the matter of our

79 merit.

80 For the salvation of our soul may we boldly pray. For grace may we

81 boldly pray, for faith, for hope, and for charity, and for every

82 such virtue as shall serve us toward heaven. But as for all the

83 other things before mentioned (in which is contained the matter of

84 every kind of tribulation), we may never well make prayers so

85 precisely but that we must express or imply a condition

86 therein—that is, that if God see the contrary better for us, we

87 refer it wholly to his will. And if that be so, we pray that God,

88 instead of taking away our grief, may send us of his goodness

89 either spiritual comfort to take it gladly or at least strength to

90 bear it patiently.

91 For if we determine with ourselves that we will take no comfort in

92 anything but the taking of our tribulation from us, then either we

93 prescribe to God that he shall do us no better turn, even though he

94 would, than we will ourselves appoint him; or else we declare that

95 we ourselves can tell better than he what is better for us. And

96 therefore, I say, let us in tribulation desire his help and

97 comfort, and let us remit the manner of that comfort unto his own

98 high pleasure. When we do this, let us nothing doubt but that, as

99 his high wisdom better seeth what is best for us than we can see it

100 ourselves, so shall his sovereign high goodness give us that thing

101 that shall indeed be best.

102 For otherwise, if we presume to stand to our own choice—unless God

103 offer us the choice himself, as he did to David in the choice of

104 his own punishment, after his high pride conceived in the numbering

105 of the people—we may foolishly choose the worst. And by

106 prescribing unto God ourselves so precisely what we will that he

107 shall do for us, unless of his gracious favour he reject our folly,

108 he shall for indignation grant us our own request, and afterward

109 shall we well find that it shall turn us to harm.

110 How many men attain health of body for whom it would be better, for

111 their soul's health, that their bodies were sick still? How many

112 get out of prison who happen outside on such harm as the prison

113 would have kept them from? How many who have been loth to lose

114 their worldly goods have, in keeping of their goods, soon afterward

115 lost their life? So blind is our mortality and so unaware what will

116 befall—so unsure also what manner of mind we ourselves will have

117 tomorrow—that God could not lightly do a man more vengeance than

118 to grant him in this world his own foolish wishes.

119 What wit have we poor fools to know what will serve us? For the

120 blessed apostle himself in his sore tribulation, praying thrice

121 unto God to take it away from him, was answered again by God (in a

122 manner) that he was but a fool in asking that request, but that the

123 help of God's grace in that tribulation to strengthen him was far

124 better for him than to take that tribulation from him. And

125 therefore, perceiving well by experience the truth of the lesson,

126 he giveth us good warning not to be too bold of our minds, when we

127 require aught of God, at his own pleasure. For his own Holy Spirit

128 so sore desireth our welfare that, as men say, he groaneth for us,

129 in such wise as no tongue can tell. "What we may pray for, that

130 would be behovable for us, we cannot ourselves tell," saith St.

131 Paul, "but the Spirit himself desireth for us with unspeakable

132 groanings."

133 And therefore I say, for conclusion of this point, let us never ask

134 of God precisely our own ease by delivery from our tribulation, but

135 pray for his aid and comfort by such ways as he himself shall best

136 like, and then may we take comfort even of our such request. For we

137 may be sure that this mind cometh of God. And also we may be very

138 sure that as he beginneth to work with us, so—unless we ourselves

139 fly from him—he will not fail to tarry with us. And then, if he

140 dwell with us, what trouble can do us harm? "If God be with us,"

141 saith St. Paul, "who can stand against us?"

BOOK I · CHAPTER VII

25 VINCENT: You have, good uncle, well opened and declared the

26 question that I demanded you—that is, what manner of comfort a man

27 might pray for in tribulation. And now proceed forth, good uncle,

28 and show us yet farther some other spiritual comfort in tribulation.

29 ANTHONY: This may be, methinketh, good cousin, great comfort in

30 tribulation: that every tribulation which any time falleth unto us

31 is either sent to be medicinable, if men will so take it; or may

32 become medicinable, if men will so make it; or is better than

33 medicinable, unless we will forsake it.

34 VINCENT: Surely this is very comforting—if we can well perceive

35 it!

36 ANTHONY: There three things that I tell you, we shall consider

37 thus: Every tribulation that we fall in, either cometh by our own

38 known deserving deed bringing us to it, as the sickness that

39 followeth our intemperate surfeit or the imprisonment or other

40 punishment put upon a man for his heinous crime; or else it is sent

41 us by God without any certain deserving cause open and known to

42 ourselves, either for punishment of some sins past (we know not

43 certainly which) or for preserving us from sin in which we would

44 otherwise be like to fall; or finally it is not due to the man's

45 sin at all but is for the proof of his patience and increase of his

46 merit. In all the former cases tribulation is, if we will,

47 medicinable. In this last case of all, it is better than

48 medicinable.

BOOK I · CHAPTER VIII

28 VINCENT: This seemeth to me very good, good uncle, save that it

29 seemeth somewhat brief and short, and thereby methinketh somewhat

30 obscure and dark.

31 ANTHONY: We shall therefore, to give it light withal, touch upon

32 every member of it somewhat more at large.

33 One member is, as you know, of them that fall in tribulation

34 through their own certain well-deserving deed, open and known to

35 themselves, as when we fall in a sickness following upon our own

36 gluttonous feasting, or when a man is punished for his own open

37 fault. These tribulations, and others like them, may seem not to be

38 comfortable, in that a man may be sorry to think himself the cause

39 of his own harm. Yet hath he good cause of comfort in them, if he

40 consider that he may make them medicinable for himself if he will.

41 For whereas there was due to that sin, unless it were purged here,

42 a far greater punishment after this world in another place, this

43 worldly tribulation of pain and punishment, by God's good provision

44 for him put upon him here in this world before, shall by the mean

45 of Christ's passion, if the man will in true faith and good hope by

46 meek and patience sufferance of his tribulation so make it, serve

47 him for a sure medicine to cure him. And it shall clearly discharge

48 him of all the sickness and disease of those pains that he should

49 otherwise suffer afterward. For such is the great goodness of

50 almighty God that he punisheth not the same thing twice.

51 And albeit that this punishment is put unto the man, not of his own

52 election and free choice but by force, so that he would fain avoid

53 it and falleth in it against his will, and therefore it seemeth

54 worthy of no thanks; yet the great goodness of almighty God so far

55 surpasseth the poor imperfect goodness of man, that though men make

56 their reckoning here one with another such, God yet of his high

57 bounty in man's account alloweth it toward him far otherwise. For

58 though a man fall in his pain by his own fault, and also at first

59 against his will, yet as soon as he confesseth his fault and

60 applieth his will to be content to suffer that pain and punishment

61 for the same, and waxeth sorry not only that he shall sustain such

62 punishment but also that he hath offended God and thereby deserved

63 much more, our Lord from that time counteth it not for pain taken

64 against his will. But it shall be a marvellous good medicine, and

65 work as a willingly taken pain the purgation and cleansing of his

66 soul with gracious remission of his sin, and of the far greater

67 pain that otherwise would have been prepared for it, peradventure

68 forever in hell. For many there are undoubtedly who would otherwise

69 drive forth and die in their deadly sin, who yet in such

70 tribulation, feeling their own frailty so effectually and the false

71 flattering world failing them, turn full goodly to God and call for

72 mercy. And so by grace they make virtue of necessity, and make a

73 medicine of their malady, taking their trouble meekly, and make a

74 right godly end.

75 Consider well the story of Acham, who committed sacrilege at the

76 great city of Jericho. Thereupon God took a great vengeance upon

77 the children of Israel, and afterward told them the cause and bade

78 them go seek the fault and try it out by lots. When the lot fell

79 upon the very man who did it—being tried by the lot falling first

80 upon his tribe and then upon his family and then upon his house and

81 finally upon his person—he could well see that he was deprehended

82 and taken against his will. But yet at the good exhortation of

83 Josue saying unto him, "Mine own son, give glory to the God of

84 Israel, and confess and show me what thou hast done, and hide it

85 not," he confessed humbly the theft and meekly took his death for

86 it. And he had, I doubt not, both strength and comfort in his pain,

87 and died a very good man. Yet, if he had never come in tribulation,

88 he would have been in peril never haply to have had just remorse in

89 all his whole life, but might have died wretchedly and gone to the

90 devil eternally. And thus made this thief a good medicine of his

91 well-deserved pain and tribulation.

92 Consider well the converted thief who hung on Christ's right hand.

93 Did not he, by his meek sufference and humble knowledge of his

94 fault, asking forgiveness of God and yet content to suffer for his

95 sin, make of his just punishment and well-deserved tribulation a

96 very good special medicine to cure him of all pain in the other

97 world, and win him eternal salvation?

98 And thus I say that this kind of tribulation, though it seem the

99 most base and the least comfortable, is yet, if the man will so

100 make it, a very marvellous wholesome medicine. And it may therefore

101 be, to the man who will so consider it, a great cause of comfort

102 and spiritual consolation.

BOOK I · CHAPTER IX

31 VINCENT: Verily, mine uncle, this first kind of tribulation have

32 you to my mind opened sufficiently. And therefore, I pray you,

33 resort now to the second.

34 ANTHONY: The second kind, you know, was of such tribulation as is

35 so sent us by God that we know no certain cause deserving that

36 present trouble, as we certainly know that upon such-and-such a

37 surfeit we fell in such-and-such a sickness, or as the thief

38 knoweth that for a certain theft he is fallen into a certain

39 punishment. But yet, since we seldom lack faults against God worthy

40 and well-deserving of great punishment, indeed we may well

41 think—and wisdom it is to do so—that with sin we have deserved it

42 and that God for some sin sendeth it, though we know not certainly

43 for which. And therefore thus far is this kind of tribulation

44 somewhat in effect to be taken alike unto the other. For you see,

45 if we thus will take it, reckoning it to be sent for sin and

46 suffering it meekly therefor, it is medicinable against the pain of

47 the other world to come for our past sins in this world, And this

48 is, as I have showed you, a cause of right great comfort.

49 But yet may then this kind of tribulation be, to some men of more

50 sober living and thereby of more clear conscience, somewhat a

51 little more comfortable. They may none otherwise reckon themselves

52 than sinners, for, as St. Paul saith, "My conscience grudgeth me

53 not of anything, but yet am I not thereby justified," and, as St.

54 John saith, "If we say that we have no sin in us, we beguile

55 ourselves and truth is there not in us." Yet, forasmuch as

56 the cause is to them not so certain as it is to the others

57 afore-mentioned in the first kind, and forasmuch as it is also

58 certain that God sometimes sendeth tribulation to keep and preserve

59 a man from such sin as he would otherwise fall in (and sometimes

60 also for exercise of their patience and increase of merit), great

61 cause of increase in comfort have those folk of the clearer

62 conscience in the fervour of their tribulation. For they may take

63 the comfort of a double medicine, and also of that thing that is of

64 the kind that we shall finally speak of, that I call "better than

65 medicinable."

66 But as I have before spoken of this kind of tribulation—how it is

67 medicinable in that it cureth the sin past and purchaseth remission

68 of the pain due for it—so let us somewhat consider how this

69 tribulation sent us by God is medicinable in that it preserveth us

70 from the sins into which we would otherwise be like to fall. If

71 that thing be a good medicine that restoreth us our health when we

72 lose it, as good a medicine must this one be that preserveth our

73 health while we have it, and suffereth us not to fall into that

74 painful sickness that must afterward drive us to a painful remedy!

75 Now God seeth sometimes that worldly wealth is coming so fast upon

76 someone (who nevertheless is good) that, foreseeing how much weight

77 of worldly wealth the man may bear and how much will overcharge him

78 and enhance his heart up so high that grace should fall from him,

79 God of his goodness, I say, doth anticipate his fall, and sendeth

80 him tribulation betimes while he is yet good. And this he doth to

81 make him know his maker and, by less liking the false flattering

82 world, to set a cross upon the ship of his heart and bear a low

83 sail thereon, so that the boisterous blast of pride blow him not

84 under the water.

85 Some lovely young lady, lo, who is yet good enough—God seeth a

86 storm come toward her that would, if her health and fat feeding

87 should last a little longer, strike her into some lecherous love

88 and, instead of her old-acquainted knight, lay her abed with a

89 new-acquainted knave. But God, loving her more tenderly than to

90 suffer her to fall into such shameful beastly sin, sendeth her in

91 season a goodly fair fervent fever, that maketh her bones to rattle

92 and wasteth away her wanton flesh. And it beautifieth her fair skin

93 with the colour of a kite's claw, and maketh her look so lovely

94 that her love would have little pleasure to look upon her. And it

95 maketh her also so lusty that if her lover lay in her lap she

96 should so sore long to throw up unto him the very bottom of her

97 stomach that she should not be able to restrain it from him, but

98 suddenly lay it all in his neck!

99 Did not, as I before told you, the blessed apostle himself confess

100 that the high revelations that God had given him might have

101 enhanced him into so high a pride that he might have caught a foul

102 fall, had not the provident goodness of God provided for his

103 remedy? And what was his remedy but a painful tribulation, so sore

104 that he was fain thrice to call to God to take the tribulation from

105 him. And yet would not God grant his request, but let him lie

106 therein till he himself, who saw more in St. Paul than St. Paul saw

107 in himself, knew well the time was come in which he might well

108 without his harm take it from him.

109 And thus you see, good cousin, that tribulation is double

110 medicine—both a cure of the sin past, and a preservative from the

111 sin that is to come. And therefore in this kind of tribulation is

112 there good occasion for a double comfort; but that is, I say,

113 diversely to sundry diverse folk, as their own conscience is

114 cumbered with sin or clear. Howbeit, I will advise no man to be so

115 bold as to think that his tribulation is sent him to keep him from

116 the pride of his holiness! Let men leave that kind of comfort

117 hardly to St. Paul, till their living be like his. But of the rest

118 men may well take great comfort and good besides.

BOOK I · CHAPTER X

34 VINCENT: The third kind of tribulation, uncle, remaineth now—that

35 is, that which is sent a man by God, and not for his sin either

36 committed or which otherwise would come, and therefore is not

37 medicinable, but is sent for exercise of our patience and increase

38 of our merit, and therefore better than medicinable. Though it be,

39 as you say (and as indeed it is) better for the man than any of the

40 other two kinds in another world, where the reward shall be

41 received, yet I cannot see by what reason a man can in this world,

42 where the tribulation is suffered, take any more comfort in it than

43 in any of the other twain that are sent him for his sin. For he

44 cannot here know whether it be sent him for sin before committed,

45 or for sin that otherwise should befall, or for increase of merit

46 and reward after to come. For every man hath cause enough to fear

47 and think that his sin already past hath deserved it, and that it

48 is not without peril for a man to think otherwise.

49 ANTHONY: This that you say, cousin, hath place of truth in far the

50 most part of men. And therefore must they not envy nor disdain,

51 since they may take in their tribulation sufficient consolation for

52 their part, that some other who is more worthy may take yet a great

53 deal more. For, as I told you, cousin, though the best must confess

54 himself a sinner, yet there are many men—though to the multitude,

55 few—who for the kind of their living and the clearness of their

56 conscience may well and without sin have a good hope that God

57 sendeth them some great grief for the exercise of their patience

58 and for increase of their merit. This appeareth not only by St.

59 Paul, in the place before remembered, but also by the holy man Job,

60 who in sundry places of his disputations with his burdensome

61 comforters forbore not to say that the clearness of his own

62 conscience declared and showed to himself that he deserved not that

63 sore tribulation that he then had. Howbeit, as I told you before, I

64 will not advise every man at adventure to be bold upon this manner

65 of comfort. But yet know I some men such that I would dare, for

66 their more ease and comfort in their great and grievous pains, to

67 put them in right good hope that God sendeth it unto them not so

68 much for their punishment as for exercise of their patience.

69 And some tribulations are there, also, that grow upon such causes

70 that in those cases I would never forbear but always would, without

71 any doubt, give that counsel and comfort to any man.

72 VINCENT: What causes, good uncle, are those?

73 ANTHONY: Marry, cousin, wheresoever a man falleth in tribulation

74 for the maintenance of justice or for the defence of God's cause.

75 For if I should happen to find a man who had long lived a very

76 virtuous life, and had at last happened to fall into the Turks'

77 hands; and if he there did abide by the truth of his faith and,

78 with the suffering of all kinds of torments taken upon his body,

79 still did teach and testify the truth; and if I should in his

80 passion give him spiritual comfort—might I be bold to tell him no

81 further but that he should take patience in his pain, and that God

82 sendeth it to him for his sin, and that he is well worthy to have

83 it, though it were yet much more? He might then well answer me, and

84 other such comforters, as Job answered his: "Burdensome and heavy

85 comforters be you." Nay, I would not fail to bid him boldly, while

86 I should see him in his passion, to cast sin and hell and purgatory

87 and all upon the devil's pate, and doubt not but—as, if he gave

88 over his hold, all his merit would be lost and he would be turned

89 to misery—so if he stand and persevere still in the confession of

90 his faith, all his whole pain shall turn all into glory.

91 Yea, more shall I yet say than this. If there were a Christian man

92 who had among those infidels committed a very deadly crime, such as

93 would be worthy of death, not only by their laws but by Christ's

94 too (as manslaughter, or adultery, or other such thing); and if

95 when he were taken he were offered pardon of his life upon

96 condition that he should forsake the faith of Christ; and if this

97 man would now rather suffer death than so do—should I comfort him

98 in his pain only as I would a malefactor? Nay, this man, though he

99 would have died for his sin, dieth now for Christ's sake, since he

100 might live still if he would forsake him. The bare patient taking

101 of his death would have served for the satisfaction of his

102 sin—through the merit of Christ's passion, I mean, without help of

103 which no pain of our own could be satisfactory. But now shall

104 Christ, for his forsaking of his own life in the honour of his

105 faith, forgive the pain of all his sins, of his mere liberality,

106 and accept all the pain of his death for merit of reward in heaven,

107 and shall assign no part of it to the payment of his debt in

108 purgatory, but shall take it all as an offering and requite it all

109 with glory. And this man among Christian men, although he had been

110 before a devil, nothing would I doubt afterward to take him for a

111 martyr.

112 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, methinketh this is said marvellous

113 well. And it specially delighteth and comforteth me to hear it,

114 because of our principal fear that I first spoke of, the Turk's

115 cruel incursion into this country of ours.

116 ANTHONY: Cousin, as for the matter of that fear, I purpose to

117 touch it last of all. Nor meant I here to speak of it, had it not

118 been that the vehemency of your objection brought it in my way. But

119 otherwise I would rather have put instead some example of those who

120 suffer tribulation for maintenance of right and justice, and choose

121 rather to take harm than to do wrong in any manner of matter. For

122 surely if a man may—as indeed he may—have great comfort in the

123 clearness of his conscience, who hath a false crime put upon him

124 and by false witness proved upon him, and who is falsely punished

125 and put to worldly shame and pain for it; a hundred times more

126 comfort may he have in his heart who, where white is called black

127 and right is called wrong, abideth by the truth and is persecuted

128 for justice.

129 VINCENT: Then if a man sue me wrongfully for my own land, in which

130 I myself have good right, it is a comfort yet to defend it well,

131 since God shall give me thanks for it?

132 ANTHONY: Nay nay, cousin, nay, there walk you somewhat wide. For

133 there you defend your own right for your temporal avail. But St.

134 Paul counseleth, "Defend not yourselves, my more dear friends," and

135 our Saviour counseleth, "If a man will strive with thee at the law

136 and take away thy coat, leave him thy gown too." The defence

137 therefore of our own right asketh no reward. Say you speed well, if

138 you get leave; look hardly for no thanks!

139 But on the other hand, if you do as St. Paul biddeth, "Seek not for

140 your own profit but for other folk's" and defend therefore of pity

141 a poor widow or a poor fatherless child, and rather suffer sorrow

142 by some strong extortioner than suffer them to take wrong; or if

143 you be a judge and have such zeal to justice that you will abide

144 tribulation by the malice of some mighty man rather than judge

145 wrong for his favour—such tribulations, lo, are those that are

146 better than only medicinable. And every man upon whom they fall may

147 be bold so to reckon them, and in his deep trouble may well say to

148 himself the words that Christ hath taught him for his comfort,

149 "Blessed be the merciful men, for they shall have mercy given them.

150 Blessed be they that suffer persecution for justice, for theirs is

151 the kingdom of heaven."

152 Here is a high comfort, lo, for those that are in this case. And

153 their own conscience can show it to them, and can fill their hearts

154 so full with spiritual joy that the pleasure may far surmount the

155 heaviness and grief of all their temporal trouble. But God's nearer

156 cause of faith against the Turks hath yet a far surpassing comfort

157 that by many degrees far excelleth this. And that, as I have said,

158 I purpose to treat last. And for this time this sufficeth

159 concerning the special comfort that men may take in this third kind

160 of tribulation.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XI

37 VINCENT: Of truth, good uncle, albeit that every one of these

38 kinds of tribulations have cause of comfort in them, as you have

39 well declared, if men will so consider them, yet hath this third

40 kind above all a special prerogative therein.

41 ANTHONY: That is undoubtedly true. But yet even the most base kind

42 of them all, good cousin, hath more causes of comfort than I have

43 spoken of yet.

44 For I have, you know, in that kind that is sent us for our sin,

45 spoken of no other comfort yet but twain: one that it refraineth us

46 from sin that otherwise we would fall in; and one that it serveth

47 us, through the merit of Christ's passion, as a means by which God

48 keepeth us from hell and serveth for the satisfaction of such pain

49 as we should otherwise endure in purgatory. Howbeit, there is

50 therein another great cause of joy besides this. For surely those

51 pains here sent us for our sin, in whatsoever wise they happen to

52 us (be our sin never so sore nor never so open and evident unto

53 ourselves and all the world too), yet if we pray for grace to take

54 them meekly and patiently; and if, confessing to God that it is far

55 too little for our fault, we beseech him nevertheless, since we

56 shall come hence so void of all good works for which we should have

57 any reward in heaven, to be not only so merciful to us as to take

58 our present tribulation in relief of our pains in purgatory, but

59 also so gracious unto us as to take our patience therein for a

60 matter of merit and reward in heaven; I verily trust—and nothing

61 doubt it—that God shall of his high bounty grant us our boon.

62 For as in hell pain serveth only for punishment without any manner

63 of purging, because all possibility of purging is past; and as in

64 purgatory punishment serveth only for purging, because the place of

65 deserving is past; so while we are yet in this world in which is

66 our place and our time of merit and well-deserving, the tribulation

67 that is sent us for our sin here shall, if we faithfully so desire,

68 beside the cleansing and purging of our pain, serve us also for

69 increase of reward. And so shall, I suppose and trust in God's

70 goodness, all such penance and good works as a man willingly

71 performeth, enjoined by his ghostly father in confession, or which

72 he willingly further doth of his own devotion beside. For though

73 man's penance, with all the good works that he can do, be not able

74 to satisfy of themselves for the least sin that we do, yet the

75 liberal goodness of God, through the merit of Christ's bitter

76 passion—without which all our works could never satisfy so much as

77 a spoonful to a great vesselful in comparison with the merit and

78 satisfaction that Christ has merited and satisfied for us

79 himself—this liberal goodness of God, I say, shall yet at our

80 faithful instance and request cause our penance and tribulation

81 patiently taken in this world to serve us in the other world both

82 for release and reward, tempered after such rate as his high

83 goodness and wisdom shall see best for us, whereof our blind

84 mortality cannot here imagine nor devise the stint.

85 And thus hath yet even the first and most base kind of tribulation,

86 though not fully so great as the second and very far less than the

87 third, far greater cause of comfort yet than I spoke of before.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XII

40 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this pleaseth me very well. But yet

41 are there, you know, some of these things now brought in question.

42 For as for any pain due for our sin, to be diminished in purgatory

43 by the patient sufferance of tribulation here, there are, you know,

44 many who utterly deny that, and affirm for a sure truth that there

45 is no purgatory at all. And then, if they say true, is the cause of

46 the comfort gone, if the comfort that we should take be but in vain

47 and needless.

48 They say, you know, also that men merit nothing at all, but God

49 giveth all for faith alone, and that it would be sin and sacrilege

50 to look for reward in heaven either for our patience and glad

51 suffering for God's sake, or for any other good deed. And then is

52 there gone, if this be thus, the other cause of our further comfort

53 too.

54 ANTHONY: Cousin, if some things were as they be not, then should

55 some things be as they shall not! I cannot indeed deny that some

56 men have of late brought up some such opinions, and many more than

57 these besides, and have spread them abroad. And it is a right heavy

58 thing to see such variousness in our belief rise and grow among

59 ourselves, to the great encouragement of the common enemies of us

60 all, whereby they have our faith in derision and catch hope to

61 overwhelm us all. Yet do three things not a little comfort my mind.

62 The first is that, in some communications had of late together,

63 there hath appeared good likelihood of some good agreement to grow

64 together in one accord of our faith. The second is that in the

65 meanwhile, till this may come to pass, contentions, disputations,

66 and uncharitable behaviour are prohibited and forbidden in effect

67 upon all parties—all such parties, I mean, as fell before to fight

68 for it. The third is that in Germany, for all their diverse

69 opinions, yet as they agree together in profession of Christ's

70 name, so agree they now together in preparation of a common power,

71 in defence of Christendom against our common enemy the Turk. And I

72 trust in God that this shall not only help us here to strengthen us

73 in this war, but also that, as God hath caused them to agree

74 together in the defence of his name, so shall he graciously bring

75 them to agree together in the truth of his faith. Therefore will I

76 let God work, and leave off contention. And I shall now say nothing

77 but that with which they who are themselves of the contrary mind

78 shall in reason have no cause to be discontented.

79 First, as for purgatory: Though they think there be none, yet since

80 they deny not that all the corps of Christendom for so many hundred

81 years have believed the contrary, and among them all the old

82 interpreters of scripture from the apostles' days down to our time,

83 many of whom they deny not for holy saints, these men must, of

84 their courtesy, hold my poor fear excused, that I dare not now

85 believe them against all those. And I beseech our Lord heartily for

86 them, that when they depart out of this wretched world, they find

87 no purgatory at all—provided God keep them from hell!

88 As for the merit of man in his good works, neither are those who

89 deny it fully agreed among themselves, nor is there any man almost

90 of them all that, since they began to write, hath not somewhat

91 changed and varied from himself. And far the more part are thus far

92 agreed with us: Like as we grant them that no good work is worth

93 aught toward heaven without faith; and that no good work of man is

94 rewardable in heaven of its own nature, but through the mere

95 goodness of God, who is pleased to put so high a price upon so poor

96 a thing; and that this price God setteth through Christ's passion,

97 and also because they are his own works with us (for no man worketh

98 good works toward God unless God work with him); and as we grant

99 them also that no man may be proud of his works for his own

100 imperfect working, because in all that he may do he can do God no

101 good, but is an unprofitable servant, and doth but his bare

102 duty—as we, I say, grant them these things, so this one thing or

103 twain do they grant us in turn: That men are bound to work good

104 works if they have time and power, and that whosoever worketh in

105 true faith most, shall be most rewarded. But then they add to this

106 that all his reward shall be given him for his faith alone and

107 nothing for his works at all, because his faith is the thing, they

108 say, that forceth him to work well. I will not strive with them for

109 this matter now. But yet I trust to the great goodness of God, that

110 if the question hang on that narrow point, since Christ saith in

111 the scripture in so many places that men shall in heaven be

112 rewarded for their works, he shall never suffer our souls—who are

113 but mean-witted men and can understand his words only as he himself

114 hath set them and as old holy saints have construed them before and

115 as all Christian people this thousand year have believed—to be

116 damned for lack of perceiving such a sharp subtle thing. Especially

117 since some men who have right good wits, and are beside that right

118 well learned, too, can in no wise perceive for what cause or why

119 these folk who take away the reward from good works and give that

120 reward all whole to faith alone, give the reward to faith rather

121 than to charity. For this grant they themselves, that faith serveth

122 of nothing unless she be accompanied by her sister charity. And

123 then saith the scripture, too, "Of these three virtues, faith,

124 hope, and charity, of all these three, the greatest is charity."

125 And therefore it seemeth as worthy to have the thanks as faith.

126 Howbeit, as I said, I will not strive for it, nor indeed as our

127 matter standeth I shall not greatly need to do so. For if they say

128 that he who suffereth tribulation and martyrdom for the faith shall

129 have high reward, not for his work but for his well-working faith,

130 yet since they grant that have it he shall, the cause of high

131 comfort in the third kind of tribulation standeth. And that is, you

132 know, the effect of all my purpose.

133 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this is truly driven and tried unto

134 the uttermost, it seemeth to me. And therefore I pray you proceed

135 at your leisure.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XIII

43 ANTHONY: Cousin, it would be a long work to peruse every comfort

44 that a man may well take in tribulation. For as many comforts, you

45 know, may a man take thereof, as there be good commodities therein.

46 And of those there are surely so many that it would be very long to

47 rehearse and treat of them. But meseemeth we cannot lightly better

48 perceive what profit and commodity, and thereby what comfort, they

49 may take of it who have it, than if we well consider what harm the

50 lack of it is, and thereby what discomfort the lack should be to

51 them that never have it.

52 So is it now that all holy men agree, and all the scripture is

53 full, and our own experience proveth before our eyes, that we are

54 not come into this wretched world to dwell here. We have not, as

55 St. Paul saith, our dwelling-city here, but we are seeking for the

56 city that is to come. And St. Paul telleth us that we do seek for

57 it, because he would put us in mind that we should seek for it, as

58 good folk who fain would come thither. For surely whosoever setteth

59 so little by it that he careth not to seek for it, it will I fear

60 be long ere he come to it, and marvellous great grace if ever he

61 come thither. "Run," saith St. Paul, "so that you may get it." If

62 it must then be gotten with running, when shall he come at it who

63 lifteth not one step toward it?

64 Now, because this world is, as I tell you, not our eternal

65 dwelling, but our little-while wandering, God would that we should

66 use it as folk who were weary of it. And he would that we should in

67 this vale of labour, toil, tears, and misery not look for rest and

68 ease, game, pleasure, wealth, and felicity. For those who do so

69 fare like a foolish fellow who, going towards his own house where

70 he should be wealthy, would for a tapster's pleasure become a

71 hostler by the way, and die in a stable, and never come home.

72 And would God that those that drown themselves in the desire of

73 this world's wretched wealth, were not yet more fools than he! But

74 alas, their folly as far surpasseth the foolishness of that silly

75 fellow as there is difference between the height of heaven and the

76 very depth of hell. For our Saviour saith, "Woe may you be that

77 laugh now, for you shall wail and weep." And "There is a time of

78 weeping," saith the scripture, "and there is a time of laughing."

79 But, as you see, he setteth the weeping time before, for that is

80 the time of this wretched world, and the laughing time shall come

81 after in heaven. There is also a time of sowing and a time of

82 reaping, too. Now must we in this world sow, that we may in the

83 other world reap. And in this short sowing time of this weeping

84 world, must we water our seed with the showers of our tears. And

85 then shall we have in heaven a merry laughing harvest forever.

86 "They went forth and sowed their seeds weeping," saith the prophet.

87 But what, saith he, shall follow thereof? "They shall come again

88 more than laughing, with great joy and exultation, with their

89 handfuls of corn in their hands." Lo, they that in their going home

90 towards heaven sow their seeds with weeping, shall at the day of

91 judgment come to their bodies again with everlasting plentiful

92 laughing. And to prove that this life is no laughing time, but

93 rather the time of weeping, we find that our Saviour himself wept

94 twice or thrice, but never find we that he laughed so much as once.

95 I will not swear that he never did, but at least he left us no

96 example of it. But on the other hand, he left us example of weeping.

97 Of weeping have we matter enough, both for our own sins and for

98 other folk's, too. For surely so should we do—bewail their

99 wretched sins, and not be glad to detract them nor envy them

100 either. Alas, poor souls, what cause is there to envy them who are

101 ever wealthy in this world, and ever out of tribulation? Of them

102 Job saith, "They lead all their days in wealth, and in a moment of

103 an hour descend into their graves and are painfully buried in

104 hell." St. Paul saith unto the Hebrews that those whom God loveth

105 he chastiseth, "And he scourgeth every son of his that he

106 receiveth." St. Paul saith also, "By many tribulations must we go

107 into the kingdom of God." And no marvel, for our Saviour Christ

108 said of himself unto his two disciples that were going into the

109 village of Emaus, "Know you not that Christ must suffer and so go

110 into his kingdom?" And would we who are servants look for more

111 privilege in our master's house than our master himself? Would we

112 get into his kingdom with ease, when he himself got not into his

113 own but by pain? His kingdom hath he ordained for his disciples,

114 and he saith unto us all, "If any man will be my disciple, let him

115 learn of me to do as I have done, take his cross of tribulation

116 upon his back and follow me." He saith not here, lo, "Let him laugh

117 and make merry." Now if heaven serve but for Christ's disciples,

118 and if they be those who take their cross of tribulation, when

119 shall these folk come there who never have tribulation? And if it

120 be true, as St. Paul saith, that God chastiseth all them that he

121 loveth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth, and that to

122 heaven shall not come but such as he loveth and receiveth, when

123 shall they come thither whom he never chastiseth, nor never doth

124 vouchsafe to defile his hands upon them or give them so much as one

125 lash? And if we cannot (as St. Paul saith we cannot) come to heaven

126 but by many tribulations, how shall they come thither who never

127 have none at all? Thus see we well, by the very scripture itself,

128 how true the words are of old holy saints, who with one voice (in a

129 manner) say all one thing—that is, that we shall not have

130 continual wealth both in this world and in the other too. And

131 therefore those who in this world without any tribulation enjoy

132 their long continual course of never-interrupted prosperity have a

133 great cause of fear and discomfort lest they be far fallen out of

134 God's favour, and stand deep in his indignation and displeasure.

135 For he never sendeth them tribulation, which he is ever wont to

136 send them whom he loveth. But they that are in tribulation, I say,

137 have on the other hand a great cause to take in their grief great

138 inward comfort and spiritual consolation.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XIV

46 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this seemeth so indeed. Howbeit, yet

47 methinketh that you say very sore in some things concerning such

48 persons as are in continual prosperity. And they are, you know, not

49 a few; and they are also those who have the rule and authority of

50 this world in their hand. And I know well that when they talk with

51 such great learned men as can, I suppose, tell the truth; and when

52 they ask them whether, while they make merry here in earth all

53 their lives, they may not yet for all that have heaven afterwards

54 too; they do tell them "Yes, yes," well enough. For I have heard

55 them tell them so myself.

56 ANTHONY: I suppose, good cousin, that no very wise man, and

57 especially none that is also very good, will tell any man fully of

58 that fashion. But surely such as so say to them, I fear me that

59 they flatter them thus either for lucre or for fear.

60 Some of them think, peradventure, thus: "This man maketh much of me

61 now, and giveth me money also to fast and watch and pray for him.

62 But so, I fear me, would he do no more, if I should go tell him now

63 that all that I do for him will not serve him unless he go fast and

64 watch and pray for himself too. And if I should add thereto and say

65 further that I trust my diligent intercession for him may be the

66 means that God should the sooner give him grace to amend, and fast

67 and watch and pray and take affliction in his own body, for the

68 bettering of his sinful soul, he would be wonderous wroth with

69 that. For he would be loth to have any such grace at all as should

70 make him go leave off any of his mirth, and so sit and mourn for

71 his sin." Such mind as this, lo, have some of those who are not

72 unlearned, and have worldly wit at will, who tell great men such

73 tales as perilously beguile them. For the flatterer who so telleth

74 them would, if he told a true tale, jeopard to lose his lucre.

75 Some are there also who tell them such tales for consideration of

76 another fear. For seeing the man so sore set on his pleasure that

77 they despair of any amendment of his, whatsoever they should say to

78 him; and then seeing also that the man doth no great harm, but of a

79 courteous nature doth some good men some good; they pray God

80 themselves to send him grace. And so they let him lie lame still in

81 his fleshly lusts, at the pool that the gospel speaketh of, beside

82 the temple, in which they washed the sheep for the sacrifice, and

83 they tarry to see the water stirred. And when his good angel,

84 coming from God, shall once begin to stir the water of his heart,

85 and move him to the lowly meekness of a simple sheep, then if

86 he call them to him they will tell him another tale, and help to

87 bear him and plunge him into the pool of penance over the hard

88 ears! But in the meanwhile, for fear lest if he would wax never the

89 better he would wax much the worse; and from gentle, smooth, sweet,

90 and courteous, might wax angry, rough, froward, and sour, and

91 thereupon be troublous and tedious to the world to make fair

92 weather with; they give him fair words for the while and put him in

93 good comfort, and let him for the rest take his own chance.

94 And so deal they with him as the mother doth sometimes with her

95 child, when the little boy will not rise in time for her, but will

96 lie slug-abed, and when he is up weepeth because he has lain so

97 long, fearing to be beaten at school for his late coming thither.

98 She telleth him then that it is but early days, and he shall come

99 in time enough, and she biddeth him, "Go, good son. I warrant thee,

100 I have sent to thy master myself. Take thy bread and butter with

101 thee—thou shalt not be beaten at all!" And thus, if she can but

102 send him merry forth at the door, so that he weep not in her sight

103 at home, she careth not much if he be taken tardy and beaten when

104 he cometh to school.

105 Surely thus, I fear me, fare many friars and state's chaplains too,

106 in giving comfort to great men when they are both loth to displease

107 them. I cannot commend their doing thus, but surely I fear me thus

108 they do.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XV

49 VINCENT: But, good uncle, though some do thus, this answereth not

50 the full matter. For we see that the whole church in the common

51 service uses divers collects in which all men pray, specially for

52 the princes and prelates, and generally every man for others and

53 for himself too, that God would vouchsafe to send them all

54 perpetual health and prosperity. And I can see no good man praying

55 God to send another sorrow, nor are there such prayers put in the

56 priests' breviaries, as far as I can hear. And yet if it were as

57 you say, good uncle, that perpetual prosperity were so perilous to

58 the soul, and tribulation also so fruitful, then meseemeth every

59 man would be bound of charity not only to pray God send his

60 neighbour sorrow, but also to help thereto himself. And when folk

61 were sick, they would be bound not to pray God send them health,

62 but when they came to comfort them, they should say, "I am glad,

63 good friend, that you are so sick—I pray God keep you long

64 therein!" And neither should any man give any medicine to another

65 nor take any medicine himself neither. For by the diminishing of

66 the tribulation he taketh away part of the profit from his soul,

67 which can with no bodily profit be sufficiently recompensed.

68 And also this you know well, good uncle, that we read in holy

69 scripture of men that were wealthy and rich and yet were good

70 withal. Solomon was, you know, the richest and most wealthy king

71 that any man could in his time tell of, and yet was he well beloved

72 with God. Job also was no beggar, perdy, nor no wretch otherwise.

73 Nor did he lose his riches and his wealth because God would not

74 that his friend should have wealth, but rather for the show of his

75 patience, to the increase of his merit and the confusion of the

76 devil. And, for proof that prosperity may stand with God's favour,

77 "God restored Job double of all" that ever he lost, and gave him

78 afterward long life to take his pleasure long. Abraham was also,

79 you know, a man of great substance, and so continued all his life

80 in honour and wealth. Yea, and when he died, too, he went unto such

81 wealth that when Lazarus died in tribulation and poverty, the best

82 place that he came to was that rich man's bosom!

83 Finally, good uncle, this we find before our eyes, and every day we

84 prove it by plain experience that many a man is right wealthy and

85 yet therewith right good, and many a miserable wretch is as evil as

86 he is wretched. And therefore it seemeth hard, good uncle, that

87 between prosperity and tribulation the matter should go thus, that

88 tribulation should be given always by God to those that he loveth,

89 for a sign of salvation, and prosperity sent for displeasure, as a

90 token of eternal damnation.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XVI

52 ANTHONY: I said not, cousin, that for an undoubted rule, worldly

53 prosperity were always displeasing to God or tribulation evermore

54 wholesome to every man—or else I meant not to say it. For well I

55 know that our Lord giveth in this world unto either sort of folk

56 either sort of fortune. "He maketh his sun to shine both upon the

57 good and the bad, and his rain to fall both on the just and on the

58 unjust." And on the other hand, "he scourgeth every son that he

59 receiveth," yet he beateth not only good folk that he loveth, but

60 "there are many scourges for sinners" also. He giveth evil folk

61 good fortune in this world to call them by kindness—and, if they

62 thereby come not, the more is their unkindness. And yet where

63 wealth will not bring them, he giveth them sometimes sorrow. And

64 some who in prosperity cannot creep forward to God, in tribulation

65 they run toward him apace. "Their infirmities were multiplied,"

66 saith the prophet, "and after that they made haste." To some that

67 are good men, God sendeth wealth here also; and they give him great

68 thanks for his gift, and he rewardeth them for the thanks too. To

69 some good folk he sendeth sorrow, and they thank him for that too.

70 If God should give the goods of this world only to evil folk, then

71 would men think that God were not the Lord thereof. If God would

72 give the goods only to good men, then would folk take occasion to

73 serve him but for them. Some will in wealth fall into folly: "When

74 man was in honour, his understanding failed him; then was he

75 compared with beasts and made like unto them." Some men with

76 tribulation will fall into sin, and therefore saith the prophet,

77 "God will not leave the rod of the wicked men upon the lot of

78 righteous men, lest the righteous peradventure extend and stretch

79 out their hands to iniquity." So I deny not that either state,

80 wealth or tribulation, may be matter of virtue and matter of vice

81 also.

82 But this is the point, lo, that standeth here in question between

83 you and me: not whether every prosperity be a perilous token, but

84 whether continual wealth in this world without any tribulation be a

85 fearful sign of God's indignation. And therefore this mark that we

86 must shoot at, set up well in our sight, we shall now aim for the

87 shot and consider how near toward, or how far off, your arrows are

88 from the mark.

89 VINCENT: Some of my bolts, uncle, will I now take up myself, and

90 readily put them under my belt again! For some of them, I see well,

91 are not worth the aiming. And no great marvel that I shoot wide,

92 while I somewhat mistake the mark.

93 ANTHONY: Those that make toward the mark and light far too short,

94 when they are shot, shall I take up for you.

95 To prove that perpetual wealth should be no evil token, you say

96 first that for princes and prelates, and every man for others, we

97 pray all for perpetual prosperity, and that in the common prayers

98 of the church, too.

99 Then say you secondly, that if prosperity were so perilous and

100 tribulation so profitable, every man ought to pray God to send

101 others sorrow.

102 Thirdly, you furnish your objections with examples of Solomon, Job,

103 and Abraham.

104 And fourthly, in the end of all, you prove by experience of our own

105 time daily before our face, that some wealthy folk are good and

106 some needy ones very wicked. That last bolt, since I say the same

107 myself, I think you will be content to take up, it lieth so far

108 wide.

109 VINCENT: That will I, with a good will, uncle.

110 ANTHONY: Well, do so, then, cousin, and we shall aim for the rest.

111 First must you, cousin, be sure that you look well to the mark, and

112 that you cannot do so unless you know what tribulation is. For

113 since that is one of the things that we principally speak of,

114 unless you consider well what it is, you may miss the mark again.

115 I suppose now that you will agree that tribulation is every such

116 thing as troubleth and grieveth a man either in body or mind, and

117 is as it were the prick of a thorn, a bramble, or a briar thrust

118 into his flesh or into his mind. And surely, cousin, the prick that

119 very sore pricketh the mind surpasseth in pain the grief that

120 paineth the body, almost as far as doth a thorn sticking in the

121 heart surpass and exceed in pain the thorn that is thrust in the

122 heel.

123 Now cousin, if tribulation be this that I call it, then shall you

124 soon consider this: There are more kinds of tribulation

125 peradventure than you thought on before. And thereupon it followeth

126 also, since every kind of tribulation is an interruption of wealth,

127 that prosperity (which is but another name for wealth) may be

128 discontinued by more ways than you would before have thought. Then

129 say I thus unto you, cousin: Since tribulation is not only such

130 pangs as pain the body, but every trouble also that grieveth the

131 mind, many good men have many tribulations that every man marketh

132 not, and consequently their wealth is interrupted when other men

133 are not aware. For think you, cousin, that the temptations of the

134 devil, the world, and the flesh, soliciting the mind of a good man

135 unto sin, are not a great inward trouble and grief to his heart? To

136 such wretches as care not for their conscience, but like

137 unreasonable beasts follow their foul affections, many of these

138 temptations are no trouble at all, but matter of their bodily

139 pleasure. But unto him, cousin, that standeth in dread of God, the

140 tribulation of temptation is so painful that, to be rid of it or to

141 be sure of the victory, he would gladly give more than half his

142 substance, be it never so great. Now if he who careth not for God

143 think that this trouble is but a trifle, and that with such

144 tribulation prosperity is not interrupted, let him cast in his mind

145 if he himself come upon a fervent longing for something which he

146 cannot get (as a good man will not), as perchance his pleasure of

147 some certain good woman who will not be caught. And then let him

148 tell me whether the ruffle of his desire shall not so torment his

149 mind that all the pleasures that he can take beside shall, for lack

150 of that one, not please him a pin! And I dare be bold to warrant

151 him that the pain in resisting, and the great fear of falling, that

152 many a good man hath in his temptation, is an anguish and a grief

153 every deal as great as this.

154 Now I say further, cousin, that if this be true, as indeed it is,

155 that such trouble is tribulation, and thereby consequently an

156 interruption of prosperous wealth, no man meaneth precisely to pray

157 for another to keep him in continual prosperity without any manner

158 of discontinuance or change in this world. For that prayer, without

159 other condition added or implied, would be inordinate and very

160 childish. For it would be to pray either that they should never

161 have temptation, or else that if they had they might follow and

162 fulfil their affection. Who would dare, good cousin, for shame or

163 for sin, for himself or any other man, to make this kind of prayer?

164 Besides this, cousin, the church, you know, well adviseth every man

165 to fast, to watch, and to pray, both for taming of his fleshly

166 lusts and also to mourn and lament his sin before committed and to

167 bewail his offence done against God, as they did at the city of

168 Nineve, and as the prophet David did for his sin put affliction to

169 his flesh. And when a man so doth, cousin, is this no tribulation

170 to him because he doth it himself? For I know you would agree that

171 it would be, if another man did it against his will. Then is

172 tribulation, you know, tribulation still, though it be taken well

173 in worth. Yea, and though it be taken with very right good will,

174 yet is pain, you know, pain, and therefore so is it, though a man

175 do it himself. Then, since the church adviseth every man to take

176 tribulation for his sin, whatsoever words you find in any prayer,

177 they never mean, do you be fast and sure, to pray God to keep every

178 good man (nor every bad man neither) from every kind of tribulation.

179 Now he who is not in a certain kind of tribulation, as peradventure

180 in sickness or in loss of goods, is not yet out of tribulation. For

181 he may have his ease of body or mind disquieted (and thereby his

182 wealth interrupted) with another kind of tribulation, as is either

183 temptation to a good man, or voluntary affliction, either of body

184 by penance or of mind by contrition and heaviness for his sin and

185 offence against God. And thus I say that for precise perpetual

186 wealth and prosperity in this world—that is to say, for the

187 perpetual lack of all trouble and tribulation—no wise man prayeth

188 either for himself or for any man else. And thus I answer your

189 first objection.

190 Now before I meddle with your second, your third will I join to

191 this. For upon this answer will the solution of your examples

192 fittingly depend.

193 As for Solomon, he was, as you say, all his days a marvellous

194 wealthy king, and much was he beloved with God, I know, in the

195 beginning of his reign. But that the favour of God continued with

196 him, as his prosperity did, that cannot I tell, and therefore will

197 I not warrant it. But surely we see that his continual wealth made

198 him fall into wanton folly, first in multiplying wives to a

199 horrible number, contrary to the commandment of God, given in the

200 law of Moses, and secondly in taking to wife among others some who

201 were infidels, contrary to another commandment of God's written

202 law. Also we see that finally, by means of his infidel wife, he

203 fell into maintenance of idolatry himself. And of this we find no

204 amendment or repentance, as we find of his father. And therefore,

205 though he were buried where his father was, yet whether he went to

206 the rest that his father did, through some secret sorrow for his

207 sin at last—that is to say, by some kind of tribulation—I cannot

208 tell, and am content therefore to trust well and pray God that he

209 did so. But surely we are not so sure, and therefore the example of

210 Solomon can very little serve you. For you might as well lay it for

211 a proof that God favoureth idolatry as that he favoureth

212 prosperity; for Solomon was, you know, in both.

213 As for Job, since our question hangeth upon prosperity that is

214 perpetual, the wealth of Job, which was interrupted with so great

215 adversity, can, as you yourself see, serve you for no example. And

216 that God gave him here in this world all things double that he

217 lost, little toucheth my matter, which denieth not prosperity to be

218 God's gift, and given to some good men, too; namely, to such as

219 have tribulation too.

220 But in Abraham, cousin, I suppose is all your chief hold, because

221 you not only show riches and prosperity perpetual in him through

222 the course of all his whole life in this world, but after his death

223 also. Lazarus, that poor man, who lived in tribulation and died for

224 pure hunger and thirst, had after his death his place of comfort

225 and rest in Abraham's—that wealthy man's—bosom. But here must you

226 consider that Abraham had not such continual prosperity but what it

227 was discontinued with divers tribulations.

228 Was it nothing to him, think you, to leave his own country, and at

229 God's sending to go into a strange land, which God promised him and

230 his seed forever, but in all his life he gave him never a foot? Was

231 it no trouble, that his cousin Loth and himself were fain to part

232 company, because their servants could not agree together? Though he

233 recovered Loth again from the three kings, was his capture no

234 trouble to him, think you, in the meanwhile? Was the destruction of

235 the five cities no heaviness to his heart? Any man would think so,

236 who readeth in the story what labour he made to save them. His

237 heart was, I daresay, in no little sorrow, when he was fain to let

238 Abimelech the king have his wife. Though God provided to keep her

239 undefiled and turned all to wealth, yet it was no little woe to him

240 in the meantime. What continual grief was it to his heart, many a

241 long day, that he had no child begotten of his own body? He that

242 doubteth thereof shall find in Genesis Abraham's own moan made to

243 God. No man doubteth but Ismael was great comfort unto him at his

244 birth; and was it no grief, then, when he must cast out the mother

245 and the child both? As for Isaac, who was the child of the promise,

246 although God kept his life, that was unlooked for. Yet while the

247 loving father bound him and went about to behead him and offer him

248 up in sacrifice, who but himself can conceive what heaviness his

249 heart had then? I should suppose (since you speak of Lazarus) that

250 Lazarus' own death panged him not so sore. Then, as Lazarus' pain

251 was patiently borne, so was Abraham's taken not only patiently

252 but—which is a thing much more meritorious—of obedience

253 willingly. And therefore, even if Abraham had not far excelled

254 Lazarus in merit of reward (as he did indeed) for many other things

255 besides, and especially for that he was a special patriarch of the

256 faith, yet would he have far surpassed him even by the merit of

257 that tribulation well taken here for God's sake too. And so serveth

258 for your purpose no man less than Abraham!

259 But now, good cousin, let us look a little longer here upon the

260 rich Abraham and Lazarus the poor. And as we shall see Lazarus set

261 in wealth somewhat under the rich Abraham, so shall we see another

262 rich man lie full low beneath Lazarus, crying and calling out of

263 his fiery couch that Lazarus might, with a drop of water falling

264 from his finger's end, a little cool and refresh the tip of his

265 burning tongue. Consider well now what Abraham answered to the rich

266 wretch: "Son, remember that thou hast in thy life received wealth,

267 and Lazarus likewise pain, but now receiveth he comfort, and thou

268 sorrow, pain, and torment." Christ described his wealth and his

269 prosperity: gay and soft apparel with royal delicate fare,

270 continually day by day. "He did fare royally every day," saith our

271 Saviour; his wealth was continual, lo, no time of tribulation

272 between. And Abraham telleth him the same tale, that he had taken

273 his wealth in this world, and Lazarus likewise his pain, and that

274 they had now changed each to the clean contrary—poor Lazarus from

275 tribulation into wealth, and the rich man from his continual

276 prosperity into perpetual pain. Here was laid expressly to Lazarus

277 no very great virtue by name, nor to this rich glutton no great

278 heinous crime but the taking of his continual ease and pleasure,

279 without any tribulation or grief, of which grew sloth and

280 negligence to think upon the poor man's pain. For that ever he

281 himself saw Lazarus and knew that he died for hunger at his door,

282 that laid neither Christ nor Abraham to his charge. And therefore,

283 cousin, this story of which, by occasion of Abraham and Lazarus,

284 you put me in remembrance, well declareth what peril there is in

285 continual worldly wealth; and contrariwise what comfort cometh of

286 tribulation. And thus, as your other examples of Solomon and Job

287 nothing for the matter further you, so your example of rich Abraham

288 and poor Lazarus hath not a little hindered you.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XVII

55 VINCENT: Surely, uncle, you have shaken my examples sorely, and

56 have in your aiming of your shot removed me these arrows,

57 methinketh, further off from the mark than methought they stuck

58 when I shot them! And I shall therefore now be content to take them

59 up again.

60 But meseemeth surely that my second shot may stand. For of truth,

61 if every kind of tribulation be so profitable that it be good to

62 have it, as you say it is, then I cannot see why any man should

63 either wish, or pray, or do any manner of thing to have any kind of

64 tribulation withdrawn either from himself or from any friend of his.

65 ANTHONY: I think indeed tribulation so good and profitable that I

66 might doubt, as you do, why a man might labour and pray to be

67 delivered of it, were it not that God, who teacheth us the one,

68 teacheth us also the other. For as he biddeth us take our pain

69 patiently, and exhort our neighbours to do also the same, so

70 biddeth he us also not forbear to do our best to remove the pain

71 from us both. And then, since it is God who teacheth both, I shall

72 not need to break my brain in devising wherefore he would bid us to

73 do both, the one seeming opposed to the other.

74 If he send the scourge of scarcity and great famine, he will that

75 we shall bear it patiently; but yet will he that we shall eat our

76 meat when we can get it. If he send us the plague of pestilence, he

77 will that we shall patiently take it; but yet will he that we let

78 blood, and lay plasters to draw it and ripen it, and lance it, and

79 get it away. Both these points teacheth God in scripture, in more

80 than many places. Fasting is better than eating, and hath more

81 thanks of God, and yet will God that we shall eat. Praying is

82 better than drinking, and much more pleasing to God, and yet will

83 God that we shall drink. Keeping vigil is much more acceptable to

84 God than sleeping, and yet will God that we shall sleep. God hath

85 given us our bodies here to keep, and will that we maintain them to

86 do him service with, till he send for us hence.

87 Now we cannot tell surely how much tribulation may mar the body or

88 peradventure hurt the soul also. Therefore the apostle, after he

89 had commanded the Corinthians to deliver to the devil the

90 abominable fornicator who forbore not the bed of his own father's

91 wife, yet after he had been a while accursed and punished for his

92 sin, the apostle commanded them charitably to receive him again and

93 give him consolation, "that the greatness of his sorrow should not

94 swallow him up." And therefore, when God sendeth the tempest, he

95 will that the shipmen shall get them to their tackling and do the

96 best they can for themselves, that the sea eat them not up. For

97 help ourselves as well as we can, he can make his plague as sore

98 and as long-lasting as he himself please.

99 And as he will that we do for ourselves, so will he that we do for

100 our neigbour too. And he will that we shall in this world have pity

101 on each other and not be *sine affectione,* for which the apostle

102 rebuketh them that lack their tender affection here. So of charity

103 we should be sorry too for the pain of those upon whom, for

104 necessary cause, we ourselves be driven to put it. And whosoever

105 saith that for pity of his neighbour's soul he will have no pity of

106 his body, let him be sure that, as St. John saith, "He that loveth

107 not his neighbour whom he seeth, loveth but little God, whom he

108 seeth not," so he who hath no pity on the pain that he seeth his

109 neighbour feel before him, pitieth little (whatsoever he say) the

110 pain of his soul that he seeth not.

111 Yet God sendeth us also such tribulation sometimes because it is

112 his pleasure to have us pray unto him for help. And therefore, the

113 scripture telleth that, when St. Peter was in prison, the whole

114 church without intermission prayed incessantly for him, and at

115 their fervent prayer God by miracle delivered him. When the

116 disciples in the tempest stood in fear of drowning, they prayed

117 unto Christ and said, "Save us, Lord, we perish," and then at their

118 prayer he shortly ceased the tempest. And now see we proved often

119 that in sore weather or sickness by general processions God giveth

120 gracious help. And many a man in his great pain and sickness, by

121 calling upon God is marvellously made whole. This is the goodness

122 of God who, because in wealth we remember him not, but forget to

123 pray to him, sendeth us sorrow and sickness to force us to draw

124 toward him, and compelleth us to call upon him and pray for release

125 of our pain. When we learn thereby to know him and to pray to him,

126 we take a good occasion to fall afterward into further grace.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XVIII

58 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, with this good answer I am well

59 content.

60 ANTHONY: Yea, cousin, but many men are there with whom God is not

61 content! For they abuse this great high goodness of his, whom

62 neither fair treating nor hard handling can cause to remember their

63 maker. But in wealth they are wanton and forget God and follow

64 their pleasure, and when God with tribulation draweth them toward

65 him, then wax they mad and draw back as much as ever they can, and

66 run and seek help at any other hand rather than at his. Some for

67 comfort seek to the flesh, some to the world, and some to the devil

68 himself.

69 Consider some man who in worldly prosperity is very dull and hath

70 stepped deep into many a sore sin; which sins, when he did them, he

71 counted for part of his pleasure. God, willing of his goodness to

72 call the man to grace, casteth a remorse into his mind, after his

73 first sleep, and maketh him lie a little while and bethink him.

74 Then beginneth he to remember his life, and from that he falleth to

75 think upon his death, and how he must leave all his worldly wealth

76 within a while behind here in this world, and walk hence alone, he

77 knows not whither. Nor knows he how soon he shall take his journey

78 thither, nor can he tell what company he shall meet there. And then

79 beginneth he to think that it would be good to make sure and to be

80 merry, so that he be wise therewith, lest there happen to be indeed

81 such black bugbears as folk call devils, whose torments he was wont

82 to take for poet's tales. Those thoughts, if they sink deep, are a

83 sore tribulation. And surely, if he takes hold of the grace that

84 God therein offereth him, his tribulation is wholesome. And it

85 shall be full comforting to remember that God by this tribulation

86 calleth him and biddeth him come home, out of the country of sin

87 that he was bred and brought up so long in, and come into the land

88 of behest that floweth milk and honey. And then if he follow this

89 calling, as many a one full well doth, joyful shall his sorrow be.

90 And glad shall he be to change his life, to leave his wanton

91 pleasures and do penance for his sins, bestowing his time upon some

92 better business.

93 But some men, now, when this calling of God causeth them to be sad,

94 they are loth to leave their sinful lusts that hang in their

95 hearts, especially if they have any kind of living such that they

96 must needs leave it off or fall deeper into sin, or if they have

97 done so many great wrongs that they have many amends to make if

98 they follow God, which must diminish much their money. Then are

99 these folk, alas, woefully bewrapped, for God pricketh them of his

100 great goodness still. And the grief of this great pang pincheth

101 them at the heart, and of wickedness they wry away. And from this

102 tribulation they turn to their flesh for help, and labour to shake

103 off this thought. And then they mend their pillow and lay their

104 head softer and essay to sleep. And when that will not be, then

105 they talk a while with those who lie by them. If that cannot be

106 either, then they lie and long for day, and get them forth about

107 their worldly wretchedness, the matter of their prosperity, and the

108 selfsame sinful things with which they displease God most. And at

109 length, when they have many times behaved in this manner, God

110 utterly casteth them off. And then they set naught by either God or

111 devil. "When the sinner cometh even into the depth, then he

112 contemneth," and setteth naught by anything, saving worldly fear

113 that may befall by chance, or that needs must, he knoweth well,

114 befall once by death.

115 But alas, when death cometh, then cometh again his sorrow. Then

116 will no soft bed serve, nor no company make him merry. Then must he

117 leave his outward worship and comfort of his glory, and lie panting

118 in his bed as it were on a pine bench. Then cometh his fear of his

119 evil life and of his dreadful death. Then cometh his torment, his

120 cumbered conscience and fear of his heavy judgment. Then the devil

121 draweth him to despair with imagination of hell, and suffereth him

122 not then to take it for a fable—and yet, if he do, then the wretch

123 findeth it no fable. Ah, woe worth the time, that folk think not of

124 this in time!

125 God sometimes sendeth a man great trouble in his mind, and great

126 tribulation about his worldly goods, because he would of his

127 goodness take his delight and confidence from them. And yet the man

128 withdraweth no part of his foolish fancies, but falleth more

129 fervently to them than before, and setteth his whole heart, like a

130 fool, more upon them. And then he betaketh him all to the devices

131 of his worldly counsellors, and without any counsel of God or any

132 trust put in him, maketh many wise ways—or so he thinks, but all

133 turn at length to folly, and one subtle drift driveth another to

134 naught.

135 Some have I see even in their last sickness, set up in their

136 deathbed, underpropped with pillows, take their playfellows to them

137 and comfort themselves with cards. And this, they said, did ease

138 them well, to put fancies out of their heads. And what fancies,

139 think you? Such as I told you right now, of their own lewd life and

140 peril of their soul, of heaven and of hell, that irked them to

141 think of. And therefore they cast it out with cards, playing as

142 long as ever they might, till the pure pangs of death pulled their

143 heart from their play, and put them in such a case that they could

144 not reckon their game. And then their gamesters left them and slyly

145 slunk away, and it was not long ere they galped up the ghost. And

146 what game they came then to, that God knoweth and not I. I pray God

147 it were good, but I fear it very sore.

148 Some men are there also that do as did King Saul, and in their

149 tribulation go seek unto the devil. This king had commanded all

150 those to be destroyed who used the false abominable superstition of

151 this ungracious witchcraft and necromancy. And yet fell he to such

152 folly afterwards himself, that ere he went to battle he sought unto

153 a witch and besought her to raise up a dead man to tell him how he

154 should fare. Now God had showed him by Samuel before that he should

155 come to naught, and he went about no amendment, but waxed worse and

156 worse, so that God would not look to him. And when he sought by the

157 prophet to have answer of God, there came no answer to him, which

158 he thought strange. And because he was not heard by God at his

159 pleasure, he made suit to the devil, desiring a woman by witchcraft

160 to raise up the dead Samuel. But he had such success thereof as

161 commonly they have who in their business meddle with such matters.

162 For an evil answer had he, and an evil fortune thereafter—his army

163 discomfited and himself slain. And as it is rehearsed in

164 Paralipomenon, the tenth chapter of the first book, one cause of

165 his fall was for lack of trust in God, for which he left off taking

166 counsel of God and fell to seek counsel of the witch, against God's

167 prohibition in the law and against his own good deed by which he

168 punished and put out all witches so short a time before. Such

169 fortune let them look for, who play the same part! I see many do

170 so, who in a great loss send to seek a conjurer to get their

171 belongings again. And marvellous things there they see, sometimes,

172 but never great of their good. And many a silly fool is there who,

173 when he lies sick, will meddle with no physic in no manner of wise,

174 nor send his urine to no learned man, but will send his cap or his

175 hose to a wisewoman, otherwise called a witch. Then sendeth she

176 word back that she hath spied in his hose where, when he took no

177 heed, he was taken with a spirit between two doors as he went in

178 the twilight. But the spirit would not let him feel it for five

179 days after, and it hath all the while festered in his body, and

180 that is the grief that paineth him so sore. But let him go to no

181 leechcraft nor any manner of physic—other than good meat and

182 strong drink—for medicines would pickle him up. But he shall have

183 five leaves of valerian that she enchanted with a charm and

184 gathered with her left hand. Let him fasten those five leaves to

185 his right thumb by a green thread—not bind it fast, but let it

186 hang loose. He shall never need to change it, provided it fall not

187 away, but let it hang till he be whole and he shall need it no

188 more. In such wise witches, and in such mad medicines, have many

189 fools a great deal more faith than in God.

190 And thus, cousin, as I tell you, all these folk who in their

191 tribulation call not upon God, but seek for their ease and help

192 elsewhere—to the flesh and the world, and to the flinging

193 fiend—the tribulation that God's goodness sendeth them for good,

194 they themselves by their folly turn into their harm. And those who,

195 on the other hand, seek unto God therein, both comfort and profit

196 they greatly take thereby.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XIX

61 VINCENT: I like well, good uncle, all your answers therein. But

62 one doubt yet remaineth there in my mind, which ariseth upon this

63 answer that you make. And when that doubt is solved, I will, mine

64 own good uncle, encumber you no further for this time. For

65 methinketh that I do you very much wrong to give you occasion to

66 labour yourself so much in matter of some study, with long talking

67 at once. I will therefore at this time move you but one thing, and

68 seek some other time at your greater ease for the rest.

69 My doubt, good uncle, is this: I perceive well by your answers,

70 gathered and considered together, that you will well agree that a

71 man may both have worldly wealth and yet well go to God; and that,

72 on the other hand, a man may be miserable and live in tribulation

73 and yet go to the devil. And as a man may please God by patience in

74 adversity, so may he please God by thanks given in prosperity. Now

75 since you grant these things to be such that either of them both

76 may be matter of virtue or else matter of sin, matter of damnation

77 or matter of salvation, they seem neither good nor bad of their own

78 nature, but things of themselves equal and indifferent, turning to

79 good or to the contrary according as they be taken. And then if

80 this be thus, I can perceive no cause why you should give the

81 pre-eminence unto tribulation, or wherefore you should reckon more

82 cause of comfort in it than in prosperity, but rather a great deal

83 less—in a manner, by half.

84 For in prosperity a man is well at ease, and may also, by giving

85 thanks to God, get good unto his soul; whereas in tribulation,

86 though he may merit by patience (as the other, in abundance of

87 worldly wealth, may merit by thanks), yet lacketh he much comfort

88 that the wealthy man hath, in that he is sore grieved with

89 heaviness and pain. Besides, a wealthy man, well at ease, may pray

90 to God quietly and merrily with alacrity and great quietness of

91 mind, whereas he who lieth groaning in his grief cannot endure to

92 pray nor can he hardly think upon anything but his pain.

93 ANTHONY: To begin, cousin, where you leave off: The prayers of him

94 that is in wealth and him that is in woe, if the men be both

95 wicked, are both alike. For neither hath the one desire to pray,

96 nor the other either. And as one is hindered with his pain, so is

97 the other with his pleasure—saving that pain stirreth a man

98 sometimes to call upon God in his grief, though he be right bad,

99 whereas pleasure pulleth his mind another way, though he be good

100 enough.

101 And this point I think there are few that can, if they say true,

102 say that they find it otherwise. For in tribulation (which cometh,

103 you know, in sundry kinds) any man that is not a dull beast or a

104 desperate wretch calleth upon God, not hoverly but right heartily,

105 and setteth his heart full whole upon his request, so sore he

106 longeth for ease and help of his heaviness. But when we are wealthy

107 and well at our ease, while our tongue pattereth upon our prayers

108 apace—good God, how many mad ways our mind wandereth the while!

109 Yet I know well that in some tribulation there is such sore

110 sickness or other grievous bodily pain that it would be hard for a

111 man to say a longer prayer of matins. And yet some who lie dying

112 say full devoutly the seven psalms and other prayers with the

113 priest at their anointing. But those who for the grief of their

114 pain cannot endure to do it, or who are more tender and lack that

115 strong heart and stomach that some others have, God requireth no

116 such long prayers of them. But the lifting up of their heart alone,

117 without any words at all, is more acceptable to him from one in

118 such a state, than long service so said as folk usually say it in

119 health. The martyrs in their agony made no long prayers aloud, but

120 one inch of such a prayer, so prayed in that pain, was worth a

121 whole ell or more, even of their own prayers, prayed at some other

122 time.

123 Great learned men say that Christ, albeit that he was true God, and

124 as God was in eternal equal bliss with his Father, yet as man

125 merited not only for us but for himself too. For proof of this they

126 lay in these words the authority of St. Paul: "Christ hath humbled

127 himself, and became obedient unto the death, and that unto the

128 death of the cross; for which thing God hath also exalted him and

129 given him a name which is above all names, that in the name of

130 Jesus every knee be bowed, both of the celestial creatures and of

131 the terrestrial and of the infernal too, and that every tongue

132 shall confess that our lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God his

133 Father." Now if it be so as these great learned men say, upon such

134 authorities of holy scripture, that our Saviour merited as man, and

135 as man deserved reward not for us only but for himself also; then

136 were there in his deeds, it seemeth, sundry degrees and differences

137 of deserving. His washing of the disciples' feet was not, then, of

138 like merit as his passion, nor his sleep of like merit as his vigil

139 and his prayer—no, nor his prayers peradventure all of like merit,

140 either. But though there was not, nor could be, in his most blessed

141 person any prayer but was excellent and incomparably surpassing the

142 prayer of any mere creature, yet his own were not all alike, but

143 one far above another. And then if it thus be, of all his holy

144 prayers, the chief seemeth me those that he made in his great agony

145 and pain of his bitter passion. The first was when he thrice fell

146 prostrate in his agony, when the heaviness of his heart with fear

147 of death at hand, so painful and so cruel as he well beheld it,

148 made such a fervent commotion in his blessed body that the bloody

149 sweat of his holy flesh dropped down on the ground. The others were

150 the painful prayers that he made upon the cross, where, for all the

151 torment that he hanged in—of beating, nailing, and stretching out

152 all his limbs, with the wresting of his sinews and breaking of his

153 tender veins, and the sharp crown of thorns so pricking him into

154 the head that his blessed blood streamed down all his face—in all

155 these hideous pains, in all their cruel despites, yet two very

156 devout and fervent prayers he made. One was for the pardon of those

157 who so dispiteously put him to his pain, and the other about his

158 own deliverance, commending his own soul to his holy Father in

159 heaven. These prayers of his, made in his most pain, among all that

160 ever he made, reckon I for the chief. And these prayers of our

161 Saviour at his bitter passion, and of his holy martyrs in the

162 fervour of their torment, shall serve us to see that there is no

163 prayer made at pleasure so strong and effectual as that made in

164 tribulation.

165 Now come I to the reasoning you make, when you tell me that I grant

166 you that both in wealth and in woe a man may be wicked and offend

167 God, in the one by impatience and in the other by fleshly lust. And

168 on the other hand, both in tribulation and prosperity too, a man

169 may also do very well and deserve thanks of God by thanksgiving to

170 God for his gift of riches, worship, and wealth, as well as for his

171 gift of need and penury, imprisonment, sickness, and pain. And

172 therefore you cannot see why I should give any pre-eminence in

173 comfort unto tribulation, but you would rather allow prosperity for

174 the thing more comforting. And that not a little, but in manner by

175 double, since therein hath the soul comfort and the body too—the

176 soul by thanksgiving unto God for his gifts, and the body by being

177 well at ease—whereas the person pained in tribulation taketh no

178 comfort but in his soul alone.

179 First, as for your double comfort, cousin, you may cut off the one!

180 For a man in prosperity, though he be bound to thank God for his

181 gifts, wherein he feeleth ease, and may be glad also that he giveth

182 thanks to God; yet hath he little cause of comfort in that he

183 taketh his ease here, unless you wish to call by the name of

184 comfort the sensual feeling of bodily pleasure. I deny not that

185 sometimes men so take it, when they say, "This good drink

186 comforteth well mine heart." But comfort, cousin, is properly

187 taken, by them that take it right, rather for the consolation of

188 good hope that men take in their heart, of some good growing toward

189 them, than for a present pleasure with which the body is delighted

190 and tickled for a while.

191 Now, though a man without patience can have no reward for his pain,

192 yet when his pain is patiently taken for God's sake and his will

193 conformed to God's pleasure therein, God rewardeth the sufferer in

194 proportion to his pain. And this thing appeareth by many a place in

195 scripture, some of which I have showed you and yet shall I show you

196 more. But never found I any place in scripture that I remember in

197 which, though a rich man thanked God for his gifts, our Lord

198 promised him any reward in heaven for the very reason that he took

199 his ease and his pleasures here. And therefore, since I speak only

200 of such comfort as is true comfort indeed, by which a man hath hope

201 of God's favour and remission of his sins, with diminishing of his

202 pain in purgatory or else reward in heaven; and since such comfort

203 cometh of tribulation well taken, but not of pleasure even though

204 it be well taken; therefore of your comfort that you double by

205 prosperity, you may, as I told you, very well cut away the half.

206 Now, why I give prerogative in comfort unto tribulation far above

207 prosperity, though a man may do well in both, of this will I show

208 you causes two or three. First, as I before have at length showed

209 you out of all question, continual wealth interrupted with no

210 tribulation is a very discomfortable token of everlasting

211 damnation. Thereupon it followeth that tribulation is one cause of

212 comfort unto a man's heart, in that it dischargeth him of the

213 discomfort that he might of reason take of overlong-lasting wealth.

214 Another is, that the scripture much commendeth tribulation as

215 occasion of more profit than wealth and prosperity, not only to

216 those who are therein but to those who resort unto them too. And

217 therefore saith Ecclesiastes, "Better is it to go to the house of

218 weeping and wailing for some man's death, than to the house of a

219 feast; for in that house of heaviness is a man put in remembrance

220 of the end of every man, and while he liveth he thinketh what shall

221 come after." And after yet he further saith, "The heart of wise men

222 is where heaviness is, and the heart of fools is where there is

223 mirth and gladness." And verily, where you shall hear worldly mirth

224 seem to be commended in scripture, it is either commonly spoken, as

225 in the person of some worldly-disposed people, or else understood

226 of spiritual rejoicing, or else meant of some small moderate

227 refreshing of the mind against a heavy and discomfortable dullness.

228 Now, prosperity was promised to the children of Israel in the old

229 law as a special gift of God, because of their imperfection at that

230 time, to draw them to God with gay things and pleasant, as men, to

231 make children learn, give them cake-bread and butter. For, as the

232 scripture maketh mention, that people were much after the manner of

233 children in lack of wit and in waywardness. And therefore was their

234 master Moses called Pedagogus, that is, a teacher of children or

235 (as they call such a one in the grammar schools) an "usher" or

236 "master of the petits." For, as St. Paul saith, "the old law

237 brought nothing unto perfection." And God also threateneth folk

238 with tribulation in this world for sin, not because worldly

239 tribulation is evil, but that we should well beware of the sickness

240 of sin for fear of the thing to follow. For that thing, though it

241 be indeed a very good wholesome thing if we take it well, is yet,

242 because it is painful, the thing that we are loth to have. But this

243 I say yet again and again, that the scripture undoubtedly so

244 commandeth tribulation as far the better thing in this world toward

245 the getting of the true good that God giveth in the world to come,

246 that in comparison it utterly discommendeth this worldly wretched

247 wealth and discomfortable comfort. For to what other thing tend the

248 words of Ecclesiastes that I rehearsed to you now, that it is

249 better to be in the house of heaviness than to be at a feast?

250 Whereto tendeth this comparison of his, that the wise man's heart

251 draweth thither where folk are in sadness, and the heart of a fool

252 is where he may find mirth? Whereto tendeth this threat of the wise

253 man, that he who delighteth in wealth shall fall into woe?

254 "Laughter," saith he, "shall be mingled with sorrow, and the end of

255 mirth is taken up with heaviness." And our Saviour saith himself,

256 "Woe be to you that laugh, for you shall weep and wail." But he

257 saith, on the other hand, "Blessed are they that weep and wail, for

258 they shall be comforted." And he saith to his disciples, "The world

259 shall rejoice and you shall be sorry, but your sorrow shall be

260 turned into joy." And so it is now, as you well know, and the mirth

261 of many who then were in joy is now turned all to sorrow. And thus

262 you see plainly by scripture that, in matter of true comfort,

263 tribulation is as far above prosperity as the day is about the

264 night.

265 Another pre-eminence of tribulation over wealth, in occasion of

266 merit and reward, shall well appear upon certain considerations

267 well marked in them both. Tribulation meriteth in patience and in

268 the obedient conforming of the man's will unto God, and in thanks

269 given to God for his visitation. If you reckon me now, against

270 these, many other good deeds that a wealthy man may do—as, by

271 riches to give alms, or by authority to labour in doing many men

272 justice—or if you find further any other such thing; first, I say

273 that the patient person in tribulation hath, in all these virtues

274 of a wealthy man, an occasion of merit which the wealthy man hath

275 not. For it is easy for the person who is in tribulation to be well

276 willing to do the selfsame thing if he could. And then shall his

277 good will, where the power lacketh, go very near to the merit of

278 the deed. But the wealthy man, now, is not in a like position with

279 regard to the will of patience and conformity and thanks given to

280 God for tribulation. For the wealthy man is not so ready to be

281 content to be in tribulation, which is the occasion of the

282 sufferer's deserving, as the troubled person is to be content to be

283 in prosperity, to do the good deeds that the wealthy man doth.

284 Besides this, all that the wealthy man doth, though he could not do

285 them without those things that are counted for wealth and called by

286 that name—as, not do great alms without great riches, nor do these

287 many men right by his labour without great authority—yet may he do

288 these things being not in wealth indeed. As where he taketh his

289 wealth for no wealth and his riches for no riches, and in heart

290 setteth by neither one, but secretly liveth in a contrite heart and

291 a penitential life, as many times did the prophet David, being a

292 great king, so that worldly wealth was no wealth to him. And

293 therefore worldly wealth is not of necessity the cause of these

294 good deeds, since he may do them (and he doth them best, indeed) to

295 whom the thing that worldly folk call wealth is yet, for his

296 godly-set mind, withdrawn from the delight thereof, no pleasure nor

297 wealth at all.

298 Finally, whenever the wealthy man doth those good virtuous deeds,

299 if we rightly consider the nature of them, we shall perceive that

300 in the doing of them he doth ever, for the ratio and proportion of

301 those deeds, diminish the matter of his worldly wealth. In giving

302 great alms, he parteth with a certain amount of his worldly goods,

303 which are in that amount the matter of his wealth. In labouring

304 about the doing of many good deeds, his labour diminisheth his

305 quiet and his rest, and to that extent it diminisheth his wealth,

306 if pain and wealth be each contrary to the other, as I think you

307 will agree that they are. Now, whosoever then will well consider

308 the thing, he shall, I doubt not, perceive and see that in these

309 good deeds that the wealthy man doth, though it be his wealth that

310 maketh him able to do them, yet in so far as he doth them he

311 departeth in that proportion from the nature of wealth toward the

312 nature of some tribulation. And therefore even in those good deeds

313 themselves that prosperity doth, the prerogative in goodness of

314 tribulation above wealth doth appear.

315 Now if it happen that some man cannot perceive this point because

316 the wealthy man, for all his alms, abideth rich still, and for all

317 his good labour abideth still in his authority, let him consider

318 that I speak only according to proportion. And because the

319 proportion of all that he giveth of his goods is very little in

320 respect of what he leaveth, therefore is the reason haply with some

321 folk little perceived. But if it were so that he went on giving

322 until he had given out all, and left himself nothing, then would

323 even a blind man see it. For as he would be come from riches to

324 poverty, so would he be willingly fallen from wealth into

325 tribulation. And in respect of labour and rest, the same would be

326 true. Whosoever can consider this, shall see that, in every good

327 deed done by the wealthy man, the matter is proportionately the

328 same.

329 Then, since we have somewhat weighed the virtues of prosperity, let

330 us consider on the other hand the afore-named things that are the

331 matter of merit and reward in tribulation—that is, patience,

332 conformity, and thanksgiving. Patience the wealthy man hath not, in

333 so far as he is wealthy. For if he be pinched in any point in which

334 he taketh patience, to that extent he suffereth some tribulation.

335 And so not by his prosperity but by his tribulation hath he that

336 merit. It is the same if we would say that the wealthy man hath

337 another virtue instead of patience—that is, the keeping of himself

338 from pride and such other sins as wealth would bring him to. For

339 the resisting of such motions is, as I before told you, without any

340 doubt a diminishing of fleshly wealth, and is a very true kind (and

341 one of the most profitable kinds) of tribulation. So all that good

342 merit groweth to the wealthy man not by his wealth but by the

343 diminishing of his wealth with wholesome tribulation.

344 The most colour of comparison is in the other two; that is, in the

345 conformity of man's will unto God, and in thanks given unto God.

346 For as the good man, in tribulation sent him by God, conformeth his

347 will to God's will in that behalf, and giveth God thanks for it; so

348 doth the wealthy man, in his wealth which God giveth him, conform

349 his will to God in that point, since he is well content to take it

350 as his gift, and giveth God also right hearty thanks for it. And

351 thus, as I said, in these two things can you catch the most colour

352 to compare the wealthy man's merit with the merit of tribulation.

353 But yet that they be not matches, you may soon see by this: For no

354 one can conform his will unto God's in tribulation and give him

355 thanks for it, but such a man as hath in that point a very

356 specially good disposition. But he that is truly wicked, or hath in

357 his heart but very little good, may well be content to take wealth

358 at God's hand, and say, "Marry, I thank you, sir, for this with all

359 my heart, and I will not fail to love you well—while you let me

360 fare no worse!" *Confitebitur tibi, cum benefeceris ei.* Now, if

361 the wealthy man be very good, yet, in conformity of his will and

362 thanksgiving to God for his wealth, his virtue is not like to that

363 of him who doth the same in tribulation. For, as the philosophers

364 said very well of old, "virtue standeth in things of hardness and

365 difficulty." And then, as I told you, it is much less hard and less

366 difficult, by a great deal, to be content and conform our will to

367 God's will and to give him thanks, too, for our ease than for our

368 pain, for our wealth and for our woe. And therefore the conforming

369 of our will to God's and the thanks that we give him for our

370 tribulation are more worthy of thanks in return, and merit more

371 reward in the very fast wealth and felicity of heaven, than our

372 conformity and our thanksgiving for our worldly wealth here.

373 And this thing saw the devil, when he said to our Lord of Job that

374 it was no marvel if Job had a reverent fear unto God—God had done

375 so much for him, and kept him in prosperity. But the devil knew

376 well that it was a hard thing for Job to be so loving, and so to

377 give thanks to God, in tribulation and adversity. And therefore was

378 he glad to get leave of God to put him in tribulation, and trusted

379 thereby to cause him to murmur and grudge against God with

380 impatience. But the devil had there a fall in his own turn, for the

381 patience of Job in the short time of his adversity got him much

382 more favour and thanks of God, and more is he renowned and

383 commended in scripture for that, than for all the goodness of his

384 long prosperous life. Our Saviour saith himself, also, that if we

385 say well by them or yield them thanks who do us good, we do no

386 great thing, and therefore can we with reason look for no great

387 thanks in return.

388 And thus have I showed you, lo, no little pre-eminence that

389 tribulation hath in merit, and therefore no little pre-eminence of

390 comfort in hope of heavenly reward, above the virtues (the merit

391 and cause of good hope and comfort) that come of wealth and

392 prosperity.

BOOK I · CHAPTER XX

64 And therefore, good cousin, to finish our talking for this time,

65 lest I should be too long a hindrance to your other business:

66 If we lay first, for a sure ground, a very fast faith, whereby we

67 believe to be true all that the scripture saith (understood truly,

68 as the old holy doctors declare it and as the spirit of God

69 instructeth his Catholic church), then shall we consider

70 tribulation as a gracious gift of God, a gift that he specially

71 gave his special friends; a thing that in scripture is highly

72 commended and praised; a thing of which the contrary, long

73 continued, is perilous; a thing which, if God send it not, men have

74 need to put upon themselves and seek by penance; a thing that

75 helpeth to purge our past sins; a thing that preserveth us from

76 sins that otherwise would come; a thing that causeth us to set less

77 by the world; a thing that much diminisheth our pains in purgatory;

78 a thing that much increaseth our final reward in heaven; the thing

79 with which all his apostles followed him thither; the thing to

80 which our Saviour exhorteth all men; the thing without which he

81 saith we be not his disciples; the thing without which no man can

82 get to heaven.

83 Whosoever thinketh on these things, and remembereth them well,

84 shall in his tribulation neither murmur nor grudge. But first shall

85 he by patience take his pain in worth, and then shall he grow in

86 goodness and think himself well worthy of tribulation. And then

87 shall he consider that God sendeth it for his welfare, and thereby

88 shall be moved to give God thanks for it. Therewith shall his grace

89 increase, and God shall give him such comfort by considering that

90 God is in his trouble evermore near to him—for "God is near,"

91 saith the prophet, "to them that have their heart in trouble"—that

92 his joy thereof shall diminish much of his pain. And he shall not

93 seek for vain comfort elsewhere, but shall specially trust in God

94 and seek help of him, submitting his own will wholly to God's

95 pleasure. And he shall pray to God in his heart, and pray his

96 friends pray for him, and especially the priests, as St. James

97 biddeth. And he shall begin first with confession and make him

98 clean to God and ready to depart, and be glad to go to God, putting

99 purgatory to his pleasure. If we thus do, this dare I boldly say,

100 we shall never live here the less by half an hour, but we shall

101 with this comfort find our hearts lightened, and thereby the grief

102 of our tribulation lessened, and the more likelihood to recover and

103 to live the longer.

104 Now if God will that we shall go hence, then doth he much more for

105 us. For he who taketh this way cannot go but well. For of him who

106 is loth to leave this wretched world, mine heart is much in fear

107 lest he did not well. Hard it is for him to be welcome who cometh

108 against his will, who saith unto God when he cometh to fetch him,

109 "Welcome, my Maker—spite of my teeth!" But he that so loveth him

110 that he longeth to go to him, my heart cannot give me but he shall

111 be welcome, albeit that he come ere he be well purged. For "Charity

112 covereth a multitude of sins," and "He that trusteth in God cannot

113 be confounded." And Christ saith, "He that cometh to me, I will not

114 cast him out." And therefore let us never make our reckoning of

115 long life. Let us keep it while we can, because God hath so

116 commanded, but if God give the occasion that with his good will we

117 may go, let us be glad of it and long to go to him. And then shall

118 hope of heaven comfort our heaviness, and out of our transitory

119 tribulation shall we go to everlasting glory—to which, good

120 cousin, I pray God bring us both!

121 VINCENT: Mine own good uncle, I pray God reward you, and at this

122 time I will no longer trouble you. I fear I have this day done you

123 much tribulation with my importunate objections, of very little

124 substance. And you have even showed me an example of patience, in

125 bearing my folly so long. And yet I shall be so bold as to seek

126 some time to talk further of the rest of this most profitable

127 matter of tribulation, which you said you reserved to treat of last

128 of all.

129 ANTHONY: Let that be surely very shortly, cousin, while this is

130 fresh in mind.

131 VINCENT: I trust, good uncle, so to put this in remembrance that

132 it shall never be forgotten with me. Our Lord send you such comfort

133 as he knoweth to be best!

134 ANTHONY: This is well said, good cousin, and I pray the same for

135 you and for all our other friends who have need of comfort—for

136 whom, I think, more than for yourself, you needed some counsel.

137 VINCENT: I shall, with this good counsel that I have heard from

138 you, do them some comfort, I trust in God—to whose keeping I

139 commit you!

140 ANTHONY: And I you, also. Farewell, mine own good cousin.

141 ______________________________

BOOK II

67 VINCENT: It is no little comfort to me, good uncle, that as I came

68 in here I heard from your folk that since my last being here you

69 have had meetly good rest (God be thanked), and your stomach

70 somewhat more come to you. For verily, albeit I had heard before

71 that, in respect of the great pain that for a month's space had

72 held you, you were, a little before my last coming to you, somewhat

73 eased and relieved—for otherwise would I not for any good cause

74 have put you to the pain of talking so much as you then did—yet

75 after my departing from you, remembering how long we tarried

76 together, and that we were all that while talking, and that all the

77 labour was yours, in talking so long together without interpausing

78 between (and that of matter studious and displeasant, all of

79 disease and sickness and other pain and tribulation), I was in good

80 faith very sorry and not a little wroth with myself for mine own

81 oversight, that I had so little considered your pain. And very

82 feared I was, till I heard otherwise, lest you should have waxed

83 weaker and more sick thereafter. But now I thank our Lord, who hath

84 sent the contrary. For a little casting back, in this great age of

85 yours, would be no little danger and peril.

86 ANTHONY: Nay, nay, good cousin—to talk much, unless some other

87 pain hinder me, is to me little grief. A foolish old man is often

88 as full of words as a woman. It is, you know, as some poets paint

89 us, all the joy of an old fool's life to sit well and warm with a

90 cup and a roasted crabapple, and drivel and drink and talk!

91 But in earnest, cousin, our talking was to me great comfort, and

92 nothing displeasing at all. For though we commoned of sorrow and

93 heaviness, yet the thing we chiefly thought upon was not the

94 tribulation itself but the comfort that may grow thereon. And

95 therefore am I now very glad that you are come to finish up the

96 rest.

97 VINCENT: Of truth, my good uncle, it was comforting to me, and

98 hath been since to some other of your friends, to whom, as my poor

99 wit and remembrance would serve me, I did report and rehearse (and

100 not needlessly) your most comforting counsel. And now come I for

101 the rest, and am very joyful that I find you so well refreshed and

102 so ready thereto. But this one thing, good uncle, I beseech you

103 heartily. If I, for delight to hear you speak in the matter, forget

104 myself and you both, and put you to too much pain, remember your

105 own ease. And when you wish to leave off, command me to go my way

106 and seek some other time.

107 ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, if a man were very weak, many words

108 spoken (as you said right now) without interpausing, would

109 peradventure at length somewhat weary him. And therefore wished I

110 the last time, after you were gone (when I felt myself, to say the

111 truth, even a little weary), that I had not so told you a long tale

112 alone, but that we had more often interchanged words, and parted

113 the talking between us, with more often interparling upon your

114 part, in such manner as learned men use between the persons whom

115 they devise, disputing in their feigned dialogues. But yet in that

116 point I soon excused you and laid the lack where I found it, and

117 that was even upon mine own neck.

118 For I remembered that between you and me it fared as it did once

119 between a nun and her brother. Very virtuous was this lady, and of

120 a very virtuous place and enclosed religion. And therein had she

121 been long, in all which time she had never seen her brother, who

122 was likewise very virtuous too, and had been far off at a

123 university, and had there taken the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

124 When he was come home, he went to see his sister, as one who highly

125 rejoiced in her virtue. So came she to the grate that they call, I

126 believe, the locutory, and after their holy watchword spoken on

127 both sides, after the manner used in that place, each took the

128 other by the tip of the finger, for no hand could be shaken through

129 the grate. And forthwith my lady began to give her brother a sermon

130 of the wretchedness of this world, and frailty of the flesh, and

131 the subtle sleights of the wicked fiend, and gave him surely good

132 counsel (saving somewhat too long) how he should be well wary in

133 his living and master well his body for the saving of his soul. And

134 yet, ere her own tale came to an end, she began to find a little

135 fault with him and said, "In good faith, brother, I do somewhat

136 marvel that you, who have been at learning so long and are a doctor

137 and so learned in the law of God, do not now at our meeting (since

138 we meet so seldom) to me who am your sister and a simple unlearned

139 soul, give of your charity some fruitful exhortation. For I doubt

140 not but you can say some good thing yourself." "By my troth, good

141 sister," quoth her brother, "I cannot, for you! For your tongue

142 hath never ceased, but said enough for us both."

143 And so, cousin, I remember that when I was once fallen in, I left

144 you little space to say aught between. But now will I therefore

145 take another way with you, for of our talking I shall drive you to

146 the one half.

147 VINCENT: Now, forsooth, uncle, this was a merry tale! But now, if

148 you make me talk the one half, then shall you be contented far

149 otherwise than was of late a kinswoman of your own—but which one I

150 will not tell you; guess her if you can! Her husband had much

151 pleasure in the manner and behaviour of another honest man, and

152 kept him therefore much company, so that he was at his mealtime the

153 more often away from home. So happed it one time that his wife and

154 he together dined or supped with that neighbour of theirs, and then

155 she made a merry quarrel with him for making her husband so good

156 cheer outside that she could not keep him at home. "Forsooth,

157 mistress," quoth he (for he was a dry merry man), "in my company no

158 thing keepeth him but one. Serve him with the same, and he will

159 never be away from you." "What gay thing may that be?" quoth our

160 cousin then. "Forsooth, mistress," quoth he, "your husband loveth

161 well to talk, and when he sitteth with me, I let him have all the

162 words." "All the words?" quoth she, "marry, than am I content! He

163 shall have all the words with good will, as he hath ever had. But I

164 speak them all myself, and give them all to him, and for aught I

165 care for them, so shall he have them all. But otherwise to say that

166 he shall have them all, you shall keep him still rather than he get

167 the half!"

168 ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, I can soon guess which of our kin she

169 was. I wish we had none, for all her merry words, who would let

170 their husbands talk less!

171 VINCENT: Forsooth, she is not so merry but what she is equally

172 good. But where you find fault, uncle, that I speak not enough: I

173 was in good faith ashamed that I spoke so much and moved you such

174 questions as (I found upon your answer) might better have been

175 spared, they were of so little worth. But now, since I see you be

176 so well content that I shall not forbear boldly to show my folly, I

177 will be no more so shamefast but will ask you what I like.

BOOK II · CHAPTER I

70 And first, good uncle, ere we proceed further, I will be bold to

71 move you one thing more of that which we talked of when I was here

72 before. For when I revolved in my mind again the things that were

73 concluded here by you, methought you would in no wise wish that in

74 any tribulation men should seek for comfort in either worldly

75 things or fleshly. And this opinion of yours, uncle, seemeth

76 somewhat hard, for a merry tale with a friend refresheth a man

77 much, and without any harm delighteth his mind and amendeth his

78 courage and his stomach, so that it seemeth but well done to take

79 such recreation. And Solomon saith, I believe, that men should in

80 heaviness give the sorry man wine, to make him forget his sorrow.

81 And St. Thomas saith that proper pleasant talking, which is called

82 *eutrapelia,* is a good virtue, serving to refresh the mind and

83 make it quick and eager to labour and study again, whereas

84 continual fatigue would make it dull and deadly.

85 ANTHONY: Cousin, I forgot not that point, but I longed not much

86 to touch it. For neither might I well utterly forbear it, where it

87 might befall that it should not hurt; and on the other hand, if it

88 should so befall, methought that it should little need to give any

89 man counsel to it—folk are prone enough to such fancies of their

90 own mind! You may see this by ourselves who, coming now together

91 to talk of as earnest sad matter as men can devise, were fallen

92 yet even at the first into wanton idle tales. And of truth,

93 cousin, as you know very well, I myself am by nature even half a

94 gigglot and more. I wish I could as easily mend my fault as I well

95 know it, but scant can I refrain it, as old a fool as I am.

96 Howbeit, I will not be so partial to my fault as to praise it.

97 But since you ask my mind in the matter, as to whether men in

98 tribulation may not lawfully seek recreation and comfort

99 themselves with some honest mirth (first agreed that our chief

100 comfort must be in God and that with him we must begin and with

101 him continue and with him end also), that a man should take now

102 and then some honest worldly mirth, I dare not be so sore as

103 utterly to forbid it. For good men and well learned have in some

104 cases allowed it, especially for the diversity of divers men's

105 minds. Otherwise, if we were also such as would God we were (and

106 such as natural wisdom would that we should be, and is not clean

107 excusable that we be not indeed), I would then put no doubt but

108 that unto any man the most comforting talking that could be would

109 be to hear of heaven. Whereas now, God help us, our wretchedness

110 is such that in talking a while of it, men wax almost weary. And,

111 as though to hear of heaven were a heavy burden, they must refresh

112 themselves afterward with a foolish tale. Our affection toward

113 heavenly joys waxeth wonderfully cold. If dread of hell were as

114 far gone, very few would fear God, but that yet sticketh a little

115 in our stomachs. Mark me, cousin, at the sermon, and commonly

116 toward the end, somewhat the preacher speaketh of hell and heaven.

117 Now, while he preacheth of the pains of hell, still they stay and

118 give him the hearing. But as soon as he cometh to the joys of

119 heaven, they are busking them backward and flockmeal fall away.

120 It is in the soul somewhat as it is in the body: There are some

121 who are come, either by nature or by evil custom, to that point

122 where a worse thing sometimes more steadeth them than a better.

123 Some men, if they be sick, can away with no wholesome meat, nor no

124 medicine can go down with them, unless it be tempered for their

125 fancy with something that maketh the meat or the medicine less

126 wholesome than it should be. And yet, while it will be no better,

127 we must let them have it so.

128 Cassian (that very virtuous man) rehearseth in a certain

129 conference of his that a certain holy father, in making of a

130 sermon, spoke of heaven and heavenly things so celestially that

131 much of his audience, with the sweet sound of it, began to forget

132 all the world and fall asleep. When the father beheld this, he

133 dissembled their sleeping and suddenly said to them, "I shall tell

134 you a merry tale." At that word they lifted up their heads and

135 hearkened unto that, and afterward (their sleep being therewith

136 broken) heard him tell on of heaven again. In what wise that good

137 father rebuked then their untoward minds—so dull to the thing

138 that all our life we labour for, and so quick and eager toward

139 other trifles—I neither bear in mind nor shall here need to

140 rehearse. But thus much of that matter sufficeth for our purpose,

141 that whereas you demand of me whether in tribulation men may not

142 sometimes refresh themselves with worldly mirth and recreation, I

143 can only say that he who cannot long endure to hold up his head

144 and hear talking of heaven unless he be now and then between

145 refreshed (as though heaven were heaviness!) with a merry foolish

146 tale, there is none other remedy but you must let him have it.

147 Better would I wish it, but I cannot help it.

148 Howbeit, by mine advice, let us at least make those kinds of

149 recreation as short and as seldom as we can. Let them serve us but

150 for sauce, and make themselves not our meat. And let us pray unto

151 God—and all our good friends for us—that we may feel such a

152 savour in the delight of heaven that in respect of the talking of

153 its joys, all worldly recreation may be but a grief to think on.

154 And be sure, cousin, that if we might once purchase the grace to

155 come to that point, we never found of worldly recreation so much

156 comfort in a year as we should find in the bethinking us of heaven

157 for less than half an hour.

158 VINCENT: In faith, uncle, I can well agree to this, and I pray

159 God bring us once to take such a savour in it. And surely, as you

160 began the other day, by faith must we come to it, and to faith by

161 prayer.

162 But now, I pray you, good uncle, vouchsafe to proceed in our

163 principal matter.

BOOK II · CHAPTER II

73 ANTHONY: Cousin, I have bethought me somewhat upon this matter

74 since we were last together. And I find it a thing that, if we

75 should go some way to work, would require many more days to treat

76 of than we should haply find for it in so few as I myself believe

77 that I have yet to live. For every time is not alike with me.

78 Among them, there are many painful, in which I look every day to

79 depart; my mending days come very seldom and are very shortly done.

80 For surely, cousin, I cannot liken my life more fitly now than to

81 the snuff of a candle that burneth within the candlestick's nose.

82 For the snuff sometimes burneth down so low that whosoever looketh

83 on it would think it were quite out, and yet suddenly lifteth up a

84 flame half an inch above the nose and giveth a pretty short light

85 again, and thus playeth divers times till at last, ere it be

86 looked for, out it goeth altogether. So have I, cousin, divers

87 such days together as every day of them I look even to die, and

88 yet have I then after that some such few days again as you

89 yourself see me now to have, in which a man would think that I

90 might yet well continue. But I know my lingering not likely to

91 last long, but out will go my snuff suddenly some day within a

92 while. And therefore will I, with God's help, seem I never so well

93 amended, nevertheless reckon every day for my last. For though, to

94 the repressing of the bold courage of blind youth, there is a very

95 true proverb that "as soon cometh a young sheep's skin to the

96 market as an old," yet this difference there is at least between

97 them: that as the young man may hap sometimes to die soon, so the

98 old man can never live long.

99 And therefore, cousin, in our matter here, leaving out many things

100 that I would otherwise treat of, I shall for this time speak but

101 of very few. Howbeit, if God hereafter send me more such days,

102 then will we, when you wish, further talk of more.

BOOK II · CHAPTER III

76 All manner of tribulation, cousin, that any man can have, as far

77 as for this time cometh to my mind, falleth under some one at

78 least of these three kinds: Either it is such as he himself

79 willingly taketh; or, secondly, such as he willingly suffereth;

80 or, finally, such as he cannot put from him.

81 This third kind I purpose not to speak of now much more, for there

82 shall suffice, for the time, those things that we treated between

83 us the other day. What kind of tribulation this is, I am sure you

84 yourself perceive. For sickness, imprisonment, loss of goods, loss

85 of friends, or such bodily harm as a man hath already caught and

86 can in no wise avoid—these things and such like are the third

87 kind of tribulation that I speak of, which a man neither willingly

88 taketh in the beginning, nor can (though he would) afterward put

89 away.

90 Now think I that, just as no comfort can serve to the man who

91 lacketh wit and faith, whatsoever counsel be given, so to those

92 who have both I have, as for this kind, said in manner enough

93 already. And considering that suffer it he must, since he can by

94 no manner of means put it from him, the very necessity is half

95 counsel enough to take it in good worth and bear it patiently, and

96 rather of his patience to take both ease and thanks than by

97 fretting and fuming to increase his present pain, and afterward by

98 murmur and grudge to fall in further danger of displeasing God

99 with his froward behaviour.

100 And yet, albeit that I think that what has been said sufficeth,

101 yet here and there I shall in the second kind show some such

102 comfort as shall well serve unto this last kind too.

BOOK II · CHAPTER IV

79 The first kind also will I shortly pass over, too. For the

80 tribulation that a man willingly taketh himself, which no man

81 putteth upon him against his own will, is, you know as well as I

82 (for it was somewhat touched the last day), such affliction of the

83 flesh or expense of his goods as a man taketh himself or willingly

84 bestoweth in punishment of his own sin and for devotion to God.

85 Now, in this tribulation needeth he no man to comfort him. For no

86 man troubleth him but himself, who feeleth how far forth he may

87 conveniently bear, and of reason and good discretion shall not

88 pass that—and if any doubt arise therein, it is counsel that he

89 needeth and not comfort. And so the courage that kindleth his

90 heart and enflameth it for God's sake and his soul's health shall,

91 by the same grace that put it in his mind, give him such comfort

92 and joy therein that the pleasure of his soul shall surpass the

93 pain of his body.

94 Yea, and while he hath in heart also some great heaviness for his

95 sin, yet when he considereth the joy that shall come of it, his

96 soul shall not fail to feel then that strange state which my body

97 felt once in a great fever.

98 VINCENT: What strange state was that, uncle?

99 ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, even in this same bed, it is now more

100 than fifteen years ago, I lay in a tertian fever. And I had

101 passed, I believe, three or four fits, when afterward there fell

102 on me one fit out of course, so strange and so marvellous that I

103 would in good faith have thought it impossible. For I suddenly

104 felt myself verily both hot and cold throughout all my body; not

105 in one part the one and in another part the other—for it would

106 have been, you know, no very strange thing to feel the head hot

107 while the hands were cold—but the selfsame parts, I say, so God

108 save my soul, I sensibly felt (and right painfully, too) all in

109 one instant both hot and cold at once.

110 VINCENT: By my faith, uncle, this was a wonderful thing, and such

111 as I never heard happen to any other man in my days. And few men

112 are there out of whose mouths I could have believed it.

113 ANTHONY: Courtesy, cousin, peradventure hindereth you from saying

114 that you believe it not yet of my mouth, neither! And surely, for

115 fear of that, you should not have heard it of me neither, had

116 there not another thing happed me soon thereafter.

117 VINCENT: I pray you, what was that, good uncle?

118 ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, this: I asked a physician or twain,

119 who then considered how this should be possible, and they both

120 twain told me that it could not be so, but that I was fallen into

121 some slumber and dreamed that I felt it so.

122 VINCENT: This hap, hold I, little caused you to tell that tale

123 more boldly!

124 ANTHONY: No, cousin, that is true, lo. But then happed there

125 another: A young girl here in this town, whom a kinsman of hers

126 had begun to teach physic, told me that there was such a kind of

127 fever indeed.

128 VINCENT: By our Lady, uncle, save for the credence of you, the

129 tale would I not yet tell again upon that hap of the maid! For

130 though I know her now for such that I durst well believe her, it

131 might hap her very well at that time to lie, because she would

132 that you should take her for learned.

133 ANTHONY: Yea, but then happed there yet another hap thereon,

134 cousin, that a work of Galen, *"De differentiis febrium,"* is

135 ready to be sold in the booksellers' shops, in which work she

136 showed me then the chapter where Galen saith the same.

137 VINCENT: Marry, uncle, as you say, that hap happed well. And that

138 maid had, as hap was, in that one point more learning than had both

139 your physicians besides—and hath, I believe, at this day in many

140 points more.

141 ANTHONY: In faith, so believe I too. She is very wise and well

142 learned, and very virtuous too.

143 But see now what age is: lo, I have been so long in my tale that I

144 have almost forgotten for what purpose I told it. Oh, now I

145 remember me: As I say, just as I myself felt my body then both hot

146 and cold at once, so he who is contrite and heavy for his sin

147 shall have cause to be both glad and sad, and shall indeed be both

148 twain at once. And he shall do as I remember holy St. Jerome

149 biddeth—"Both be thou sorry," saith he, "and be thou also of thy

150 sorrow joyful."

151 And thus, as I began to say, to him that is in this

152 tribulation—that is, in fruitful heaviness and penance for his

153 sin—shall we need to give none other comfort than only to

154 remember and consider well the goodness of God's excellent mercy,

155 that infinitely surpasseth the malice of all men's sins. By that

156 mercy he is ready to receive every man, and did spread his arms

157 abroad upon the cross, lovingly to embrace all those who will

158 come. And by that mercy he even there accepted the thief at his

159 last end, who turned not to God till he might steal no longer, and

160 yet maketh more feast in heaven for one who turneth from sin than

161 for ninety-nine good men who sinned not at all.

162 And therefore of that first kind of tribulation will I make no

163 longer tale.

BOOK II · CHAPTER V

82 VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, this is very great comfort unto that

83 kind of tribulation. And so great, also, that it may make many a

84 man bold to abide in his sin even unto his end, trusting to be

85 then saved as that thief was.

86 ANTHONY: Very sooth you say, cousin, that some wretches are there

87 who so abuse the great goodness of God that the better he is the

88 worse in return are they. But, cousin, though there be more joy

89 made of his turning who from the point of perdition cometh to

90 salvation, for pity that God had and all his saints of the peril

91 of perishing that the man stood in, yet is he not set in like

92 state in heaven as he should have been if he had lived better

93 before. Unless it so befall that he live so well afterward and do

94 so much good that he outrun, in the shorter time, those good folk

95 that yet did so much in much longer. This is proved in the blessed

96 apostle St. Paul, who of a persecutor became an apostle, and last

97 of all came in unto that office, and yet in the labour of sowing

98 the seed of Christ's faith outran all the rest so far that he

99 forbore not to say of himself, "I have laboured more than all the

100 rest have."

101 But yet, my cousin, though I doubt not that God be so merciful

102 unto those who, at any time of their life, turn and ask his mercy

103 and trust in it, though it be at the last end of a man's life; and

104 that he hireth him as well for heaven who cometh to work in his

105 vineyard toward night at such time as workmen leave work, and

106 goeth home, being then willing to work if time should serve, as he

107 hireth him who cometh in the morning; yet may no man upon the

108 trust of this parable be bold all his life to lie still in sin.

109 For let him remember that no man goeth into God's vineyard but he

110 who is called thither. Now he who, in hope to be called toward the

111 night, will sleep out the morning and drink out the day, is full

112 likely to pass at night unspoken to. And then shall he with ill

113 rest go supperless to bed!

114 They tell of one who was wont always to say that all the while he

115 lived he would do what he pleased, for three words when he died

116 should make all safe enough. But then it so happed that long ere

117 he was old his horse once stumbled upon a broken bridge. And as he

118 laboured to recover him, when he saw that it would not be, but

119 that down into the flood headlong he must go, in sudden dismay he

120 cried out in the falling, "Have all to the devil!" And there was

121 he drowned with his three words ere he died, whereon his hope hung

122 all his wretched life.

123 And therefore let no man sin in hope of grace, for grace cometh

124 but at God's will, and that state of mind may be the hindrance

125 that grace of fruitful repenting shall never after be offered him,

126 but that he shall either graceless go linger on careless, or with

127 a care that is fruitless shall fall into despair.

BOOK II · CHAPTER VI

85 VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, in this point methinketh you say very

86 well. But then are there some again who say on the other hand that

87 we shall need no heaviness for our sins at all, but need only

88 change our intent and purpose to do better, and for all that is

89 passed take no thought at all. And as for fasting and other

90 affliction of the body, they say we should not do it save only to

91 tame the flesh when we feel it wax wanton and begin to rebel. For

92 fasting, they say, serveth to keep the body in temperance, but to

93 fast for penance or to do any other good work, almsdeed or other,

94 toward satisfaction for our own sins—this thing they call plain

95 injury to the passion of Christ, by which alone our sins are

96 forgiven freely without any recompense of our own. And they say

97 that those who would do penance for their own sins look to be

98 their own Christs, and pay their own ransoms, and save their souls

99 themselves. And with these reasons in Saxony many cast fasting

100 off, and all other bodily affliction, save only where need

101 requireth to bring the body to temperance. For no other good, they

102 say, can it do to ourselves, and then to our neighbour can it do

103 none at all. And therefore they condemn it for superstitious

104 folly. Now, heaviness of heart and weeping for our sins, this

105 they reckon shame almost, and womanish childishness—howbeit, God

106 be thanked, their women wax there now so mannish that they are not

107 so childish, nor so poor of spirit, but what they can sin on as

108 men do and be neither afraid nor ashamed nor weep for their sins at

109 all.

110 And surely, mine uncle, I have marvelled the less ever since I

111 heard the manner of their preachers there. For, as you remember,

112 when I was in Saxony these matters were (in a manner) but in a

113 mammering. Luther was not then wedded yet, nor religious men out

114 of their habits, but those that would be of the sect were suffered

115 freely to preach what they would unto the people. And forsooth I

116 heard a religious man there myself—one that had been reputed and

117 taken for very good, and who, as far as the folk perceived, was of

118 his own living somewhat austere and sharp. But his preaching was

119 wonderful! Methinketh I hear him yet, his voice so loud and

120 shrill, his learning less than mean. But whereas his matter was

121 much part against fasting and all affliction for any penance,

122 which he called men's inventions, he ever cried out upon them to

123 keep well the laws of Christ, let go their childish penance, and

124 purpose then to mend and seek nothing to salvation but the death

125 of Christ. "For he is our justice, and he is our Saviour and our

126 whole satisfaction for all our deadly sins. He did full penance

127 for us all upon his painful cross, he washed us there all clean

128 with the water of his sweet side, and brought us out of the

129 devil's danger with his dear precious blood. Leave therefore,

130 leave, I beseech you, these inventions of men, your foolish Lenten

131 fasts and your childish penance! Diminish never Christ's thanks

132 nor look to save yourselves! It is Christ's death, I tell you,

133 that must save us all—Christ's death, I tell you yet again, and

134 not our own deeds. Leave your own fasting, therefore, and lean to

135 Christ alone, good Christian people, for Christ's dear bitter

136 passion!" Now, so loud and shrill he cried "Christ" in their ears,

137 and so thick he came forth with Christ's bitter passion, and that

138 so bitterly spoken with the sweat dropping down his cheeks, that I

139 marvelled not that I saw the poor women weep. For he made my own

140 hair stand up upon my head.

141 And with such preaching were the people so taken in that some fell

142 to break their fast on the fasting days, not of frailty or of

143 malice first, but almost of devotion, lest they should take from

144 Christ the thanks of his bitter passion. But when they were awhile

145 nursled in that point first, they could afterward abide and endure

146 many things more, for which, if he had begun with them, they would

147 have pulled him down.

148 ANTHONY: Cousin, God amend that man, whatsoever he be, and God

149 keep all good folk from such manner of preachers! One such

150 preacher much more abuseth the name of Christ and of his bitter

151 passion than do five hundred gamblers who in their idle business

152 swear and foreswear themselves by his holy bitter passion at dice.

153 They carry the minds of the people from perceiving their craft by

154 the continual naming of the name of Christ, and crying his passion

155 so shrill into their ears that they forget that the Church hath

156 ever taught them that all our penance without Christ's passion

157 would not be worth a pea. And they make the people think that we

158 wish to be saved by our own deeds, without Christ's death; whereas

159 we confess that his passion alone meriteth incomparably more for

160 us than all our own deeds do, but that it is his pleasure that we

161 shall also take pain ourselves with him. And therefore he biddeth

162 all who will be his disciples to take their crosses on their backs

163 as he did, and with their crosses follow him.

164 And where they say that fasting serveth but for temperance to tame

165 the flesh and keep it from wantonness, I would in good faith have

166 thought that Moses had not been so wild that for the taming of his

167 flesh he should have need to fast whole forty days together. No,

168 not Hely neither. Nor yet our Saviour himself, who began the

169 Lenten forty-days fast—and the apostles followed, and all

170 Christendom hath kept it—that these folk call now so foolish.

171 King Achab was not disposed to be wanton in his flesh, when he

172 fasted and went clothed in sackcloth and all besprent with ashes.

173 No more was the king in Nineveh and all the city, but they wailed

174 and did painful penance for their sin to procure God to pity them

175 and withdraw his indignation. Anna, who in her widowhood abode so

176 many years with fasting and praying in the temple till the birth

177 of Christ, was not, I suppose, in her old age so sore disposed to

178 the wantonness of the flesh that she fasted for all that. Nor St.

179 Paul, who fasted so much, fasted not all for that, neither. The

180 scripture is full of places that prove fasting to be not the

181 invention of man but the institution of God, and to have many more

182 profits than one. And that the fasting of one man may do good unto

183 another, our Saviour showeth himself where he saith that some kind

184 of devils cannot be cast out of one man by another "without prayer

185 and fasting." And therefore I marvel that they take this way

186 against fasting and other bodily penance.

187 And yet much more I marvel that they mislike the sorrow and

188 heaviness and displeasure of mind that a man should take in

189 thinking of his sin. The prophet saith, "Tear your hearts and not

190 your clothes." And the prophet David saith, "A contrite heart and

191 an humbled"—that is to say, a heart broken, torn, and laid low

192 under foot with tribulation of heaviness for his sins—"shalt thou

193 not, good Lord, despise." He saith also of his own contrition, "I

194 have laboured in my wailing; I shall every night wash my bed with

195 my tears, my couch will I water."

196 But why should I need in this matter to lay forth one place or

197 twain? The scripture is full of those places, by which it plainly

198 appeareth that God looketh of duty, not only that we should amend

199 and be better in the time to come, but also that we should be

200 sorry and weep and bewail our sins committed before. And all the

201 old holy doctors be full and whole of that opinion, that men must

202 have for their sins contrition and sorrow in heart.

BOOK II · CHAPTER VII

88 VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, this thing yet seemeth to me a somewhat

89 sore sentence, not because I think otherwise but that there is

90 good cause and great wherefore a man should so sorrow, but because

91 of truth sometimes a man cannot be sorry and heavy for his sin

92 that he hath done, though he never so fain would. But though he

93 can be content for God's sake to forbear it thenceforth, yet not

94 only can he not weep for every sin that is past, but some were

95 haply so wanton that when he happeth to remember them he can

96 scantly forbear to laugh.

97 Now, if contrition and sorrow of heart be so requisite of

98 necessity to remission, many a man should stand, it seemeth, in a

99 very perilous state.

100 ANTHONY: Many so should indeed, cousin, and indeed many do so.

101 And the old saints write very sore on this point. Howbeit, "the

102 mercy of God is above all his works," and he standeth bound to no

103 common rule. "And he knoweth the frailty of this earthen vessel

104 that is of his own making, and is merciful and hath pity and

105 compassion upon our feeble infirmities," and shall not exact of us

106 above the thing that we can do.

107 And yet, cousin, he who findeth himself in that state, let him

108 give God thanks that he is no worse, in that he is minded to do

109 well hereafter. But in that he cannot be sorry for his sin passed,

110 let him be sorry at least that he is no better. And as St. Jerome

111 biddeth him who sorroweth in his heart for sin to be glad and

112 rejoice in his sorrow, so would I counsel him who cannot be sad

113 for his sin to be sorry at least that he cannot be sorry!

114 Besides this, though I would in no wise that any man should

115 despair, yet would I counsel such a man while that affection

116 lasteth not to be bold of courage, but to live in double fear:

117 First, because it is a token either of faint faith or of a dull

118 diligence. For surely if we believe in God, and therewith deeply

119 consider his high majesty, with the peril of our sin and the great

120 goodness of God also, then either dread should make us tremble and

121 break our stony heart, or love should for sorrow relent it into

122 tears. Besides this, because, since so little misliking of our old

123 sin is an affection not very pure and clean, and since no unclean

124 thing shall enter into heaven, I can scantly believe but it shall

125 be cleansed and purified before we come there. And therefore would

126 I further give one in that state the counsel which Master Gerson

127 giveth every man: that since the body and the soul together make

128 the whole man, the less affliction he feeleth in his soul, the

129 more pain in recompense let him put upon his body, and purge the

130 spirit by the affliction of the flesh. And he who so doth, I dare

131 lay my life, shall have his hard heart afterward relent into

132 tears, and his soul in a wholesome heaviness and heavenly gladness

133 too—especially if he join therewith faithful prayer, which must

134 be joined with every good thing.

135 But, cousin, as I told you the other day, in these matters with

136 these new men I will not dispute, but surely for mine own part I

137 cannot well hold with them. For as far as mine own poor wit can

138 perceive, the holy scripture of God is very plain against them,

139 and the whole corps of Christendom in every Christan region. And

140 the very places in which they dwell themselves have ever unto

141 their own days clearly believed against them and all the old holy

142 doctors have evermore taught against them, and all the old holy

143 interpreters have construed against them. And therefore if these

144 men have now perceived so late that the scripture hath been

145 misunderstood all this while, and that of all those old holy

146 doctors no man could understand it, then am I too old at this age

147 to begin to study it now! And I dare not in no wise trust these

148 men's learning, cousin, since I cannot see nor perceive any cause

149 wherefore I should think that these men might not now in the

150 understanding of scripture as well be deceived themselves as they

151 would have us believe all those others have been, all this while

152 before.

153 Howbeit, cousin, if it so be that their way be not wrong, but that

154 they have found out so easy a way to heaven as to take no thought,

155 but make merry, nor take no penance at all, but sit them down and

156 drink well for our Saviour's sake—set cockahoop and fill all the

157 cups at once, and then let Christ's passion pay for all the

158 scot—I am not he who will envy their good hap. But surely,

159 counsel dare I give no man to adventure that way with them. But

160 those who fear lest that way be not sure, and take upon themselves

161 willingly tribulation of penance—what comfort they do take, and

162 well may take therein, that have I somewhat told you already. And

163 since these other folk sit so merry with such tribulation, we need

164 talk to them, you know, of no such manner of comfort.

165 And therefore of this kind of tribulation will I make an end.

BOOK II · CHAPTER VIII

91 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, so may you well do, for you have

92 brought it unto a very good pass.

93 And now, I pray you, come to the other kind, of which you purposed

94 always to treat last.

95 ANTHONY: That shall I, cousin, very gladly do. The other kind is

96 the one which I rehearsed second, and (sorting out the other two)

97 have kept for the last. This second kind of tribulation is, you

98 know, of those who willingly suffer tribulation, though of their

99 own choice they took it not at first.

100 This kind, cousin, we shall divide into twain; the first we might

101 call temptation, the second persecution. But here must you

102 consider that I mean not every kind of persecution, but only that

103 kind which, though the sufferer would be loth to fall in, yet will

104 he rather abide it and suffer than, by flying from it, fall into

105 the displeasure of God or leave God's pleasure unprocured.

106 Howbeit, if we well consider these two things, temptation and

107 persecution, we may find that either of them is incident into the

108 other. For both by temptation the devil persecuteth us, and by

109 persecution the devil also tempteth us. And as persecution is

110 tribulation to every man, so is temptation tribulation to a good

111 man. Now, though the devil, our spiritual enemy, fight against man

112 in both, yet this difference hath the common temptation from the

113 persecution: Temptation is, as it were, the fiend's snare, and

114 persecution his plain open fight. And therefore will I now call

115 all this kind of tribulation here by the name of temptation, and

116 that shall I divide into two parts. The first shall I call the

117 devil's snares, the other his open fight.

BOOK II · CHAPTER IX

94 To speak of every kind of temptation particularly, by itself,

95 would be, you know, in a manner an infinite thing. For under that,

96 as I told you, fall persecutions and all. And the devil hath a

97 thousand subtle ways of his snares, and of his open fight as many

98 sundry poisoned darts. He tempteth us by the world, he tempteth us

99 by our own flesh; he tempteth us by pleasure, he tempteth us by

100 pain; he tempteth us by our foes, he tempteth us by our own

101 friends—and, under colour of kindred, he maketh many times our

102 nearest friends our most foes. For, as our Saviour said, *"Inimici

103 hominis domestici eius."*

104 But in all manner of so diverse temptations, one marvellous

105 comfort is that, the more we be tempted, the gladder have we cause

106 to be. For, as St. James saith, "Esteem and take it, my brethren,

107 for a thing of all joy when you fall into diverse and sundry

108 manner of temptations." And no marvel, for there is in this world

109 set up (as it were) a game of wrestling, in which the people of

110 God come in on the one side, and on the other side come mighty

111 strong wrestlers and wily—that is, the devils, the cursed proud

112 damned spirits. For it is not our flesh alone that we must wrestle

113 with, but with the devil too. "Our wrestling is not here," saith

114 St. Paul, "against flesh and blood, but against the princes and

115 potentates of these dark regions, against the spiritual wicked

116 ghosts of the air."

117 But as God hath prepared a crown for those who on his side give

118 his adversary the fall, so he who will not wrestle shall have

119 none. For, as St. Paul saith, "There shall no man have the crown

120 but he who contendeth for it according to the law of the game."

121 And then, as holy St. Bernard saith, how couldst thou fight or

122 wrestle for it, if there were no challenger against thee who would

123 provoke thee thereto? And therefore may it be a great comfort, as

124 St. James saith, to every man who feeleth himself challenged and

125 provoked by temptation. For thereby perceiveth he that it cometh

126 to his course to wrestle, which shall be, unless he willingly play

127 the coward or the fool, the matter of his eternal reward.

BOOK II · CHAPTER X

97 But now must this needs be to man an inestimable comfort in all

98 temptation if his faith fail him not: that is, that he may be sure

99 that God is always ready to give him strength against the devil's

100 might and wisdom against the devil's snares.

101 For, as the prophet saith, "My strength and my praise is our Lord,

102 he hath been my safeguard." And the scripture saith, "Ask wisdom

103 of God and he shall give it thee," in order "that you may espy,"

104 as St. Paul saith, "and perceive all the crafts." A great comfort

105 may this be in all kinds of temptation, that God hath so his hand

106 upon him who is willing to stand and will trust in him and call

107 upon him, that he hath made him sure by many faithful promises in

108 holy scripture that either he shall not fall or, if he sometimes

109 through faintness of faith stagger and hap to fall, yet if he call

110 upon God betimes his fall shall be no sore bruising to him. But as

111 the scripture saith, "The just man, though he fall, shall not be

112 bruised, for our Lord holdeth under his hand."

113 The prophet expresseth a plain comfortable promise of God against

114 all temptations where he saith, "Whoso dwelleth in the help of the

115 highest God, he shall abide in the protection or defence of the

116 God of heaven." Who dwelleth, now, good cousin, in the help of the

117 high God? Surely, he who through a good faith abideth in the trust

118 and confidence of God's help, and neither, for lack of that faith

119 and trust in his help, falleth desperate of all help, nor

120 departeth from the hope of his help to seek himself help (as I

121 told you the other day) from the flesh, the world, or the devil.

122 Now he then who by fast faith and sure hope dwelleth in God's

123 help, and hangeth always upon that hope, never falling from it, he

124 shall, saith the prophet, ever dwell and abide in God's defence

125 and protection. That is to say, while he faileth not to believe

126 well and hope well, God will never fail in all temptation to

127 defend him. For unto such a faithful well-hoping man the prophet

128 in the same psalm saith further, "With his shoulders shall he

129 shadow thee, and under his feathers shalt thou trust." Lo, here

130 hath every faithful man a sure promise that in the fervent heat of

131 temptation or tribulation—for, as I have said divers times

132 before, each is in such wise incident to the other that the devil

133 useth every tribulation for temptation to bring us to impatience,

134 and thereby to murmur and grudge and blasphemy; and every kind of

135 temptation, to a good man who fighteth against it and will not

136 follow it, is a very painful tribulation. In the fervent heat, I

137 say therefore, of every temptation, God giveth the faithful man

138 who hopeth in him the shadow of his holy shoulders. His shoulders

139 are broad and large enough to cool and refresh the man in that

140 heat, and in every tribulation he putteth them for a defence

141 between. And then what weapon of the devil may give us any deadly

142 wound, while that impenetrable shield of the shoulder of God

143 standeth always between?

144 Then goeth the verse further, and saith unto such a faithful man,

145 "Thine hope shall be under his feathers." That is, for the good

146 hope thou hast in his help, he will take thee so near him into his

147 protection that, as the hen, to keep her young chickens from the

148 kite, nestled them together under her wings, so from the devil's

149 claws—the ravenous kite of this dark air—will the God of heaven

150 gather the faithful trusting folk near unto his own sides, and set

151 them in surety, very well and warm, under the covering of his

152 heavenly wings. And of this defence and protection, our

153 Saviour spoke himself unto the Jews, as mention is made in the

154 twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew, to whom he said in this wise:

155 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets and stonest unto

156 death them that are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered

157 thee together, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,

158 and thou wouldst not."

159 Here are, cousin Vincent, words of no little comfort unto every

160 Christian man. For by them we may see with what tender affection

161 God of his great goodness longeth to gather us under the

162 protection of his wings, and how often like a loving hen he

163 clucketh home unto him even those chickens of his that wilfully

164 walk abroad into the kite's danger and will not come at his

165 clucking, but ever, the more he clucketh for them, the farther

166 they go from him. And therefore can we not doubt that, if we will

167 follow him and with faithful hope come running to him, he shall in

168 all matter of temptation take us near unto him and set us even

169 under his wing. And then are we safe, if we will tarry there, for

170 against our will no power can pull us thence, nor hurt our souls

171 there. "Set me near unto thee," saith the prophet, "and fight

172 against me whose hand that will." And to show the great safeguard

173 and surety that we shall have while we sit under his heavenly

174 feathers, the prophet saith yet a great deal further, *"In

175 velamento alarum tuarum exaltabo."* That is, that we shall not

176 only sit in safeguard when we sit by his sweet side under his holy

177 wing, but we shall also under the covering of his heavenly wings

178 with great exultation rejoice.

BOOK II · CHAPTER XI

100 Now, in the two next verses following, the prophet briefly

101 comprehendeth four kinds of temptations, and therein all the

102 tribulation that we shall now speak of, and also some part of that

103 which we have spoken of before. And therefore I shall peradventure

104 (unless any further thing fall in our way) with treating of those

105 two verses, finish and end all our matter.

106 The prophet saith in the ninetieth psalm, "*Scuto circumdabit te

107 veritas eius; non timebis a timore nocturno, a sagitta volante in

108 die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris, ab incurso et demonio

109 meridiano.* The truth of God shall compass thee about with a

110 shield, you shall not be afraid of the night's fear, nor of the

111 arrow flying in the day, nor of business walking about in the

112 darknesses, nor of the incursion or invasion of the devil in the

113 midday."

114 First, cousin, in these words "the truth of God shall compass thee

115 about with a shield," the prophet for the comfort of every good

116 man in all temptation and in all tribulation, besides those other

117 things that he said before—that the shoulders of God should

118 shadow them and that also they should sit under his wing—here

119 saith he further that the truth of God shall compass thee with a

120 shield. That is, as God hath faithfully promised to protect and

121 defend those that faithfully will dwell in the trust of his help,

122 so will he truly perform it. And thou who art such a one, the

123 truth of his promise will defend thee not with a little round

124 buckler that scantly can cover the head, but with a long large

125 shield that covereth all along the body. This shield is made (as

126 holy St. Bernard saith) broad above with the Godhead and narrow

127 beneath with the Manhood, so that it is our Saviour Christ himself.

128 And yet is this shield not like other shields of the world, which

129 are so made that while they defend one part the man may be wounded

130 upon another. But this shield is such that, as the prophet saith,

131 it shall round about enclose and compass thee, so that thine enemy

132 shall hurt thy soul on no side. For "with a shield," saith he,

133 "shall his truth environ and compass thee round about."

134 And then incontinently following, to the intent that we should see

135 that it is not without necessity that the shield of God should

136 compass us about upon every side, he showeth in what wise we are

137 environed by the devil upon every side with snares and assaults,

138 by four kinds of temptations and tribulations. Against all this

139 compass of temptations and tribulations that round-compassing

140 shield of God's truth shall so defend us and keep us safe that we

141 shall need to dread none of them at all.

BOOK II · CHAPTER XII

103 First, he saith, "thou shalt not be afraid of the fear of the

104 night." By the night is there in scripture sometimes understood

105 tribulation, as appeareth in the thirty-fourth chapter of Job: "God

106 hath known the works of them, and therefore shall he bring night

107 upon them," that is, tribulation for their wickedness. And well you

108 know that the night is of its own nature discomfortable and full of

109 fear. And therefore by the night's fear here I understand the

110 tribulation by which the devil, through the sufference of God,

111 either by himself or by others who are his instruments, tempteth

112 good folk to impatience as he did Job. But he who, as the prophet

113 saith, dwelleth and continueth faithfully in the hope of God's

114 help, shall so be clipped in on every side with the shield of God

115 that he shall have no need to be afraid of such tribulation as is

116 here called the night's fear. And it may be also fittingly called

117 the night's fear for two causes: One, because many times, unto him

118 who suffereth, the cause of his tribulation is dark and unknown.

119 And therein it varieth and differeth from that tribulation by which

120 the devil tempteth a man with open fight and assault for a known

121 good thing from which he would withdraw him, or for some known evil

122 thing into which he would drive him by force of such persecution.

123 Another cause for which it is called the night's fear may be

124 because the night is so far out of courage, and naturally so

125 casteth folk into fear, that their fancy doubleth their fear of

126 everything of which they perceive any manner of dread, and maketh

127 them often think that it were much worse than indeed it is.

128 The prophet saith in the psalter, "Thou hast, good Lord, set the

129 darkness and made was the night, and in the night walk all the

130 beasts of the woods, the whelps of the lions roaring and calling

131 unto God for their meat." Now, though the lions' whelps walk about

132 roaring in the night and seek for their prey, yet can they not get

133 such meat as they would always, but must hold themselves content

134 with such as God suffereth to fall in their way. And though they

135 be not aware of it, yet of God they ask it and of him they have

136 it. And this may be comfort to all good men in their night's fear,

137 that though they fall in their dark tribulation into the claws of

138 the devil or the teeth of those lions' whelps, yet all that they

139 can do shall not pass beyond the body, which is but as the garment

140 of the soul. For the soul itself, which is the substance of the

141 man, is so surely fenced in round about with the shield of God,

142 that as long as he will abide faithfully in the hope of God's help

143 the lions' whelp shall not be able to hurt it. For the great Lion

144 himself could never be suffered to go further in the tribulation

145 of Job than God from time to time gave him leave.

146 And therefore the deep darkness of the midnight maketh men who

147 stand out of faith and out of good hope in God to be in far the

148 greater fear in their tribulation, for lack of the light of faith,

149 by which they might perceive that the uttermost of their peril is

150 a far less thing than they take it for. But we are so wont to set

151 so much by our body, which we see and feel, and in the feeding and

152 fostering of which we set out delight and our wealth; and so

153 little (alas) and so seldom we think upon our soul, because we

154 cannot see that but by spiritual understanding, and most

155 especially by the eye of our faith (in the meditation of which we

156 bestow, God knows, little time), that the loss of our body we take

157 for a sorer thing and for a great deal greater tribulation than we

158 do the loss of our soul. Our Saviour biddeth us not fear those

159 lions' whelps that can but kill our bodies and when that is done

160 have no further thing in their power with which they can do us

161 harm, but he biddeth us stand in dread of him who when he hath

162 slain the body is able then beside to cast the soul into

163 everlasting fire. Yet are we so blind in the dark night of

164 tribulation, for lack of full and fast belief of God's word, that,

165 whereas in the day of prosperity we very little fear God for our

166 soul, our night's fear of adversity maketh us very sore to fear

167 the lion and his whelps for dread of loss of our bodies. And

168 whereas St. Paul in sundry places telleth us that our body is but

169 the garment of the soul, yet the faintness of our faith in the

170 scripture of God maketh us, with the night's fear of tribulation,

171 not only to dread the loss of our body more than that of our

172 soul—that is, of the clothing more than of the substance that is

173 clothed therewith—but also of the very outward goods that serve

174 for the clothing of the body. And much more foolish are we in that

175 dark night's fear than would be a man who would forget the saving

176 of his body for fear of losing his old rain-beaten cloak, that is

177 but the covering of his gown or his coat. Now, consider further

178 yet, that the prophet in the afore-remembered verses saith that in

179 the night there walk not only the lions' whelps but also "all the

180 beasts of the wood." Now, you know that if a man walk through the

181 wood in the night, many things can make him afraid of which in the

182 day he would not be afraid a whit. For in the night every bush, to

183 him that waxeth once afraid, seemeth a thief.

184 I remember that when I was a young man, I was once in the war with

185 the king then my master (God absolve his soul) and we were camped

186 within the Turk's ground many a mile beyond Belgrade—would God it

187 were ours now as it was then! But so happed it that in our camp

188 about midnight there suddenly rose a rumour and a cry that the

189 Turk's whole army was secretly stealing upon us. Therewith our

190 whole host was warned to arm them in haste and set themselves in

191 array to fight. And then were runners of ours, who had brought

192 those sudden tidings, examined more leisurely by the council, as

193 to what surety or what likelihood they had perceived. And one of

194 them said that by the glimmering of the moon he had espied and

195 perceived and seen them himself, coming on softly and soberly in a

196 long range, all in good order, not one farther forth than the

197 other in the forefront, but as even as a third, and in breadth

198 farther than he could see the length. His fellows, being examined,

199 said that he had somewhat pricked forth before them, and came back

200 so fast to tell it to them that they thought it rather time to

201 make haste and giving warning to the camp than to go nearer unto

202 them. For they were not so far off but what they had yet

203 themselves somewhat an imperfect sight of them, too. Thus stood we

204 on watch all the rest of the night, evermore hearkening when we

205 should hear them come, but "Hush, stand still! Methink I hear a

206 trampling," so that at last many of us thought we heard them

207 ourselves too. But when the day was sprung, and we saw no one, out

208 was our runner sent again, and some of our captains with him, to

209 show whereabout was the place in which he had perceived them. And

210 when they came thither, they found that the great fearful army of

211 the Turks, so soberly coming on, turned (God be thanked) into a

212 fair long hedge standing even stone-still.

213 And thus fareth it in the night's fear of tribulation, in which

214 the devil, to bear down and overwhelm with dread the faithful hope

215 that we should have in God, casteth in our imagination much more

216 fear than cause. For since there walk in that night not only the

217 lion's whelps but all the beasts of the wood beside, the beast

218 that we hear roar in the dark night of tribulation, and fear for a

219 lion, we sometimes find well afterward in the way that it was no

220 lion at all, but a silly rude roaring ass. And sometimes the thing

221 that on the sea seemeth a rock is indeed nothing else but a mist.

222 Howbeit, as the prophet saith, he that faithfully dwelleth in the

223 hope of God's help, the shield of his truth shall so fence him

224 round about that, be it an ass or a colt or a lion's whelp, or a

225 rock of stone or a mist, the night's fear thereof shall be nothing

226 to dread.

BOOK II · CHAPTER XIII

106 Therefore find I that in the night's fear one great part is the

107 fault of pusillanimity; that is, of faint and feeble stomach, by

108 which a man for faint heart is afraid where he needeth not. By

109 reason of this, he flieth oftentime for fear of something of

110 which, if he fled not, he should take no harm. And a man doth

111 sometimes by his fleeing make an enemy bold on him, who would, if

112 he fled not but dared abide, give over and fly from him.

113 This fault of pusillanimity maketh a man in his tribulation first,

114 for feeble heart, impatient. And afterward oftentimes it driveth

115 him by impatience into a contrary affection, making him frowardly

116 stubborn and angry against God, and thereby to fall into

117 blasphemy, as do the damned souls in hell. This fault of

118 pusillanimity and timorous mind hindereth a man also many times

119 from doing many good things which, if he took a good stomach to

120 him in the trust of God's help, he would be well able to do. But

121 the devil casteth him in a cowardice and maketh him take it for

122 humility to think himself unfit and unable to do them. And

123 therefore he leaveth undone the good thing of which God offereth

124 him occasion and to which he had made him fit.

125 But such folk have need to lift up their hearts and call upon God,

126 and by the counsel of other good spiritual folk to cast away the

127 cowardice of their own conceiving which the night's fear by the

128 devil hath framed in their fancy. And they have need to look in

129 the gospel upon him who laid up his talent and left it unoccupied

130 and therefore utterly lost it, with a great reproach of his

131 pusillanimity, but which he had thought to have excused himself,

132 in that he was afraid to put it forth into use and occupy it.

133 And all this fear cometh by the devil's drift, wherein he taketh

134 occasion of the faintness of our good and sure trust in God. And

135 therefore let us faithfully dwell in the good hope of his help,

136 and then shall the shield of his truth so compass us about that of

137 this night's fear we shall have no fear at all.

BOOK II · CHAPTER XIV

109 This pusillanimity bringeth forth, by the night's fear, a very

110 timorous daughter, a silly wretched girl and ever whining, who is

111 called Scrupulosity, or a scrupulous conscience.

112 This girl is a good enough maidservant in a house, never idle but

113 ever occupied and busy. But albeit she hath a very gentle mistress

114 who loveth her well and is well content with what she doth—or, if

115 all be not well (as all cannot always be well), is content to

116 pardon her as she doth others of her fellows, and letteth her know

117 that she will do so—yet can this peevish girl never cease whining

118 and puling for fear lest her mistress be always angry with her and

119 she shall severely be chidden. Would her mistress, think you, be

120 likely to be content with this condition? Nay, surely not.

121 I knew such a one myself, whose mistress was a very wise woman and

122 (a thing which is in women very rare) very mild also and meek, and

123 liked very well such service as she did her in the house. But she

124 so much misliked this continual discomfortable fashion of hers

125 that she would sometimes say, "Eh, what aileth this girl? The

126 elvish urchin thinketh I were a devil, I do believe. Surely if she

127 did me ten times better service than she doth, yet with this

128 fantastical fear of hers I would be loth to have her in mine

129 house."

130 Thus fareth, lo, the scrupulous person, who frameth himself many

131 times double the fear that he hath cause, and many times a great

132 fear where there is no cause at all. And of that which is indeed

133 no sin, he maketh a venial one. And that which is venial, he

134 imagineth to be deadly—and yet, for all that, he falleth into

135 them, since they are of their nature such as no man long liveth

136 without. And then he feareth that he is never fully confessed nor

137 fully contrite, and then that his sins be never fully forgiven

138 him. And then he confesseth and confesseth again, and cumbereth

139 himself and his confessor both. And then every prayer that he

140 saith, though he say it as well as the frail infirmity of the man

141 will suffer, yet he is not satisfied unless he say it again, and

142 yet after that again. And when he hath said the same thing thrice,

143 as little is he satisfied with the last time as the first. And

144 then is his heart evermore in heaviness, unquiet, and fear, full

145 of doubt and dullness, without comfort or spiritual consolation.

146 With this night's fear the devil sore troubleth the mind of many a

147 right good man, and that doth he to bring him to some great evil.

148 For he will, if he can, drive him so much to the fearful minding

149 of God's rigorous justice, that he will keep him from the

150 comfortable remembrance of God's great mighty mercy, and so make

151 him do all his good works wearily and without consolation or

152 quickness.

153 Moreover, he maketh him take for a sin something that is not one,

154 and for a deadly sin one that is but venial, to the intent that

155 when he shall fall into them he shall, by reason of his scruple,

156 sin where otherwise he would not, or sin mortally (because his

157 conscience, in doing the deed, so told him) where otherwise indeed

158 he would have offended only venially.

159 Yes, and further, the devil longeth to make all his good works and

160 spiritual exercises so painful and so tedious to him, that, with

161 some other subtle suggestion or false wily doctrine of a false

162 spiritual liberty, he should be easily conveyed from that evil

163 fault into one much worse, for the false ease and pleasure that he

164 should suddenly find therein. And then should he have his

165 conscience as wide and large afterward as ever it was narrow and

166 straight before. For better is yet, of truth, a conscience a

167 little too narrow than a little too large.

168 My mother had, when I was a little boy, a good old woman who took

169 care of her children. They called her Mother Maud—I daresay you

170 have heard of her?

171 VINCENT: Yea, yea, very much.

172 ANTHONY: She was wont, when she sat by the fire with us, to tell

173 us who were children many childish tales. But as Pliny saith that

174 there is no book lightly so bad but that a man may pick some good

175 thing out of it, so think I that there is almost no tale so

176 foolish but that yet in one matter or another, it may hap to serve

177 to some purpose.

178 For I remember me that among others of her foolish tales, she told

179 us once that the ass and the wolf came upon a time to confession

180 to the fox. The poor ass came to shrift in Shrovetide, a day or

181 two before Ash Wednesday. But the wolf would not come to

182 confession till he saw first Palm Sunday past, and then he put it

183 off yet further until Good Friday.

184 The fox asked the ass, before he began *"Benedicite,"* wherefore

185 he came to confession so soon, before Lent began. The poor beast

186 answered him that it was for fear of deadly sin, if he should lose

187 his part of any of those prayers that the priests in the cleansing

188 days pray for them who are then confessed already. Then in his

189 shrift he had a marvellous grudge in his inward conscience, that

190 he had one day given his master a cause of anger in that, with his

191 rude roaring before his master arose, he had wakened him out of

192 his sleep and bereaved him of his rest. The fox, for that fault,

193 like a good discreet confessor, charged him to do so no more, but

194 to lie still and sleep like a good son himself until his master

195 were up and ready to go to work, and so should he be sure that he

196 should wake him no more.

197 To tell you all the poor ass's confession, it would be a long

198 work. For everything that he did was deadly sin with him, the poor

199 soul was so scrupulous. But his wise wily confessor accounted them

200 for trifles (as they were) and swore afterward to the badger that

201 he was so weary to sit so long and hear him that, saving for the

202 sake of manners, he had rather have sat all that time at breakfast

203 with a good fat goose. But when it came to the giving of the

204 penance, the fox found that the most weighty sin in all his shrift

205 was gluttony. And therefore he discreetly gave him in penance that

206 he should never for greediness of his food do any other beast any

207 harm or hindrance. And then he should eat his food and worry no

208 more.

209 Now, as good Mother Maud told us, when the wolf came to Father

210 Reynard (that was, she said, the fox's name) to confession upon

211 Good Friday, his confessor shook his great pair of beads at him,

212 almost as big as bowling balls, and asked him wherefore he came so

213 late. "Forsooth, Father Reynard," quoth he, "I must needs tell you

214 the truth—I come, you know, for that. I dared not come sooner for

215 fear lest you would, for my gluttony, have given me in penance to

216 fast some part of this Lent." "Nay, nay," quoth Father Fox, "I am

217 not so unreasonable, for I fast none of it myself. For I may say

218 to thee, son, between us twain here in confession, it is no

219 commandment of God, this fasting, but an invention of man. The

220 priests make folk fast, and then put them to trouble about the

221 moonshine in the water, and do but make folk fools. But they shall

222 make me no such fool, I warrant thee, son, for I ate flesh all

223 this Lent, myself. Howbeit indeed, because I will not be occasion

224 of slander, I ate it secretly in my chamber, out of sight of all

225 such foolish brethren as for their weak scrupulous conscience

226 would wax offended by it. And so would I counsel you to do."

227 "Forsooth, Father Fox," quoth the wolf, "and so, thank God, I do,

228 as near as I can. For when I go to my meal, I take no other

229 company with me but such sure brethren as are of mine own nature,

230 whose consciences are not weak, I warrant you, but their stomachs

231 are as strong as mine." "Well, then, no matter," quoth Father Fox.

232 But when he heard afterward, by his confession, that he was so

233 great a ravener that he devoured and spent sometimes so much

234 victuals at a meal that the price of them would well keep some

235 poor man with his wife and children almost all the week, then he

236 prudently reproved that point in him, and preached him a sermon of

237 his own temperance. For he never used, he said, to pass the value

238 of sixpence at a meal—no, nor even that much, "For when I bring

239 home a goose," quoth he, "it is not out of the poulterer's shop,

240 where folk find them with their feathers ready plucked and see

241 which is the fattest, and yet for sixpence buy and choose the

242 best; but out of the housewife's house, at first hand, which can

243 supply them somewhat cheaper, you know, than the poulterer can.

244 Nor yet can I be suffered to see them plucked, and stand and

245 choose them by day, but am fain by night to take one at adventure.

246 And when I come home, I am fain to do the labour to pluck it

247 myself too. Yet, for all this, though it be but lean and, I know,

248 not well worth a groat, it serveth me sometimes both for dinner

249 and for supper too. As for the fact that you live of ravine, I can

250 find no fault in that. You have used it so long that I think you

251 can do no otherwise, and therefore it would be folly to forbid it

252 to you—and, to say the truth, against good conscience too. For

253 live you must, I know, and other craft know you none, and

254 therefore, as reason is, must you live by that. But yet, you know,

255 too much is too much, and measure is a merry mean, which I

256 perceive by your shrift you have never used to keep. And therefore

257 surely this shall be your penance, that you shall all this year

258 never pass the price of sixpence at a meal, as near as your

259 conscience can guess the price."

260 Their shrift have I told you, as Mother Maud told it to us. But now

261 serveth for our matter the conscience of them both in the true

262 performing of their penance. The poor ass after his shrift, when he

263 waxed an-hungered, saw a sow lie with her pigs, well lapped in new

264 straw. And he drew near and thought to have eaten of the straw, but

265 anon his scrupulous conscience began therein to grudge him. For

266 since his penance was that, for greediness of his good, he should

267 do nobody else any harm, he thought he might not eat one straw

268 there lest, for lack of that straw, some of those pigs might hap to

269 die for cold. So he held still his hunger until someone brought him

270 food. But when he was about to fall to it, then fell he yet into a

271 far further scruple. For then it came in his mind that he should

272 yet break his penance if he should eat any of that either, since he

273 was commanded by his ghostly father that he should not, for his own

274 food, hinder any other beast. For he thought that if he ate not

275 that food, some other beast might hap to have it. And so should he,

276 by the eating of it, peradventure hinder another. And thus stayed

277 he still fasting till, when he told the cause, his ghostly father

278 came and informed him better, and then he cast off that scruple and

279 fell mannerly to his meal, and was a right honest ass many a fair

280 day after.

281 The wolf now, coming from shrift clean absolved from his sins,

282 went about to do as a certain shrewish wife once told her husband

283 that she would do, when she came from shrift. "Be merry, man,"

284 quoth she now, "for this day, I thank God, I was well shriven. And

285 I purpose now therefore to leave off all mine old shrewishness and

286 begin even afresh!"

287 VINCENT: Ah, well, uncle, can you report her so? That word I

288 heard her speak, but she said it in sport to make her goodman

289 laugh.

290 ANTHONY: Indeed, it seemed she spoke it half in sport. For in

291 that she said she would cast away all her old shrewishness,

292 therein I daresay she sported. But in that she said she would

293 begin it all afresh, her husband found that in good earnest!

294 VINCENT: Well, I shall tell her what you say, I warrant you.

295 ANTHONY: Then will you make me make my word good!

296 But whatsoever she did, at least so fared now this wolf, who had

297 cast out in confession all his old ravine. For then hunger pricked

298 him forward so that, as the shrewish wife said, he should begin

299 all afresh. But yet the prick of conscience withdrew him and held

300 him back, because he would not, for breaking of his penance, take

301 any prey for his mealtide that should pass the price of sixpence.

302 It happed him then, as he walked prowling for his gear about, that

303 he came where a man had, a few days before, cast off two old lean

304 and lame horses, so sick that no flesh was there left upon them.

305 And the one, when the wolf came by, could scant stand on his legs,

306 and the other was already dead and his skin ripped off and carried

307 away. And as he looked upon them suddenly, he was first about to

308 feed upon them and whet his teeth upon their bones. But as he

309 looked aside, he spied a fair cow in an enclosure, walking with

310 her young calf by her side. And as soon as he saw them, his

311 conscience began to grudge him against both those two horses. And

312 then he sighed and said to himself, "Alas, wicked wretch that I

313 am, I had almost broken my penance ere I was aware! For yonder

314 dead horse, because I never sad a dead horse sold in the market,

315 even if I should die for it, I cannot guess, to save my sinful

316 soul, what price I should set on him. But in my conscience I set

317 him far above sixpence, and therefore I dare not meddle with him.

318 Now, then, yonder live horse is in all likelihood worth a great

319 deal of money. For horses are dear in this country—especially

320 such soft amblers, for I see by his pace he trotteth not, nor can

321 scant shift a foot. And therefore I may not meddle with him, for

322 he very far passeth my sixpence. But cows this country hath

323 enough, while money have they very little. And therefore,

324 considering the plenty of the cows and the scarcity of the money,

325 yonder foolish cow seemeth unto me, in my conscience, worth not

326 past a groat, if she be worth so much. Now then, her calf is not

327 so much as she, by half. And therefore, since the cow is in my

328 conscience worth but fourpence, my conscience cannot serve me, for

329 sin of my soul, to appraise her calf above twopence. And so pass

330 they not sixpence between them both. And therefore may I well eat

331 them twain at this one meal and break not my penance at all." And

332 so thereupon he did, without any scruple of conscience.

333 If such beasts could speak now, as Mother Maud said they could

334 then, some of them would, I daresay, tell a tale almost as wise as

335 this! Save for the diminishing of old Mother Maud's tale, a

336 shorter sermon would have served. But yet, as childish as the

337 parable is, in this it serveth for our purpose: that the night's

338 fear of a somewhat scrupulous conscience, though it be painful and

339 troublous to him who hath it, as this poor ass had here, is yet

340 less harm than a conscience that is over-large. And less harm is

341 it than a conscience such as a man pleases to frame himself for

342 his own fancy—now drawing it narrow, now stretching it in

343 breadth, after the manner of a leather thong—to serve on every

344 side for his own commodity, as did here the wily wolf.

345 But such folk are out of tribulation, and comfort need they none,

346 and therefore are they out of our matter. But he who is in the

347 night's fear of his own scrupulous conscience, let him well

348 beware, as I said, that the devil draw him not, for weariness of

349 the one, into the other, and while he would fly from Scilla draw

350 him into Charibdis. He must do as doth a ship coming into a haven

351 in the mouth of which lie secret rocks under the water on both

352 sides. If by mishap he be entered in among them that are on the

353 one side, and cannot tell how to get out, he must get a

354 substantial clever pilot who can so conduct him from the rocks on

355 that side that yet he bring him not into those that are on the

356 other side, but can guide him in the mid way. Let them, I say

357 therefore, who are in the troublous fear of heir own scrupulous

358 conscience, submit the rule of their conscience to the counsel of

359 some other good man, who after the variety and the nature of the

360 scruples may temper his advice.

361 Yea, although a man be very well learned himself, yet if he be in

362 this state let him learn the custom used among physicians. For if

363 one of them be never so learned, yet in his own disease and

364 sickness he never useth to trust all to himself, but sendeth for

365 such of his fellows as he knoweth to be able, and putteth himself

366 in their hands. This he doth for many considerations, and one of

367 the causes is fear. For upon some tokens in his own sickness he

368 may conceive a great deal more fear than needeth, and then it

369 would be good for his health if for the time he knew no such thing

370 at all.

371 I knew once in this town one of the most learned men in that

372 profession and the most expert, and the most famous too, and him

373 who did the greatest cures upon other men. And yet when he was

374 himself once very sore sick, I heard his fellows who then took

375 care of him—every one of whom would, in his own disease, have

376 used his help before that of any other man—wish that yet, while

377 his own sickness was so sore, he had known no physic at all. He

378 took so great heed unto every suspicious token, and feared so far

379 the worst, that his fear did him sometimes much more harm than the

380 sickness gave him cause.

381 And therefore, as I say, whosoever hath such a trouble of his

382 scrupulous conscience, let him for a while forbear the judgment of

383 himself, and follow the counsel of some other man whom he knoweth

384 for well learned and virtuous. And especially in the place of

385 confession, for these is God specially present with his grace

386 assisting the sacrament. And let him not doubt to quiet his mind

387 and follow what he is there bidden, and think for a while less of

388 the fear of God's justice, and be more merry in remembrance of his

389 mercy, and persevere in prayer for grace, and abide and dwell

390 faithfully in the sure hope of his help. And then shall he find,

391 without any doubt, that the shield of God's truth shall, as the

392 prophet saith, so compass him about, that he shall not dread this

393 night's fear of scrupulosity, but shall have afterward his

394 conscience established in good quiet and rest.

BOOK II · CHAPTER XV

112 VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, you have in my mind well declared

113 these kinds of the night's fear.

114 ANTHONY: Surely, cousin, but yet are there many more than I can

115 either remember or find. Howbeit, one yet cometh now to my mind,

116 of which I thought not before, and which is yet in mine opinion.

117 That is, cousin, where the devil tempteth a man to kill and

118 destroy himself.

119 VINCENT: Undoubtedly this kind of tribulation is marvellous and

120 strange. And the temptation is of such a sort that some men have

121 the opinion that those who once fall into that fantasy can never

122 fully cast it off.

123 ANTHONY: Yes, yes, cousin, many a hundred, and else God forbid. But

124 the thing that maketh men so to say is that, of those who finally do

125 destroy themselves, there is much speech and much wondering, as it

126 is well worthy. But many a good man and woman hath sometime—yea,

127 for some years, once after another—continually been tempted to do

128 it, and yet hath, by grace and good counsel, well and virtuously

129 withstood that temptation, and been in conclusion clearly delivered

130 of it. And their tribulation is not known abroad and therefore not

131 talked of.

132 But surely, cousin, a horrible sore trouble it is to any man or

133 woman whom the devil tempteth with that temptation. Many have I

134 heard of, and with some have I talked myself, who have been sore

135 cumbered with it, and I have marked not a little the manner of

136 them.

137 VINCENT: I pray you, good uncle, show me somewhat of such things

138 as you perceive therein. For first, whereas you call the kind of

139 temptation the daughter of pusillanimity and thereby so near of

140 kin to the night's fear, methinketh on the other hand that it is

141 rather a thing that cometh of a great courage and boldness. For

142 they dare with their own hands to put themselves to death, from

143 which we see almost every man shrink and flee, and many of them we

144 know by good proof and plain experience for men of great heart and

145 excellent bold courage.

146 ANTHONY: I said, Cousin Vincent, that of pusillanimity cometh

147 this temptation, and very truth it is that indeed so it doth. But

148 yet I meant not that only of faint heart and fear it cometh and

149 growth always. For the devil tempteth sundry folk by sundry ways.

150 But I spoke of no other kind of that temptation save only that one

151 which is the daughter that the devil begetteth upon pusillanimity,

152 because those other kinds of temptation fall not under the nature

153 of tribulation and fear, and therefore fall they far out of our

154 matter here. They are such temptations as need only counsel, and

155 not comfort or consolation, because the persons tempted with them

156 are not troubled in their mind with that kind of temptation. but

157 are very well content both in the tempting and in the following.

158 For some have there been, cousin, such that they have been tempted

159 to do it by means of a foolish pride, and some by means of anger,

160 without any fear at all—and very glad to go thereto, I deny not.

161 But if you think that none fall into it by fear, but that they

162 have all a mighty strong stomach, that shall you well see to be

163 the contrary. And that peradventure in those of whom you would

164 think the stomach more strong and their heart and courage most

165 bold.

166 VINCENT: Yet is it marvel to me, uncle, that it should be as you

167 say it is—that this temptation is unto them that do it for pride

168 or anger no tribulation, or that they should not need, in so great

169 a distress and peril, both of body and soul to be lost, no manner

170 of good ghostly comfort.

171 ANTHONY: Let us therefore, cousin, consider an example or two,

172 for thereby shall we better perceive it.

173 There was here in Buda in King Ladilaus' days, a good poor honest

174 man's wife. This woman was so fiendish that the devil, perceiving

175 her nature, put her in the mind that she should anger her husband

176 so sore that she might give him occasion to kill her, and then

177 should he be hanged because of her.

178 VINCENT: This was a strange temptation indeed! What the devil

179 should she be the better then?

180 ANTHONY: Nothing, but that it eased her shrewish stomach

181 beforehand, to think that her husband should be hanged afterward.

182 And peradventure, if you look about the world and consider it

183 well, you shall find more such stomachs than a few. Have you never

184 heard a furious body plainly say that, to see such-and-such man

185 have a mischief, he would with good will be content to lie as long

186 in hell as God liveth in heaven?

187 VINCENT: Forsooth, and some such have I heard.

188 ANTHONY: This mind of his was not much less mad than hers, but

189 rather perhaps the more mad of the twain. For the woman

190 peradventure did not cast so far peril therein.

191 But to tell you now to what good pass her charitable purpose came:

192 As her husband (the man was a carpenter) stood hewing with his

193 chip axe upon a piece of timber, she began after her old guise to

194 revile him so that he waxed wroth at last, and bade her get

195 herself in or he would lay the helm of his axe about her back. And

196 he said also that it would be little sin even with that axe head

197 to chop off the unhappy head of hers that carried such an

198 ungracious tongue in it. At that word the devil took his time and

199 whetted her tongue against her teeth. And when it was well

200 sharpened she swore to him in very fierce anger, "By the mass,

201 whoreson husband, I wish thou wouldst! Here lieth my head, lo,"

202 and with that down she laid her head upon the same timber log. "If

203 thou smite it not off, I beshrew thine whoreson's heart!" With

204 that, likewise as the devil stood at her elbow, so stood (as I

205 heard say) his good angel at his, and gave him ghostly courage and

206 bade him be bold and do it. And so the good man up with his chip

207 axe and at a chop he chopped off her head indeed.

208 There were other folk standing by, who had a good sport to hear

209 her chide, but little they looked for this chance, till it was

210 done ere they could stop it. They said they heard her tongue

211 babble in her head, and call, "Whoreson, whoreson!" twice after

212 the head was off the body. At least, thus they all reported

213 afterward unto the king, except only one, and that was a woman,

214 and she said that she heard it not.

215 VINCENT: Forsooth, this was a wonderful work! What became, uncle,

216 of the man?

217 ANTHONY: The king gave him his pardon.

218 VINCENT: Verily, he might in conscience do no less.

219 ANTHONY: But then was there almost made a statute that in such a

220 case there should never after be granted a pardon, but (if the

221 truth were able to be proved) no husband should need any pardon,

222 but should have leave by the law to follow the example of that

223 carpenter, and do the same.

224 VINCENT: How happed it, uncle, that that good law was left unmade?

225 ANTHONY: How happed it? As it happeth, cousin, that many more be

226 left unmade as well as that one, and almost as good as it too,

227 both here and in other countries—and sometimes some that are

228 worse be made in their stead. But they say that the hindrance of

229 that law was the queen's grace, God forgive her soul! It was the

230 greatest thing, I daresay, that she had to answer for, good lady,

231 when she died. For surely, save for that one thing, she was a full

232 blessed woman.

233 But letting now that law pass, this temptation in procuring her

234 own death was unto this carpenter's wife no tribulation at all, as

235 far as men could ever perceive. For she liked well to think upon

236 it, and she even longed for it. And therefore if she had before

237 told you or me her intent, and that she would so fain bring it so

238 to pass, we could have had no occasion to comfort her, as one that

239 were in tribulation. But marry, counsel her we might, as I told

240 you before, to refrain and amend that malicious devilish intent.

241 VINCENT: Verily, that is truth. But such as are well willing to

242 do any purpose that is so shameful, they will never tell their

243 intent to nobody, for very shame.

244 ANTHONY: Some will not, indeed. And yet are there some again who,

245 be their intent never so shameful, find some yet whom their heart

246 serveth them to make of their counsel therein.

247 Some of my folk here can tell you that no longer ago than even

248 yesterday, someone who came out of Vienna told us, among other

249 talking, that a rich widow (but I forgot to ask him where it

250 happened), having all her life a high proud mind and a malicious

251 one—as those two virtues are wont always to keep company

252 together—was at dispute with another neighbour of hers in the

253 town. And on a time she made of her counsel a poor neighbour of

254 hers, whom she thought she might induce, for money, to follow her

255 intent. With him she secretly spoke, and offered him ten ducats

256 for his labour, to do so much for her as in a morning early to

257 come to her house and with an axe unknown privily strike off her

258 head. And when he had done so, he was to convey the bloody axe

259 into the house of him with whom she was at dispute, in such manner

260 as it might be thought that he had murdered her for malice. And

261 then she thought she should be taken for a martyr. And yet had she

262 farther devised that another sum of money should afterward be sent

263 to Rome, and there should be measures made to the Pope that she

264 might in all haste be canonized!

265 This poor man promised, but intended not to perform it. Howbeit,

266 when he deferred it, she provided the axe herself. And he

267 appointed with her the morning when he should come and do it, and

268 thereupon into her house he came. But then set he such other folk

269 as he wished should know of her mad fancy, in such place appointed

270 as they might well hear her and him talk together. And after he

271 had talked with her so much as he thought was enough, he made her

272 lie down, and took up the axe in his own hand. And with the other

273 hand he felt the edge, and found a fault that it was not sharp,

274 and that therefore he would in no wise do it, till he had ground

275 it sharp. He could not otherwise, he said, for pity, it would put

276 her to so much pain. And so, full sore against her will, for that

277 time she kept her head still. But because she would no more suffer

278 any more to deceive her and put her off with delays, ere it was

279 very long thereafter, she hung herself with her own hands.

280 VINCENT: Forsooth, here was a tragical story, whereof I never

281 heard the like.

282 ANTHONY: Forsooth, the party who told it to me swore that he knew

283 it for a truth. And he is, I promise you, such as I reckon for

284 right honest and of substantial truth.

285 Now, here she forbore not, as shameful an intent as she had, to

286 make someone of her counsel—and yet, I remember, another too,

287 whom she trusted with the money that should procure her

288 canonization. And here I believe that her temptation came not of

289 fear but of high malice and pride. And then was she so glad in

290 that pleasant device that, as I told you, she took it for no

291 tribulation. And therefore comforting of her could have no place.

292 But if men should give her anything toward her help, it must have

293 been, as I told you, good counsel.

294 And therefore, as I said, this kind of temptation to a man's own

295 destruction, which requireth counsel, and is outside tribulation,

296 was outside of our matter, which is to treat of comfort in

297 tribulation.

BOOK II · CHAPTER XVI

115 But lest you might reject both these examples, thinking they were

116 but feigned tales, I shall put you in remembrance of one which I

117 reckon you yourself have read in the Conferences of Cassian. And

118 if you have not, there you may soon find it. For I myself have

119 half forgotten the thing, it is so long since I read it.

120 But thus much I remember: He telleth there of one who was many

121 days a very special holy man in his living, and, among the other

122 virtuous monks and anchorites that lived there in the wilderness,

123 was marvellously much esteemed. Yet some were not all out of fear

124 lest his revelations (of which he told many himself) would prove

125 illusions of the devil. And so it proved afterwards indeed, for

126 the man was by the devil's subtle suggestions brought into such a

127 high spiritual pride that in conclusion the devil brought him to

128 that horrible point that he made him go kill himself.

129 And, as far as my mind giveth me now, without new sight of the

130 book, he brought him to it by this persuasion: He made him believe

131 that it was God's will that he should do so, and that thereby he

132 should go straight to heaven. And if it were by that persuasion,

133 with which he took very great comfort in his own mind himself,

134 then was it, as I said, out of our case, and he needed not comfort

135 but counsel against giving credence to the devil's persuasion. But

136 marry, if he made him first perceive how he had been deluded and

137 then tempted him to his own death by shame and despair, then it

138 was within our matter. For then was his temptation fallen down

139 from pride to pusillanimity, and was waxed that kind of the

140 night's fear that I spoke of. And in such fear a good part of the

141 counsel to be given him should have need to stand in good

142 comforting, for then was he brought into right sore tribulation.

143 But, as I was about to tell you, strength of heart and courage are

144 there none in that deed, not only because true strength (as it

145 hath the name of virtue in a reasonable creature) can never be

146 without prudence, but also because, as I said, even in them that

147 seem men of most courage, it shall well appear to them that well

148 weigh the matter that the mind whereby they be led to destroy

149 themselves groweth of pusillanimity and very foolish fear.

150 Take for example Cato of Utica, who in Africa killed himself after

151 the great victory that Julius Caesar had. St. Austine well

152 declareth in his work *De civitate Dei* that there was no strength

153 nor magnanimity in his destruction of himself, but plain

154 pusillanimity and impotency of stomach. For he was forced to do it

155 because his heart was too feeble to bear the beholding of another

156 man's glory or the suffering of other worldly calamities that he

157 feared should fall on himself. So that, as St. Austine well

158 proveth, that horrible deed is no act of strength, but an act of a

159 mind either drawn from the consideration of itself with some

160 fiendish fancy, in which the man hath need to be called home with

161 good counsel; or else oppressed by faint heart and fear, in which

162 a good part of the counsel must stand in lifting up his courage

163 with good consolation and comfort.

164 And therefore if we found any such religious person as was that

165 father whom Cassian writeth of, who were of such austerity and

166 apparent ghostly living as he was, and reputed by those who well

167 knew him for a man of singular virtue; and if it were perceived

168 that he had many strange visions appearing unto him; and if after

169 that it should now be perceived that the man went about secretly

170 to destroy himself—whosoever should hap to come to the knowledge

171 of it and intended to do his best to hinder it, he must first find

172 the means to search and find out the manner and countenance of the

173 man. He must see whether he be lightsome, glad, and joyful or

174 dumpish, heavy, and sad, and whether he go about it as one that

175 were full of the glad hope of heaven, or as one who had his breast

176 stuffed full of tediousness and weariness of the world. If he were

177 found to be of the first fashion, it would be a token that the

178 devil had, by his fantastical apparitions, puffed him up in such a

179 childish pride that he hath finally persuaded him, by some

180 illusion showed him for the proof, that God's pleasure is that he

181 shall for his sake with his own hands kill himself.

182 VINCENT: Now, if a man so found it, uncle, what counsel should he

183 give him then?

184 ANTHONY: That would be somewhat out of our purpose, cousin, since

185 (as I told you before) the man would not be in sorrow and

186 tribulation, of which our matter speaketh, but in a perilous merry

187 mortal temptation. So that if we should, beside our matter that we

188 have in hand, enter into that too, we might make a longer work

189 between both than we could well finish this day. Howbeit, to be

190 short, it is soon seen that in such a case the sum and effect of

191 the counsel must (in a manner) rest in giving him warning of the

192 devil's sleights. And that must be done under such a sweet

193 pleasant manner that the man should not abhor to hear it. For

194 while it could not lightly be otherwise that the man were rocked

195 and sung asleep by the devil's craft, and his mind occupied as it

196 were in a delectable dream, he should never have good audience of

197 him who would rudely and boisterously shog him and wake him, and

198 so shake him out of it. Therefore must you fair and easily touch

199 him, and with some pleasant speech awake him, so that he wax not

200 wayward, as children do who are waked ere they wish to rise.

201 But when a man hath first begun with his praise (for if he be

202 proud you shall much better please him with a commendation than

203 with a dirge) then, after favour won therewith, a man may little

204 by little insinuate the doubt of such revelations—not at first as

205 though it were for any doubt of his, but of some other man's, that

206 men in some other places talk of. And peradventure it shall not

207 miscontent him to say that great perils may fall therein, in

208 another man's case than his own, and he shall begin to preach upon

209 it. Or, if you were a man that had not so very great scrupulous

210 conscience of a harmless lie devised to do good with (the kind

211 which St. Austine, though he take it always for sin, yet he taketh

212 but for venial; and St. Jerome, as by divers places in his books

213 appeareth, taketh not fully for that much), then may you feign

214 some secret friend of yours to be in such a state. And you may say

215 that you yourself somewhat fear his peril, and have made of

216 charity this voyage for his sake, to ask this good father's counsel.

217 And in the communication, upon these words of St. John, "Give not

218 credence to every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they be

219 of God," and these words of St. Paul, "The angel of Satan

220 transfigureth himself into the angel of light," you shall take

221 occasion (the better if they hap to come in on his side), but yet

222 not lack occasion neither if those texts, for lack of his offer,

223 come in upon your own—occasion, I say, you shall not lack to

224 enquire by what sure and undeceivable tokens a man may discern the

225 true revelations from the false illusions. A man shall find many

226 such tokens both here and there in divers other authors and all

227 together in divers goodly treatises of that good godly doctor,

228 Master John Gerson, entitled *De probatione spirituum.* As,

229 whether the party be natural in manner or seem anything

230 fantastical. Or, whether the party be poor-spirited or proud. The

231 pride will somewhat appear by his delight in his own praise; or

232 if, of wiliness, or of another pride for to be praised of

233 humility, he refused to hear of that, yet any little fault found

234 in himself, or diffidence declared and mistrust of his own

235 revelations and doubtful tokens told, wherefore he himself should

236 fear lest they be the devil's illusion—such things, as Master

237 Gerson saith, will make him spit out somewhat of his spirit, if

238 the devil lie in his breast. Or if the devil be yet so subtle that

239 he keep himself close in his warm den and blow out never a hot

240 word, yet it is to be considered what end his revelations tend

241 to—whether to any spiritual profit to himself or other folk, or

242 only to vain marvels and wonders. Also, whether they withdraw him

243 from such other good virtuous business as, by the common rule of

244 Christendom or any of the rules of his profession, he was wont to

245 use or bound to be occupied in. Or whether he fall into any

246 singularity of opinions against the scripture of God, or against

247 the common faith of Christ's Catholic Church. Many other tokens

248 are spoken of in the work of Master Gerson, by which to consider

249 whether the person, neither having revelations of God nor

250 illusions from the devil, do feign his revelations himself, either

251 for winning of money or worldly favour, and delude the people

252 withal.

253 But now for our purpose: If, among any of the marks by which the

254 true revelations may be known from false illusions, that man

255 himself bring forth, for one mark, the doing or teaching of

256 anything against the scripture of God or the common faith of the

257 church, you may enter into the special matter, in which he can

258 never well flee from you. Or else may you yet, if you wish, feign

259 that your secret friend, for whose sake you come to him for

260 counsel, is brought to that mind by a certain apparition showed

261 unto him, as he himself saith, by an angel—as you fear, by the

262 devil. And that he cannot as yet be otherwise persuaded by you but

263 that the pleasure of God is that he shall go kill himself. And

264 that he believeth if he do so he shall then be thereby so

265 specially participant of Christ's passion that he shall forthwith

266 be carried up with angels into heaven. And that he is so joyful

267 for this that he firmly purposeth upon it, no less glad to do it

268 than another man would be glad to avoid it. And therefore may you

269 desire his good counsel to instruct you with some substantial good

270 advice, with which you may turn him from this error, that he be

271 not, under hope of God's true revelation, destroyed in body and

272 soul by the devil's false illusion.

273 If he will in this thing study and labour to instruct you, the

274 things that he himself shall find, of his own invention, though

275 they be less effectual, shall peradventure more work with him

276 toward his own amendment (since he shall, of likelihood, better

277 like them) than shall things double so substantial that were told

278 him by another man. If he be loth to think upon that side, and

279 therefore shrink from the matter, then is there no other way but

280 to venture to fall into the matter after the plain fashion, and

281 tell what you hear, and give him counsel and exhortation to the

282 contrary. Unless you wish to say that thus and thus hath the

283 matter been reasoned already between your friend and you. And

284 therein may you rehearse such things as should prove that the

285 vision which moveth him is no true revelation, but a very false

286 illusion.

287 VINCENT: Verily, uncle, I well allow that a man should, in this

288 thing as well as in every other in which he longeth to do another

289 man good, seek such a pleasant way that the party should be likely

290 to like his communication, or at least to take it well in worth.

291 And he should not enter in unto it in such a way that he whom he

292 would help should abhor him and be loth to hear him, and therefore

293 take no profit by him.

294 But now, uncle, if it come, by the one way or the other, to the

295 point where he will or shall hear me; what be the effectual means

296 with which I should by my counsel convert him?

297 ANTHONY: All those by which you may make him perceive that he is

298 deceived, and that his visions are no godly revelations but very

299 devilish illusion. And those reasons must you gather of the man,

300 of the matter, and of the law of God, or of some one of these.

301 Of the man may you gather them, if you can peradventure show him

302 that in such-and-such a point he is waxed worse since such

303 revelations have haunted him than he was before—as, in those who

304 are deluded, whosoever be well acquainted with them shall well

305 mark and perceive. For they wax more proud, more wayward, more

306 envious, suspicious, misjudging and depraving other men, with the

307 delight of their own praise, and such other spiritual vices of the

308 soul.

309 Of the matter may you gather, if it has happened that his

310 revelations before have proved false, or if they be strange things

311 rather than profitable ones. For that is a good mark between God's

312 miracles and the devil's wonders. For Christ and his saints have

313 their miracles always tending to fruit and profit. The devil and

314 his witches and necromancers, all their wonderful works tend to no

315 fruitful end, but to a fruitless ostentation and show, as it were

316 a juggler who would for a show before the people play feats of

317 skill at a feast.

318 Of the law of God you must draw your reasons in showing by the

319 scripture that the thing which he thinketh God biddeth by his

320 angel, God hath by his own mouth forbidden. And that is, you know

321 well, in the case that we speak of, so easy to find that I need

322 not to rehearse it to you. For among the Ten Commandments there is

323 plainly forbidden the unlawful killing of any man, and therefore

324 of himself, as (St. Austine saith) all the church teacheth, unless

325 he himself be no man.

326 VINCENT: This is very true, good uncle, nor will I dispute upon

327 any glossing of that prohibition. But since we find not the

328 contrary but that God may dispense with that commandment himself,

329 and both license and command also, if he himself wish, any man to

330 go kill either another man or himself, this man who is now by such

331 a marvellous vision induced to believe that God so biddeth him,

332 and therefore thinketh himself in that case discharged of that

333 prohibition and charged with the contrary commandment—with what

334 reason can we make him perceive that his vision is but an illusion

335 and not a true revelation?

336 ANTHONY: Nay, Cousin Vincent, you shall in this case not need to

337 ask those reasons of me. But taking the scripture of God for a

338 ground for this matter, you know very well yourself that you shall

339 go somewhat a shorter way to work if you ask this question of him:

340 Since God hath forbidden once the thing himself, though he may

341 dispense with it if he will, yet since the devil may feign himself

342 God and with a marvellous vision delude one, and make as though

343 God did it; and since the devil is also more likely to speak

344 against God's commandment than God against his own; you shall have

345 good cause, I say, to demand of the man himself whereby he knoweth

346 that his vision is God's true revelation and not the devil's false

347 delusion.

348 VINCENT: Indeed, uncle, I think that would be a hard question to

349 him. Can a man, uncle, have in such a thing even a very sure

350 knowledge of his own mind?

351 ANTHONY: Yea, cousin, God may cast into the mind of a man, I

352 suppose, such an inward light of understanding that he cannot fail

353 but be sure thereof. And yet he who is deluded by the devil may

354 think himself as sure and yet be deceived indeed. And such a

355 difference is there in a manner between them, as between the sight

356 of a thing while we are awake and look thereon, and the sight with

357 which we see a thing in our sleep while we dream thereof.

358 VINCENT: This is a pretty similitude, uncle, in this thing! And

359 then is it easy for the monk that we speak of to declare that he

360 knoweth his vision for a true revelation and not a false delusion,

361 if there be so great a difference between them.

362 ANTHONY: Not so easy yet, cousin, as you think it would be. For

363 how can you prove to me that you are awake?

364 VINCENT: Marry, lo, do I not now wag my hand, shake my head, and

365 stamp with my foot here on the floor?

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

367 same?

368 VINCENT: Yes, that have I, and more too than that. For I have ere

369 this in my sleep dreamed that I doubted whether I were asleep or

370 awake, and have in good faith thought that I did thereupon even

371 the same things that I do now indeed, and thereby determined that

372 I was not asleep. And yet have I dreamed in good faith further,

373 that I have been afterward at dinner and there, making merry with

374 good company, have told the same dream at the table and laughed

375 well at it, to think that while I was asleep I had by such means

376 of moving the parts of my body and considering thereof, so verily

377 thought myself awake!

378 ANTHONY: And will you not now soon, think you, when you wake and

379 rise, laugh as well at yourself when you see that you lie now in

380 your warm bed asleep again, and dream all this time, while you

381 believe so verily that you are awake and talking of these matters

382 with me?

383 VINCENT: God's Lord, uncle, you go now merrily to work with me

384 indeed, when you look and speak so seriously and would make me

385 think I were asleep!

386 ANTHONY: It may be that you are, for anything that you can say or

387 do whereby you can, with any reason that you make, drive me to

388 confess that you yourself be sure of the contrary. For you cannot

389 do or say anything now whereby you are sure to be awake but what

390 you have ere this, or hereafter may, think yourself as surely to

391 do the selfsame thing indeed while you be all the while asleep and

392 do nothing but lie dreaming.

393 VINCENT: Well, well, uncle, though I have ere this thought myself

394 awake while I was indeed asleep, yet for all this I know well

395 enough that I am awake now. And so do you too, though I cannot

396 find the words by which I may with reason force you to confess it,

397 without your always driving me off by the example of my dream.

398 ANTHONY: Meseemeth, cousin, this is very true. And likewise

399 meseemeth the manner and difference between some kind of true

400 revelations and some kind of false illusions is like that which

401 standeth between the things that are done awake and the things

402 that in our dreams seem to be done when we are sleeping. That is,

403 he who hath that kind of revelation from God is as sure of the

404 truth as we are of our own deeds while we are awake. And he who is

405 deluded by the devil is in such wise deceived as they are by their

406 dream, and worse, too. And yet he reckoneth himself for the time

407 as sure as the other, saving that one believeth falsely, the other

408 truly knoweth. But I say not, cousin, that this kind of sure

409 knowledge cometh in every kind of revelation. For there are many

410 kinds, of which it would be too long to talk now. But I say that

411 God doth certainly send some such to a man in some thing, or may.

412 VINCENT: Yet then this religious man of whom we speak, when I show

413 him the scripture against his revelation and therefore call it an

414 illusion, may bid me with reason go mind my own affairs. For he

415 knoweth well and surely himself that his revelation is very good

416 and true and not any false illusion, since for all the general

417 commandment of God in the scripture, God may dispense where he will

418 and when he will, and may command him to do the contrary. For he

419 commanded Abraham to kill his own son, and Sampson had, by

420 inspiration of God, commandment to kill himself by pulling down the

421 house upon his own head at the feast of the Philistines.

422 Now, if I would then do as you bade me right now, tell him that

423 such apparitions may be illusions, and since God's word is in the

424 scripture against him plain for the prohibition, he must perceive

425 the truth of his revelation whereby I may know it is not a false

426 illusion; then shall he in turn bid me tell him whereby I can

427 prove myself to be awake and talk with him and not be asleep and

428 dream so, since in my dream I may as surely think so as I know

429 that I do so. And thus shall he drive me to the same bay to which

430 I would bring him.

431 ANTHONY: This is well said, cousin, but yet could he not escape

432 you so. For the dispensation of God's common precept, which

433 dispensation he must say that he hath by his private revelation,

434 is a thing of such sort as showeth itself naught and false. For it

435 never hath any example like, since the world began until now, that

436 ever man hath read or heard of, among faithful people commended.

437 First, as for Abraham, concerning the death of his son: God

438 intended it not, but only tempted the towardness of the father's

439 obedience. As for Sampson, all men make not the matter very sure

440 whether he be saved or not, but yet therein some matter and cause

441 appeareth. For the Philistines being enemies of God and using

442 Sampson for their mocking-stock in scorn of God, it is well likely

443 that God gave him the mind to bestow his own life upon the

444 revenging of the displeasure that those blasphemous Philistines

445 did unto God. And that appeareth clear enough by this: that though

446 his strength failed him when he lacked his hair, yet had he not,

447 it seemeth, that strength evermore at hand while he had his hair,

448 but only at such times as it pleased God to give it to him. This

449 thing appeareth by these words, that the scripture in some place

450 of that matter saith, "The power or might of God rushed into

451 Sampson." And so therefore, since this thing that he did in the

452 pulling down of the house was done by the special gift of strength

453 then at that point given him by God, it well declareth that the

454 strength of God, and with it the spirit of God, entered into him

455 for it.

456 St. Austine also rehearseth that certain holy virtuous virgins, in

457 time of persecution, being pursued by God's enemies the infidels

458 to be deflowered by force, ran into a water and drowned themselves

459 rather than be bereaved of their virginity. And, albeit that he

460 thinketh it is not lawful for any other maid to follow their

461 example, but that she should suffer another to do her any manner

462 of violence by force and commit sin of his own upon her against

463 her will, rather than willingly and thereby sinfully herself to

464 become a homicide of herself; yet he thinketh that in them it

465 happened by the special instinct of the spirit of God, who, for

466 causes seen to himself, would rather that they should avoid it

467 with their own temporal death than abide the defiling and

468 violation of their chastity.

469 But now this good man neither hath any of God's enemies to be

470 revenged on by his own death, nor any woman who violently pursues

471 him to bereave him by force of his virginity! And we never find

472 that God proved any man's obedient mind by the commandment of his

473 own slaughter of himself. Therefore is both his case plainly

474 against God's open precept, and the dispensation strange and

475 without example, no cause appearing nor well imaginable. Unless he

476 would think that God could neither any longer live without him,

477 nor could take him to him in such wise as he doth other men, but

478 must command him to come by a forbidden way, by which, without

479 other cause, we never heard that ever he bade any man else before.

480 Now, you think that, if you should after this bid him tell you by

481 what way he knoweth that his intent riseth upon a true revelation

482 and not upon a false illusion, he in turn would bid you tell him

483 by what means you know that you are talking with him well awake

484 and not dreaming it asleep. You may answer him that for men thus

485 to talk together as you do and to prove and perceive that they do

486 so, by the moving of themselves, with putting the question unto

487 themselves for their pleasure, and marking and considering it, is

488 in waking a daily common thing that every man doth or can do when

489 he will, and when they do it, they do it but for pleasure. But in

490 sleep it happeneth very seldom that men dream that they do so, and

491 in the dream they never put the question except for doubt. And you

492 may tell him that, since this revelation is such also as happeneth

493 so seldom and oftener happeneth that men dream of such than have

494 such indeed, therefore it is more reasonable that he show you how

495 he knoweth, in such a rare thing and a thing more like a dream,

496 that he himself is not asleep, than that you, in such a common

497 thing among folk that are awake and so seldom happening in a

498 dream, should need to show him whereby you know that you be not

499 asleep.

500 Besides this, he to whom you should show it seeth himself and

501 perceiveth the thing that he would bid you prove. But the thing

502 that he would make you believe—the truth of his revelation which

503 you bid him prove—you see not that he knoweth it well himself.

504 And therefore, ere you believe it against the scripture, it would

505 be well consonant unto reason that he should show you how he

506 knoweth it for a true waking revelation and not a false dreaming

507 delusion.

508 VINCENT: Then shall he peradventure answer me that whether I

509 believe him or not maketh to him no matter; the thing toucheth

510 himself and not me, and he himself is in himself as sure that it

511 is a true revelation as that he can tell that he dreameth not but

512 talketh with me awake.

513 ANTHONY: Without doubt, cousin, if he abide at that point and can

514 by no reason be brought to do so much as doubt, nor can by no

515 means be shogged out of his dead sleep, but will needs take his

516 dream for a very truth, and—as some men rise by night and walk

517 about their chamber in their sleep—will so rise and hang himself;

518 I can then see no other way but either bind him fast in his bed,

519 or else essay whether that might hap to help him with which, the

520 common tale goeth, a carver's wife helped her husband in such a

521 frantic fancy. When, upon a Good Friday, he would needs have

522 killed himself for Christ as Christ did for him, she said to him

523 that it would then be fitting for him to die even after the same

524 fashion. And that might not be by his own hands, but by the hand

525 of another; for Christ, perdy, killed not himself. And because her

526 husband would take no counsel (for that would he not, in no wise),

527 she offered him that for God's sake she would secretly crucify him

528 herself upon a great cross that he had made to nail a new-carved

529 crucifix upon. And he was very glad thereof. Yet then she

530 bethought her that Christ was bound to a pillar and beaten first,

531 and afterward crowned with thorns. Thereupon, when she had by his

532 own assent bound him fast to a post, she left not off beating,

533 with holy exhortation to suffer, so much and so long that ere ever

534 she left work and unbound him (praying nevertheless, that she

535 might put on his head, and drive well down, a crown of thorns that