VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, as for these outward goods, you have
said enough. No man can be sure what strength he shall have or how
faint and feeble he may find himself when he shall come to the
point, and therefore I can make no warranty of myself, seeing that
St. Peter so suddenly fainted at a woman's word and so cowardly
forsook his master, for whom he had so boldly fought within so few
hours before, and by that fall in forsaking well perceived that he
had been too rash in his promise and was well worthy to take a fall
for putting so full trust in himself. Yet in good faith methinketh
now (and God will, I trust, help me to keep this thought still)
that if the Turk should take all that I have, unto my very shirt,
unless I would forsake my faith, and should offer it all to me
again with five times as much if I would fall into his sect, I
would not once stick at it--rather to forsake it every whit, than
to forsake any point of Christ's holy faith.
But surely, good uncle, when I bethink me further on the grief and
the pain that may turn unto my flesh, here find I the fear that
forceth my heart to tremble.
ANTHONY: Neither have I cause to marvel at that, nor have you,
cousin, cause to be dismayed for it. The great horror and fear that
our Saviour had in his own flesh, against his painful passion,
maketh me little to marvel. And I may well make you take this
comfort, too, that for no such manner of grudging felt in your
sensual parts, the flesh shrinking in the meditation of pain and
death, your reason shall give over, but resist it and manly master
it. And though you would fain fly from the painful death and be
loth to come to it, yet may the meditation of our Saviour's great
grievous agony move you. And he himself shall, if you so desire
him, not fail to work with you therein, and to get and give you the
grace to submit and conform your will unto his, as he did his unto
his Father. And thereupon shall you be so comforted with the secret
inward inspiration of his Holy Spirit, as he was with the personal
presence of that angel who after his agony came and comforted him.
And so shall you as his true disciple follow him, and with good
will, without grudge, do as he did, and take your cross of pain and
suffering upon your back and die for the truth with him, and
thereby reign with him crowned in eternal glory.
And this I say to give you warning of the truth, to the intent that
when a man feeleth such a horror of death in his heart, he should
not thereby stand in outrageous fear that he were falling. For many
such a man standeth, for all that fear, full fast, and finally
better abideth the brunt, when God is so good unto him as to bring
him to it and encourage him therein, than doth some other man who
in the beginning feeleth no fear at all. And yet may he never be
brought to the brunt, and most often so it is. For God, having many
mansions, and all wonderful wealthful, in his Father's house,
exalteth not every good man up to the glory of a martyr. But
foreseeing their infirmity, that though they be of good will before
and peradventure of right good courage too, they would yet play St.
Peter if they were brought to the point, and thereby bring their
souls into the peril of eternal damnation, he provideth otherwise
for them before they come there. And he findeth a way that men
shall not have the mind to lay any hands upon them, as he found for
his disciples when he himself was willingly taken. Or else, if they
set hands on them, he findeth a way that they shall have no power
to hold them, as he found for St. John the Evangelist, who let his
sheet fall from him, upon which they caught hold, and so fled
himself naked away and escaped from them. Or, though they hold them
and bring them to prison too, yet God sometimes delivereth them
hence, as he did St. Peter. And sometimes he taketh them to him out
of the prison into heaven, and suffereth them not to come to their
torment at all, as he hath done by many a good holy man. And some
he suffereth to be brought into the torments and yet suffereth them
not to die in them, but to live many years afterward and die their
natural death, as he did by St. John the Evangelist and by many
another more, as we may well see both by sundry stories and in the
epistles of St. Ciprian also. And therefore, which way God will
take with us, we cannot tell.
But surely, if we be true Christian men, this can we well tell:
that without any bold warranty of ourselves or foolish trust in our
own strength, we are bound upon pain of damnation not to be of the
contrary mind but what we will with his help, however loth we feel
in our flesh thereto, rather than forsake him or his faith before
the world--which if we do, he hath promised to forsake us before
his Father and all his holy company of heaven--rather, I say, than
we would do so, we would with his help endure and sustain for his
sake all the tormentry that the devil with all his faithless
tormentors in this world would devise. And then, if we be of this
mind, and submit our will unto his, and call and pray for his
grace, we can tell well enough that he will never suffer them to
put more upon us than his grace will make us able to bear, but will
also with their temptation provide for us a sure way. For "God is
faithful," saith St. Paul, "who suffereth you not to be tempted
above what you can bear, but giveth also with the temptation a way
out." For either, as I said, he will keep us out of their hands,
though he before suffered us to be afraid of them to prove our
faith (that we may have, by the examination of our mind, some
comfort in hope of his grace and some fear of our own frailty to
drive us to call for grace), or else, if we call into their hands,
provided that we fall not from the trust of him nor cease to call
for his help, his truth shall, as the prophet saith, so compass us
about with a shield that we shall not need to fear this incursion
of this midday devil. For these Turks his tormentors, who shall
enter this land and persecute us, shall either not have the power
to touch our bodies at all, or else the short pain that they shall
put into our bodies shall turn us to eternal profit both in our
souls and in our bodies too. And therefore, cousin, to begin with,
let us be of good comfort. For we are by our faith very sure that
holy scripture is the very word of God, and that the word of God
cannot but be true. And we see by the mouth of his holy prophet and
by the mouth of his blessed apostle also that God hath made us
faithful promise that he will not suffer us to be tempted above our
power, but will both provide a way out for us and also compass us
round about with his shield and defend us that we shall have no
cause to fear this midday devil with all his persecution. We cannot
therefore but be very sure (unless we are very shamefully cowardous
of heart and out of measure faint in faith toward God, and in love
less than luke-warm or waxed even key-cold) we may be very sure, I
say, either that God will not suffer the Turks to invade this land;
or that, if they do, God shall provide such resistance that they
shall not prevail; or that, if they prevail, yet if we take the way
that I have told you we shall by their persecution take little harm
or rather none harm at all, but that which shall seem harm indeed
be to us no harm at all but good. For if God make us and keep us
good men, as he hath promised to do if we pray well therefore, then
saith holy scripture, "Unto good folk all things turn them to good."
And therefore, cousin, since God knoweth what shall happen and not
we, let us in the meanwhile with a good hope in the help of God's
grace have a good purpose of standing sure by his holy faith
against all persecutions. And if we should hereafter, either for
fear or pain or for lack of his grace lost in our own default,
mishap to decline from his good purpose--which our Lord forbid--yet
we would have won the well-spent time beforehand, to the
diminishment of our pain, and God would also be much the more
likely to lift us up after our fall and give us his grace again.
Howbeit, if this persecution come, we are, by this meditation and
well-continued intent and purpose beforehand, the better
strengthened and confirmed, and much more likely to stand indeed.
And if it so fortune, as with God's grace at men's good prayers and
amendment of our evil lives it may well fortune, that the Turks
shall either be well withstood and vanquished or peradventure not
invade us at all, then shall we, perdy, by this good purpose get
ourselves of God a very good cheap thank!
And on the other hand, while we now think on it--and not to think
on it, in so great likelihood of it, I suppose no wise man can--if
we should for the fear of worldly loss or bodily pain, framed in
our own minds, think that we would give over and to save our goods
and lives forsake our Saviour by denial of his faith, then whether
the Turks come or come not, we are meanwhile gone from God. And
then if they come not indeed, or come and are driven to flight,
what a shame should that be to us, before the face of God, in so
shameful cowardly wise to forsake him for fear of that pain that we
never felt or that never was befalling us!
VINCENT: By my troth, uncle, I thank you. Methinketh that though
you never said more in the matter, yet have you, even with this
that you have spoken here already of the fear of bodily pain in
this persecution, marvellously comforted mine heart.
ANTHONY: I am glad, cousin, if your heart have taken comfort
thereby. But if you so have, give God the thanks and not me, for
that work is his and not mine. For neither am I able to say any
good thing except by him, nor can all the good words in the
world--no, not the holy words of God himself, and spoken also with
his own holy mouth--profit a man with the sound entering at his
ear, unless the Spirit of God also inwardly work in his soul. But
that is his goodness ever ready to do, unless there be hindrance
through the untowardness of our own froward will.