Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation. Saint Thomas More

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СКАЧАТЬ wealth is coming so fast upon someone (who nevertheless is good) that, foreseeing how much weight of worldly wealth the man may bear and how much will overcharge him and enhance his heart up so high that grace should fall from him, God of his goodness, I say, doth anticipate his fall, and sendeth him tribulation betimes while he is yet good. And this he doth to make him know his maker and, by less liking the false flattering world, to set a cross upon the ship of his heart and bear a low sail thereon, so that the boisterous blast of pride blow him not under the water.

      Some lovely young lady, lo, who is yet good enough—God seeth a storm come toward her that would, if her health and fat feeding should last a little longer, strike her into some lecherous love and, instead of her old-acquainted knight, lay her abed with a new-acquainted knave. But God, loving her more tenderly than to suffer her to fall into such shameful beastly sin, sendeth her in season a goodly fair fervent fever, that maketh her bones to rattle and wasteth away her wanton flesh. And it beautifieth her fair skin with the colour of a kite's claw, and maketh her look so lovely that her love would have little pleasure to look upon her. And it maketh her also so lusty that if her lover lay in her lap she should so sore long to throw up unto him the very bottom of her stomach that she should not be able to restrain it from him, but suddenly lay it all in his neck!

      Did not, as I before told you, the blessed apostle himself confess that the high revelations that God had given him might have enhanced him into so high a pride that he might have caught a foul fall, had not the provident goodness of God provided for his remedy? And what was his remedy but a painful tribulation, so sore that he was fain thrice to call to God to take the tribulation from him. And yet would not God grant his request, but let him lie therein till he himself, who saw more in St. Paul than St. Paul saw in himself, knew well the time was come in which he might well without his harm take it from him.

      And thus you see, good cousin, that tribulation is double medicine—both a cure of the sin past, and a preservative from the sin that is to come. And therefore in this kind of tribulation is there good occasion for a double comfort; but that is, I say, diversely to sundry diverse folk, as their own conscience is cumbered with sin or clear. Howbeit, I will advise no man to be so bold as to think that his tribulation is sent him to keep him from the pride of his holiness! Let men leave that kind of comfort hardly to St. Paul, till their living be like his. But of the rest men may well take great comfort and good besides.

      X

      VINCENT: The third kind of tribulation, uncle, remaineth now—that is, that which is sent a man by God, and not for his sin either committed or which otherwise would come, and therefore is not medicinable, but is sent for exercise of our patience and increase of our merit, and therefore better than medicinable. Though it be, as you say (and as indeed it is) better for the man than any of the other two kinds in another world, where the reward shall be received, yet I cannot see by what reason a man can in this world, where the tribulation is suffered, take any more comfort in it than in any of the other twain that are sent him for his sin. For he cannot here know whether it be sent him for sin before committed, or for sin that otherwise should befall, or for increase of merit and reward after to come. For every man hath cause enough to fear and think that his sin already past hath deserved it, and that it is not without peril for a man to think otherwise.

      ANTHONY: This that you say, cousin, hath place of truth in far the most part of men. And therefore must they not envy nor disdain, since they may take in their tribulation sufficient consolation for their part, that some other who is more worthy may take yet a great deal more. For, as I told you, cousin, though the best must confess himself a sinner, yet there are many men—though to the multitude, few—who for the kind of their living and the clearness of their conscience may well and without sin have a good hope that God sendeth them some great grief for the exercise of their patience and for increase of their merit. This appeareth not only by St. Paul, in the place before remembered, but also by the holy man Job, who in sundry places of his disputations with his burdensome comforters forbore not to say that the clearness of his own conscience declared and showed to himself that he deserved not that sore tribulation that he then had. Howbeit, as I told you before, I will not advise every man at adventure to be bold upon this manner of comfort. But yet know I some men such that I would dare, for their more ease and comfort in their great and grievous pains, to put them in right good hope that God sendeth it unto them not so much for their punishment as for exercise of their patience.

      And some tribulations are there, also, that grow upon such causes that in those cases I would never forbear but always would, without any doubt, give that counsel and comfort to any man.

      VINCENT: What causes, good uncle, are those?

      ANTHONY: Marry, cousin, wheresoever a man falleth in tribulation for the maintenance of justice or for the defence of God's cause. For if I should happen to find a man who had long lived a very virtuous life, and had at last happened to fall into the Turks' hands; and if he there did abide by the truth of his faith and, with the suffering of all kinds of torments taken upon his body, still did teach and testify the truth; and if I should in his passion give him spiritual comfort—might I be bold to tell him no further but that he should take patience in his pain, and that God sendeth it to him for his sin, and that he is well worthy to have it, though it were yet much more? He might then well answer me, and other such comforters, as Job answered his: "Burdensome and heavy comforters be you." Nay, I would not fail to bid him boldly, while I should see him in his passion, to cast sin and hell and purgatory and all upon the devil's pate, and doubt not but—as, if he gave over his hold, all his merit would be lost and he would be turned to misery—so if he stand and persevere still in the confession of his faith, all his whole pain shall turn all into glory.

      Yea, more shall I yet say than this. If there were a Christian man who had among those infidels committed a very deadly crime, such as would be worthy of death, not only by their laws but by Christ's too (as manslaughter, or adultery, or other such thing); and if when he were taken he were offered pardon of his life upon condition that he should forsake the faith of Christ; and if this man would now rather suffer death than so do—should I comfort him in his pain only as I would a malefactor? Nay, this man, though he would have died for his sin, dieth now for Christ's sake, since he might live still if he would forsake him. The bare patient taking of his death would have served for the satisfaction of his sin—through the merit of Christ's passion, I mean, without help of which no pain of our own could be satisfactory. But now shall Christ, for his forsaking of his own life in the honour of his faith, forgive the pain of all his sins, of his mere liberality, and accept all the pain of his death for merit of reward in heaven, and shall assign no part of it to the payment of his debt in purgatory, but shall take it all as an offering and requite it all with glory. And this man among Christian men, although he had been before a devil, nothing would I doubt afterward to take him for a martyr.

      VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, methinketh this is said marvellous well. And it specially delighteth and comforteth me to hear it, because of our principal fear that I first spoke of, the Turk's cruel incursion into this country of ours.

      ANTHONY: Cousin, as for the matter of that fear, I purpose to touch it last of all. Nor meant I here to speak of it, had it not been that the vehemency of your objection brought it in my way. But otherwise I would rather have put instead some example of those who suffer tribulation for maintenance of right and justice, and choose rather to take harm than to do wrong in any manner of matter. For surely if a man may—as indeed he may—have great comfort in the clearness of his conscience, who hath a false crime put upon him and by false witness proved upon him, and who is falsely punished and put to worldly shame and pain for it; a hundred times more comfort may he have in his heart who, where white is called black and right is called wrong, abideth by the truth and is persecuted for justice.

      VINCENT: Then if a man sue me wrongfully for my own land, in which I myself have good right, it is a comfort yet to defend it well, since God shall give me thanks for it?

      ANTHONY: СКАЧАТЬ