Since a man is made of the body and the soul, all the harm that any
man can take, it must needs be in one of these two, either
immediately or by the means of some such thing as serveth for the
pleasure, welfare, or commodity of one of these two.
As for the soul first, we shall need no rehearsal of any harm that
may attain to it by this kind of tribulation, unless by some
inordinate love and affection that the soul bear to the body, she
consent to slide from the faith and thereby do herself harm. Now
there remains the body, and these outward things of fortune which
serve for the maintenance of the body and minister matter of
pleasure to the soul also, through the delight that she hath in the
body for the while that she is matched with it.
Consider first the loss of those outward things, as being somewhat
less in weight than the body itself. What may a man lose in them,
and thereby what pain may he suffer?
VINCENT: He may lose, uncle, money, plate, and other movable
substance (of which I should somewhat lose myself); then, offices
and authority; and finally all the lands of his inheritance for
ever that he himself and his heirs perpetually might otherwise
enjoy. And of all these things, uncle, you know well that I myself
have some--little, in respect of that which some others have here,
but yet somewhat more than he who hath most here would be well
content to lose.
Upon the loss of these things follow neediness and poverty; the
pain of lacking, the shame of begging (of which twain I know not
which is the most wretched necessity); besides, the grief and
heaviness of heart, in beholding good men and faithful and his dear
friends bewrapped in like misery, and ungracious wretches and
infidels and his mortal enemies enjoying the commodities that he
himself and his friends have lost.
Now, for the body very few words should serve us. For therein I see
none other harm but loss of liberty, labour, imprisonment, and
painful and shameful death.
ANTHONY: There needeth not much more, cousin, as the world is now.
For I fear me that less than a fourth part of this will make many a
man sore stagger in his faith, and some fall quite from it, who yet
at this day, before he come to the proof, thinketh himself that he
would stand very fast. And I beseech our Lord that all those who so
think, and who would yet when they were brought to the point fall
from the faith for fear or pain, may get of God the grace to think
still as they do and not to be brought to the essay, where pain or
fear would show them, as it showed St. Peter, how far they are
deceived now.
But now, cousin, against these terrible things, what way shall we
take in giving men counsel of comfort? If the faith were in our
days as fervent as it hath been ere this in times past, little
counsel and little comfort would suffice. We should not much need
with words and reasoning to extenuate and diminish the vigour and
asperity of the pains. For of old times, the greater and the more
bitter the pain were, the more ready was the fervour of faith to
suffer it. And surely, cousin, I doubt little in my mind but what,
if a man had in his heart so deep a desire and love--longing to be
with God in heaven, to have the fruition of his glorious face--as
had those holy men who are martyrs in old time, he would no more
now stick at the pain that he must pass between than those old holy
martyrs did at that time. But alas, our faint and feeble faith,
with our love to God less than lukewarm because of the fiery
affection that we bear to our own filthy flesh, maketh us so dull
in the desire of heaven that the sudden dread of every bodily pain
woundeth us to the heart and striketh our devotion dead. And
therefore hath every man, cousin, as I said before, much the more
need to think upon this thing many a time and oft aforehand, ere
any such peril befall, by much devising upon it before they see
cause to fear it. Since the thing shall not appear so terrible unto
them, reason shall better enter, and through grace working with
their diligence, engender and set sure, not a sudden slight
affection of suffering for God's sake, but, by a long continuance,
a strong deep-rooted habit--not like a reed ready to wave with
every wind, nor like a rootless tree scantly set up on end in a
loose heap of light sand, that will with a blast or two be blown
down.