Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation Part 15

VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this thing is so plainly true that no man can with any good reason deny it. But I think also, uncle, that no man will do so. For I see no man who will confess, for very shame, that he desireth riches, honour, renown, and offices of authority only for his worldly pleasure. For every man would fain seem as holy as a horse. And therefore will every man say--and would it were so believed, too--that he desireth these things, though for his worldly wealth a little so, yet princ.i.p.ally to merit thereby through doing some good with them.

ANTHONY: This is, cousin, very surely so, that so doth every man say. But first he who in the desire of these things hath his respect unto his worldly wealth, as you say, "but a little so," so much as he himself thinketh but a little, may soon prove a great deal too much. And many men will say so, too, who have princ.i.p.al respect unto their worldly commodity, and toward G.o.d little or none at all. And yet they pretend the contrary, and that unto their own harm. For "G.o.d cannot be mocked."

And some peradventure know not well their own affection themselves.

But there lieth more imperfection secretly in their affection than they themselves are well aware of, which only G.o.d beholdeth. And therefore saith the prophet unto G.o.d, "Mine imperfection have thine eyes beheld." And therefore the prophet prayeth, "From mine hidden sins cleanse thou me, good Lord."

But now, cousin, this tribulation of the Turk: If he so persecute us for the faith that those who will forsake their faith shall keep their goods, and those shall lose their goods who will not leave their faith--lo, this manner of persecution shall try them like a touchstone. For it shall show the feigned from the true-minded, and it shall also teach them who think they mean better than they do indeed, better to discern themselves. For there are some who think they mean well, while they frame themselves a conscience, and ever keep still a great heap of superfluous substance by them, thinking ever still that they will bethink themselves upon some good deed on which they will well bestow it once--or else that their executors shall! But now, if they lie not unto themselves, but keep their goods for any good purpose to the pleasure of G.o.d indeed, then shall they, in this persecution, for the pleasure of G.o.d in keeping his faith, be glad to depart from them.

And therefore, as for all these things--the loss, I mean, of all these outward things that men call the gifts of fortune--this is, methinketh, in this Turk's persecution for the faith, consolation great and sufficient: Every man who hath them either setteth by them for the world or for G.o.d. He who setteth by them for the world hath, as I have showed you, little profit by them to the body and great harm unto the soul. And therefore, he might well, if he were wise, reckon that he won by the loss, although he lost them but by some common cause. And much more happy can he then be, since he loseth them by such a meritorious means. And on the other hand, he who keepeth them for some good purpose, intending to bestow them for the pleasure of G.o.d, the loss of them in this Turk's persecution for keeping of the faith can be no manner of grief to him. For by so parting from them he bestoweth them in such wise unto G.o.d's pleasure that at the time when he loseth them by no way could he bestow them unto his high pleasure better. For though it would have been peradventure better to have bestowed them well before, yet since he kept them for some good purpose he would not have left them unbestowed if he had foreknown the chance. But being now prevented so by persecution that he cannot bestow them in that other good way that he would have, yet since he parteth from them because he will not part from the faith, though the devil's escheator violently take them from him, yet willingly giveth he them to G.o.d.

XIV

VINCENT: In good faith, good uncle, I can deny none of this. And indeed, unto those who were despoiled and robbed by the Turk's overrunning of the country, and all their substance movable and unmovable bereft and lost already, their persons only fled and safe, I think that these considerations--considering also that, as you lately said, their sorrow could not amend their chance--might unto them be good occasion of comfort, and cause them, as you said, to make a virtue of necessity.

But in the case, uncle, that we now speak of, they have yet their substance untouched in their own hands, and the keeping or the losing shall both hang in their own hands, by the Turk's offer, upon the retaining or the renouncing of the Christian faith. Here, uncle, I find it, as you said, that this temptation is most sore and most perilous. For I fear me that we shall find few of such as have much to lose who shall find it in their hearts so suddenly to forsake their goods, with all those other things before rehea.r.s.ed on which their worldly wealth dependeth.

ANTHONY: That fear I much, cousin, too. But thereby shall it well appear, as I said, that, seemed they never so good and virtuous before, and flattered they themselves with never so gay a gloss of good and gracious purpose that they kept their goods for, yet were their hearts inwardly in the deep sight of G.o.d not sound and sure such as they should be (and as peradventure some had themselves thought they were) but like a puff-ring of Paris--hollow, light, and counterfeit indeed.

And yet, they being even such, this would I fain ask one of them.

And I pray you, cousin, take you his person upon you, and in this case answer for him. "What hindereth you," would I ask, "your Lords.h.i.+p," (for we will take no small man for an example in this part, nor him who would have little to lose, for methinketh such a one who would cast away G.o.d for a little, would be so far from all profit, that he would not be worth talking with). "What hindereth you," I say, therefore, "that you be not gladly content, without any deliberation at all, in this kind of persecution, rather than to leave your faith, to let go all that ever you have at once?"

VINCENT: Since you put it unto me, uncle, to make the matter more plain, that I should play that great man's part who is so wealthy and hath so much to lose, albeit that I cannot be very sure of another man's mind, nor of what another man would say, yet as far as mine own mind can conjecture, I shall answer in his person what I think would be his hindrance. And therefore to your question I answer that there hindereth me the thing that you yourself may lightly guess: the losing of the many commodities which I now have--riches and substance, lands and great possessions of inheritance, with great rule and authority here in my country. All of which things the great Turk granteth me to keep still in peace and have them enhanced, too, if I will forsake the faith of Christ.

Yea, I may say to you, I have a motion secretly made me further, to keep all this yet better cheap; that is, not to be compelled utterly to forsake Christ nor all the whole Christian faith, but only some such parts of it as may not stand with Mahomet's law.

And only granting Mahomet for a true prophet and serving the Turk truly in his wars against all Christian kings, I shall not be hindered to praise Christ also, and to call him a good man, and wors.h.i.+p and serve him too.

ANTHONY: Nay, nay, my lord--Christ hath not so great need of your Lords.h.i.+p as, rather than to lose your service, he would fall at such covenants with you as to take your service at halves, to serve him and his enemy both! He hath given you plain warning already by St. Paul that he will have in your service no parting-fellow: "What fellows.h.i.+p is there between light and darkness? Between Christ and Belial?" And he hath also plainly told you himself by his own mouth, "No man can serve two lords at once." He will have you believe all that he telleth you, and do all that he biddeth you, and forbear all that he forbiddeth you, without any manner of exception. Break one of his commandments, and you break all.

Forsake one point of his faith, and you forsake all, as for any thanks that you get of him for the rest. And therefore, if you devise, as it were, indentures between G.o.d and you--what you will do for him and what you will not do, as though he should hold himself content with such service of yours as you yourself care to appoint him--if you make, I say, such indentures, you shall seal both the parts yourself, and you get no agreement thereto from him.

And this I say: Though the Turk would make such an appointment with you as you speak of, and would, when he had made it, keep it--whereas he would not, I warrant you, leave you so when he had once brought you so far forth. But he would, little by little, ere he left you, make you deny Christ altogether and take Mahomet in his stead. And so doth he in the beginning, when he will not have you believe him to be G.o.d. For surely, if he were not G.o.d, he would be no good man either, since he plainly said he was G.o.d. But through he would go never so far forth with you, yet Christ will, as I said, not take your service by halves, but will that you shall love him with all your whole heart. And because, while he was living here fifteen hundred years ago, he foresaw this mind of yours that you have now, with which you would fain serve him in some such fas.h.i.+on that you might keep your worldly substance still, but rather forsake his service than put all your substance from you, he telleth you plainly fifteen hundred years ago with his own mouth that he will have no such service of you, saying, "You cannot serve both G.o.d and your riches together."

And therefore, this thing being established for a plain conclusion, which you must needs grant if you have faith--and if you be gone from that ground of faith already, then is all our disputation, you know, at an end. For how should you then rather lose your goods than forsake your faith, if you have lost your faith and let it go already? This point, I say, therefore, being put first for a ground, between us both twain agreed, that you have yet the faith still and intend to keep it always still in your heart, and are only in doubt whether you will lose all your worldly substance rather than forsake your faith in your word alone; now shall I reply to the point of your answer, wherein you tell me the lothness of the loss and the comfort of the keeping hinder you from forgoing your goods and move you rather to forsake your faith.

I let pa.s.s all that I have spoken of the small commodity of them unto your body and of the great harm that the having of them doth to your soul. And since the promise of the Turk, made unto you for the keeping of them, is the thing that moveth you and maketh you thus to doubt, I ask you first whereby you know that, when you have done all that he will have you do against Christ, to the harm of your soul--whereby know you, I say, that he will keep you his promise in these things that he promiseth you concerning the retaining of your well-beloved worldly wealth, for the pleasure of your body?

VINCENT: What surety can a man have of such a great prince except his promise, which for his own honour it cannot become him to break?

ANTHONY: I have known him, and his father before him too, to break more promises than five, as great as this is that he should here make with you. Who shall come and cast it in his teeth, and tell him it is a shame for him to be so fickle and so false of his promise? And then what careth he for those words that he knoweth well he shall never hear? Not very much, though they were told him too!

If you might come afterward and complain your grief unto his own person yourself, you should find him as shamefast as a friend of mine, a merchant, once found the Sultan of Syria. Being certain years about his merchandise in that country, he gave to the Sultan a great sum of money for a certain office for him there for the while. But he had scantly granted him this and put it in his hand when, ere ever it was worth aught to him, the Sultan suddenly sold it to another of his own sect, and put our Hungarian out. Then came he to him and humbly put him in remembrance of his grant, spoken with his own mouth and signed with his own hand. Thereunto the Sultan answered him, with a grim countenance, "I will have thee know, good-for-nothing, that neither my mouth nor mine hand shall be master over me, to bind all my body at their pleasure. But I will be lord and master over them both, that whatsoever the one say and the other write, I will be at mine own liberty to do what I like myself, and ask them both no leave. And therefore, go get thee hence out of my countries, knave!" Think you now, my lord, that Sultan and this Turk, being both of one false sect, you may not find them both alike false of their promise?

VINCENT: That must I needs jeopard, for other surety can there none be had.

ANTHONY: An unwise jeoparding, to put your soul in peril of d.a.m.nation for the keeping of your bodily pleasures, and yet without surety to jeopard them too!

But yet go a little further, lo. Suppose me that you might be very sure that the Turk would break no promise with you. Are you then sure enough to retain all your substance still?

VINCENT: Yea, then.

ANTHONY: What if a man should ask you how long?

VINCENT: How long? As long as I live.

ANTHONY: Well, let it be so, then. But yet, as far as I can see, though the great Turk favour you never so much and let you keep your goods as long as ever you live, yet if it hap that you be this day fifty years old, all the favour he can show you cannot make you one day younger tomorrow. But every day shall you wax older than the day before, and then within a while must you, for all his favour, lose all.

VINCENT: Well, a man would be glad, for all that, to be sure not to lack while he liveth.

ANTHONY: Well, then, if the great Turk give you your goods, can there then in all your life none other take them from you again?

VINCENT: Verily, I suppose not.

ANTHONY: May he not lose this country again unto Christian men, and you, with the taking of this way, fall in the same peril then that you would now eschew?

VINCENT: Forsooth, I think that if he get it once, he will never lose it after again in our days.

ANTHONY: Yes, by G.o.d's grace. But yet if he lose it after our day, there goeth your children's inheritance away again! But be it now that he could never lose it; could none take your substance from you then?

VINCENT: No, in good faith, none.

ANTHONY: No, none at all? Not G.o.d?

VINCENT: G.o.d? Why, yes, perdy. Who doubteth of that?

ANTHONY: Who? Marry, he who doubteth whether there be any G.o.d or no. And that there lacketh not some such, the prophet testifieth where he said, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no G.o.d."

With the mouth the most foolish will forbear to say it unto other folk, but in the heart they forbear not to say it softly to themselves. And I fear me there be many more such fools than every man would think. And they would not hesitate to say it openly, too, if they forbore it not more for dread or for shame of men than for any fear of G.o.d. But now those who are so frantic foolish as to think there were no G.o.d, and yet in their words confess him, though (as St. Paul saith) in their deeds they deny him--we shall let them pa.s.s till it please G.o.d to show himself unto them, either inwardly, in time, by his merciful grace, or else outwardly, but over-late for them, by his terrible judgment.

But unto you, my Lord, since you believe and confess, as a wise man should, that though the Turk keep you his promise in letting you keep your substance, because you do him pleasure in the forsaking of your faith, yet G.o.d, whose faith you forsake, and thereby do him displeasure, may so take them from you that the great Turk, with all the power he hath, is not able to keep you them--why will you be so unwise with the loss of your soul to please the great Turk for your goods, since you know well that G.o.d whom you displease therewith may take them from you too?

Besides this, since you believe there is a G.o.d, you cannot but believe also that the great Turk cannot take your goods from you without his will or sufferance, no more than the devil could from Job. And think you then that, if he will suffer the Turk to take away your goods albeit that by the keeping and confessing of his faith you please him, he will, when you displease him by forsaking his faith, suffer you to rejoice or enjoy any benefit of those goods that you get or keep thereby?

VINCENT: G.o.d is gracious, and though men offend him, yet he suffereth them many times to live in prosperity long after.

ANTHONY: Long after? Nay, by my troth, that doth he no man! For how can that be, that he should suffer you to live in prosperity long after, when your whole life is but short in all-together, and either almost half of it or more than half, you think yourself, I daresay, spent out already before? Can you burn out half a short candle, and then have a long one left of the rest?

There cannot in this world be a worse mind than for a man to delight and take comfort in any commodity that he taketh by sinful means. For it is the very straight way toward the taking of boldness and courage in sin, and finally to falling into infidelity and thinking that G.o.d careth not or regardeth not what things men do here nor of what mind we be. But unto such-minded folk speaketh holy scripture in this wise: "Say not, I have sinned and yet there hath happed me none harm, for G.o.d suffereth before he strike." But, as St. Austine saith, the longer he tarrieth ere he strike, the sorer is the stroke when he striketh.

And therefore, if you will do well, reckon yourself very sure that when you deadly displease G.o.d for the getting or the keeping of your goods, G.o.d shall not suffer those goods to do you good. But either he shall shortly take them from you, or else suffer you to keep them for a little while to your more harm and afterward, when you least look for it, take you away from them.

And then, what a heap of heaviness will there enter into your heart, when you shall see that you shall so suddenly go from your goods and leave them here in the earth in one place, and that your body shall be put in the earth in another place, and--which then shall be the most heaviness of all--when you shall fear (and not without great cause) that your soul first forthwith, and after that at the final judgment your body, shall be driven down deep toward the centre of the earth into the fiery pit and dungeon of the devil of h.e.l.l, there to tarry in torment, world without end! What goods of this world can any man imagine, the pleasure and commodity of which could be such in a thousand years as to be able to recompense that intolerable pain that there is to be suffered in one year?

Yea, or in one day or one hour, either? And then what a madness is it, for the poor pleasure of your worldly goods of so few years, to cast yourself both body and soul into the everlasting fire of h.e.l.l, which is not diminished by the amount of a moment by lying there the s.p.a.ce of a hundred thousand years?

And therefore our Saviour, in few words, concluded and confuted all these follies of those who, for the short use of this worldly substance, forsake him and his faith and sell their souls unto the devil for ever. For he saith, "What availeth it a man if he won all the whole world, and lost his soul?" This would be, methinketh, cause and occasion enough, to him who had never so much part of this world in his hand, to be content rather to lose it all than for the retaining or increasing of his worldly goods to lose and destroy his soul.

VINCENT: This is, good uncle, in good faith very true. And what other thing any of them who would not for this be content, have to allege in reason for the defence of their folly, that can I not imagine. I care not in this matter to play the part any longer, but I pray G.o.d give me the grace to play the contrary part in deed. And I pray that I may never, for any goods or substance of this wretched world, forsake my faith toward G.o.d either in heart or tongue. And I trust in his great goodness that so I never shall.

XV

ANTHONY: Methinketh, cousin, that this persecution shall not only, as I said before, try men's hearts when it cometh and make them know their own affections--whether they have a corrupt greedy covetous mind or not--but also the very fame and expectation of it may teach them this lesson, ere ever the thing fall upon them itself. And this may be to their no little fruit, if they have the wit and the grace to take it in time while they can. For now may they find sure places to lay their treasure in, so that all the Turk's army shall never find it out.