Let us now consider, cousin, these causes of terror and dread that
you have recited, which in his persecution for the faith this
midday devil may, by these Turks, rear against us to make his
incursion with. For so shall we well perceive, weighing them well
with reason, that, albeit they be indeed somewhat, yet (every part
of the matter pondered) they shall well appear in conclusion things
not so much to be dreaded and fled from as they do suddenly seem to
folk at the first sight.
V
First let us begin at the outward goods, which are neither the
proper goods of the soul nor those of the body, but are called the
goods of fortune, and serve for the sustenance and commodity of man
for the short season of this present life, as worldly substance,
offices, honour, and authority.
What great good is there in these things of themselves, that they
should be worthy so much as to bear the name by which the world, of
a worldly favour, customarily calleth them? For if the having of
strength make a man strong, and the having of heat make a man hot,
and the having of virtue make a man virtuous, how can these things
be verily and truly "goods," by the having of which he who hath
them may as well be worse as better--and, as experience proveth,
more often is worse than better? Why should a man greatly rejoice
in that which he daily seeth most abound in the hands of many who
are wicked? Do not now this great Turk and his pashas in all these
advancements of fortune surmount very far above a Christian estate,
and any lords living under him? And was there not, some twenty
years ago, the great Sultan of Syria, who many a year together bore
himself as high as the great Turk, and afterward in one summer unto
the great Turk that whole empire was lost? And so may all his
empire now--and shall hereafter, by God's grace--be lost into
Christian men's hands likewise, when Christian people shall be
amended and grow in God's favour again. But since whole kingdoms
and mighty great empires are of so little surety to stand, but are
so soon transferred from one man unto another, what great thing can
you or I--yea, or any lord, the greatest in this land--reckon
himself to have, by the possession of a heap of silver or gold? For
they are but white and yellow metal, not so profitable of their own
nature, save for a little glittering, as the rude rusty metal of
iron.