wretched and needy; but it maketh us ungracious, and also full of
unhappiness. And I think Peace likewise should be much made of, if it were
but only because it maketh us more wealthy and better in our living. Alas,
there be too many already, yea, and more than too many mischiefs and
evils, with the which the wretched life of man (whether he will or no) is
continually vexed, tormented, and utterly consumed.
It is near hand two thousand years since the physicians had knowledge of
three hundred divers notable sicknesses by name, besides other small
sicknesses and new, as daily spring among us, and besides age also, which
is of itself a sickness inevitable.
We read that in one place whole cities have been destroyed with
earthquakes. We read, also, that in another place there have been cities
altogether burnt with lightning; how in another place whole regions have
been swallowed up with opening of the earth, towns by undermining have
fallen to the ground; so that I need not here to remember what a great
multitude of men are daily destroyed by divers chances, which be not
regarded because they happen so often: as sudden breaking out of the sea
and of great floods, falling down of hills and houses, poison, wild
beasts, meat, drink, and sleep. One hath been strangled with drinking of a
hair in a draught of milk, another hath been choked with a little
grapestone, another with a fishbone sticking in his throat. There hath
been, that sudden joy hath killed out of hand: for it is less wonder of
them that die for vehement sorrow. Besides all this, what mortal
pestilence see we in every place. There is no part of the world, that is
not subject to peril and danger of man's life, which life of itself also
is most fugitive. So manifold mischances and evils assail man on every
side that not without cause Homer did say: Man was the most wretched of
all creatures living.
But forasmuch these mischances cannot lightly be eschewed, nor they happen
not through our fault, they make us but only wretched, and not ungracious
withal. What pleasure is it then for them that be subject already to so
many miserable chances, willingly to seek and procure themselves another
mischief more than they had before, as though they yet wanted misery? Yea,
they procure not a light evil, but such an evil that is worse than all the
others, so mischievous, that it alone passeth all the others; so abundant,
that in itself alone is comprehended all ungraciousness; so pestilent,
that it maketh us all alike wicked as wretched, it maketh us full of all
misery, and yet not worthy to be pitied.
Now go farther, and with all these things consider, that the commodities
of Peace spread themselves most far and wide, and pertain unto many men.
In war if there happen anything luckily (but, O good Lord, what may we say
happeneth well and luckily in war?), it pertaineth to very few, and to
them that are unworthy to have it. The prosperity of one is the
destruction of another. The enriching of one is the spoil and robbing of
another. The triumph of one is the lamentable mourning of another, so that
as the infelicity is bitter and sharp, the felicity is cruel and bloody.
Howbeit otherwhile both parties wept according to the proverb, Victoria
Cadmaea, Cadmus victorie, where both parties repented. And I wot not
whether it came ever so happily to pass in war, that he that had victory
did not repent him of his enterprise, if he were a good man.
Then seeing Peace is the thing above all other most best and most
pleasant, and, contrariwise, war the thing most ungracious and wretched of
all other, shall we think those men to be in their right minds, the which
when they may obtain Peace with little business and labour will rather
procure war with so great labour and most difficulty?
First of all consider, how loathly a thing the rumour of war is, when it
is first spoken of. Then how envious a thing it is unto a prince, while
with often tithes and taxes he pillageth his subjects. What a business
hath he to make and entertain friends to help him? what a business to
procure bands of strangers and to hire soldiers?
What expenses and labours must he make in setting forth his navy of ships,
in building and repairing of castles and fortresses, in preparing and
apparelling of his tents and pavilions, in framing, making, and carrying
of engines, guns, armour, weapons, baggage, carts, and victual? What great
labour is spent in making of bulwarks, in casting of ditches, in digging
of mines, in keeping of watches, in keeping of arrays, and in exercising
of weapons? I pass over the fear they be in; I speak not of the imminent
danger and peril that hangeth over their heads: for what thing in war is
not to be feared? What is he that can reckon all the incommodious life
that the most foolish soldiers suffer in the field? And for that worthy to
endure worse, in that they will suffer it willingly. Their meat is so ill
that an ox of Cyprus would be loath to eat it; they have but little sleep,
nor yet that at their own pleasure. Their tents on every side are open on
the wind. What, a tent? No, no; they must all the day long, be it hot or
cold, wet or dry, stand in the open air, sleep on the bare ground, stand
in their harness. They must suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, dust,
showers; they must be obedient to their captains; sometimes they be
clapped on the pate with a warder or a truncheon: so that there is no
bondage so vile as the bondage of soldiers.
Besides all this, at the sorrowful sign given to fight, they must run
headlong to death: for either they must slay cruelly, or be slain
wretchedly. So many sorrowful labours must they take in hand, that they
may bring to pass that thing which is most wretched of all other. With so
many great miseries we must first afflict and grieve our own self, that we
may afflict and grieve other!
Now if we would call this matter to account, and justly reckon how much
war will cost, and how much peace, surely we shall find that peace may be
got and obtained with the tenth part of the cares, labours, griefs,
perils, expenses, and spilling of blood, with which the war is procured.
So great a company of men, to their extreme perils, ye lead out of the
realm to overthrow and destroy some one town: and with the labour of the
selfsame men, and without any peril at all, another town, much more noble
and goodly, might be new edified and builded. But you say, you will hurt
and grieve your enemy: so even that doing is against humanity.
Nevertheless, this I would ye should consider, that ye cannot hurt and
grieve your enemies, but ye must first greatly hurt your own people. And
it seemeth a point of a madman, to enterprise where he is sure and certain
of so great hurt and damage, and is uncertain which way the chance of war
will turn.
But admit, that either foolishness, or wrath, or ambition, or
covetousness, or outrageous cruelty, or else (which I think more like) the
furies sent from hell, should ravish and draw the heathen people to this
madness. Yet from whence cometh it into our minds, that one Christian man
should draw his weapon to bathe it in another Christian man's blood? It is
called parricide, if the one brother slay the other. And yet is a
Christian man nearer joined to another than is one brother to another:
except the bonds of nature be stronger than the bonds of Christ. What
abominable thing, then, is it to see them almost continually fighting
among themselves, the which are the inhabitants of one house the Church,
which rejoice and say, that they all be the members of one body, and that
have one head, which truly is Christ; they have all one Father in heaven;
they are all taught and comforted by one Holy Spirit; they profess the
religion of Christ all under one manner; they are all redeemed with
Christ's blood; they are all newborn at the holy font; they use alike
sacraments; they be all soldiers under one captain; they are all fed with
one heavenly bread; they drink all of one spiritual cup; they have one
common enemy the devil; finally, they be all called to one inheritance.
Where be they so many sacraments of perfect concord? Where be the
innumerable teachings of peace? There is one special precept, which Christ
called his, that is, Charity. And what thing is so repugnant to charity as
war? Christ saluted his disciples with the blessed luck of peace. Unto his
disciples he gave nothing save peace, saving peace he left them nothing.
In those holy prayers, he specially prayed the Father of heaven, that in
like manner as he was one with the Father, so all his, that is to say,
Christian men, should be one with him. Lo, here you may perceive a thing
more than peace, more than amity, more than concord.
Solomon bare the figure of Christ: for Solomon in the Hebrew tongue
signifieth peaceable or peaceful. Him God would have to build his temple.
At the birth of Christ the angels proclaimed neither war nor triumphs, but
peace they sang. And before his birth the prophet David prophesied thus of
him: Et factus est in pace locus ejus, that is to say, His dwelling place
is made in peace. Search all the whole life of Christ, and ye shall never
find thing that breathes not of peace, that signifieth not amity, that
savoureth not of charity. And because he perceived peace could not well be
kept, except men would utterly despise all those things for which the
world so greedily fighteth, he commanded that we should of him learn to be
meek. He calleth them blessed and happy that setteth naught by riches, for
those he calleth poor in spirit. Blessed be they that despise the
pleasures of this world, the which he calleth mourners. And them blessed
he calleth that patiently suffer themselves, to be put out of their
possessions, knowing that here in this world they are but as outlaws; and
the very true country and possession of godly creatures is in heaven. He
calleth them blessed which, deserving well of all men, are wrongfully
blamed and ill afflicted. He forbade that any man should resist evil.
Briefly, as all his doctrine commandeth sufferance and love, so all his
life teacheth nothing else but meekness. So he reigned, so he warred, so
he overcame, so he triumphed.
Now the apostles, that had sucked into them the pure spirit of Christ, and
were blessedly drunk with that new must of the Holy Ghost, preached
nothing but meekness and peace. What do all the epistles of Paul sound in
every place but peace, but long-suffering, but charity? What speaketh
Saint John, what rehearseth he so oft, but love? What other thing did
Peter? What other thing did all the true Christian writers? From whence
then cometh all this tumult of wars amongst the children of peace? Think
ye it a fable, that Christ calleth himself a vine tree, and his own the
branches? Who did ever see one branch fight with another? Is it in vain
that Paul so oft wrote, The Church to be none other thing, than one body
compact together of divers members, cleaving to one head, Christ? Whoever
saw the eye fight with the hand, or the belly with the foot? In this
universal body, compact of all those unlike things, there is agreement. In
the body of a beast, one member is in peace with another, and each member
useth not the property thereto given for itself alone, but for the profit
of all the other members. So that if there come any good to any one member
alone, it helpeth all the whole body. And may the compaction or knitting
of Nature do more in the body of a beast, that shortly must perish, than
the coupling of the Holy Ghost in the mystical and immortal body of the
Church? Do we to no purpose pray as taught by Christ: Good Lord, even as
thy will is fulfilled in heaven, so let it be fulfilled in the earth? In
that city of heaven is concord and peace most perfect. And Christ would
have his Church to be none other than a heavenly people in earth, as near
as might be after the manner of them that are in heaven, ever labouring
and making haste to go thither, and always having their mind thereon.
Now go to, let us imagine, that there should come some new guest out of
the lunar cities, where Empedocles dwelleth, or else out of the
innumerable worlds, that Democritus fabricated, into this world, desiring
to know what the inhabitants do here. And when he was instructed of
everything, it should at last be told him that, besides all other, there
is one creature marvellously mingled, of body like to brute beasts and of
soul like unto God. And it should also be told him, that this creature is
so noble, that though he be here an outlaw out of his own country, yet are
all other beasts at his commandment, the which creature through his
heavenly beginning inclineth alway to things heavenly and immortal. And
that God eternal loved this creature so well, that whereas he could
neither by the gifts of nature, nor by the strong reasons of philosophy
attain unto that which he so fervently desired, he sent hither his only
begotten son, to the intent to teach this creature a new kind of learning.
Then as soon as this new guest had perceived well the whole manner of
Christ's life and precepts, would desire to stand in some high place, from
whence he might behold that which he had heard. And when he should see
all other creatures soberly live according to their kind, and, being led
by the laws and course of nature, desire nothing but even as Nature would;
and should see this one special creature man given riotously to tavern
haunting, to vile lucre, to buying and selling, chopping and changing, to
brawling and fighting one with another, trow ye that he would not think
that any of the other creatures were man, of whom he heard so much of
before, rather than he that is indeed man? Then if he that had instructed
him afore would show him which creature is man, now would he look about to
see if he could spy the Christian flock and company, the which, following
the ordinance of that heavenly teacher Christ, should exhibit to him a
figure or shape of the evangelical city. Think ye he would not rather
judge Christians to dwell in any other place than in those countries,
wherein we see so great superfluity, riot, voluptuousness, pride, tyranny,
discord, brawlings, fightings, wars, tumults, yea, and briefly to speak, a
greater puddle of all those things that Christ reproveth than among Turks
or Saracens? From whence, then, creepeth this pestilence in among
Christian people? Doubtless this mischief also is come in by little and
little, like as many more other be, ere men be aware of them. For truly
every mischief creepeth by little and little upon the good manners of men,
or else under the colour of goodness it is suddenly received.
So then first of all, learning and cunning crept in as a thing very meet
to confound heretics, which defend their opinions with the doctrine of
philosophers, poets, and orators. And surely at the beginning of our
faith, Christian men did not learn those things; but such as peradventure
had learned them, before they knew what Christ meant, they turned the
thing that they had learned already, into good use.
Eloquence of tongue was at the beginning dissembled more than despised,
but at length it was openly approved. After that, under colour of
confounding heretics, came in an ambitious pleasure of brawling
disputations, which hath brought into the Church of Christ no small
mischief. At length the matter went so farforth that Aristotle was
altogether received into the middle of divinity, and so received, that his
authority is almost reputed holier than the authority of Christ. For if
Christ spake anything that did little agree with our life, by
interpretation of Aristotle it was lawful to make it serve their purpose.
But if any do never so little repugn against the high divinity of
Aristotle, he is quickly with clapping of hands driven out of the place.
For of him we have learned, that the felicity of man is imperfect, except
he have both the good gifts of body and of fortune. Of him we have
learned, that no commonweal may flourish, in which all things are
common. And we endeavour ourselves to glue fast together the decrees of
this man and the doctrine of Christ--which is as likely a thing as to
mingle fire and water together. And a gobbet we have received of the civil
laws, because of the equity that seemeth to be in them. And to the end
they should the better serve our purpose, we have, as near as may be,
writhed and plied the doctrine of the gospel to them. Now by the civil law
it is lawful for a man to defend violence with violence, and each to
pursue for his right. Those laws approve buying and selling; they allow
usury, so it be measurable; they praise war as a noble thing, so, it be
just. Finally all the doctrine of Christ is so defiled with the learning
of logicians, sophisters, astronomers, orators, poets, philosophers,
lawyers, and gentles, that a man shall spend the most part of his life,
ere he may have any leisure to search holy scripture, to the which when a
man at last cometh, he must come infected with so many worldly opinions,
that either he must be offended with Christ's doctrines, or else he must
apply them to the mind and of them that he hath learned before. And this
thing is so much approved, that it is now a heinous deed, if a man presume
to study holy scripture, which hath not buried himself up to the hard ears
in those trifles, or rather sophistries of Aristotle. As though Christ's
doctrine were such, that it were not lawful for all men to know it, or
else that it could by any means agree with the wisdom of philosophers.
Besides this we admitted at the beginning of our faith some honour, which
afterward we claimed as of duty. Then we received riches, but that was to
distribute to relieve poor men, which afterwards we turned to our own use.
And why not, since we have learned by the law civil, that the very order
of charity is, that every man must first provide for himself? Nor lack
there colours to cloak this mischief: first it is a good deed to provide
for our children, and it is right that we foresee how to live in age;
finally, why should we, say they, give our goods away, if we come by them
without fraud? By these degrees it is by little and little come to pass,
that he is taken for the best man that hath most riches: nor never was
there more honour given to riches among the heathen people, than is at
this day among the Christian people. For what thing is there, either
spiritual or temporal, that is not done with great show of riches? And it
seemed a thing agreeable with those ornaments, if Christian men had some
great jurisdiction under them. Nor there wanted not such as gladly
submitted themselves. Albeit at the beginning it was against their wills,
and scantly would they receive it. And yet with much work, they received
it so, that they were content with the name and title only: the profit
thereof they gladly gave unto other men. At the last, little by little
it came to pass, that a bishop thought himself no bishop, except he had
some temporal lordship withal; an abbot thought himself of small
authority, if he had not wherewith to play the lordly sire. And in
conclusion, we blushed never a deal at the matter, we wiped away all
shamefastness, and shoved aside all the bars of comeliness. And whatever
abuse was used among the heathen people, were it covetousness, ambition,
riot, pomp, or pride, or tyranny, the same we follow, in the same we match
them, yea, and far pass them. And to pass over the lighter things for the
while, I pray you, was there ever war among the heathen people so long
continually, or more cruelly, than among Christian people? What stormy
rumblings, what violent brays of war, what tearing of leagues, and what
piteous slaughters of men have we seen ourselves within these few years?
What nation hath not fought and skirmished with another? And then we go
and curse the Turk; and what can be a more pleasant sight to the Turks,
than to behold us daily each slaying other?
Xerxes doted, when he led out of his own country that huge multitude of
people to make war upon the Greeks. Trow ye, was he not mad, when he wrote
letters to the mountain called Athos, threatening that the hill should
repent except it obeyed his lust? And the same Xerxes commanded also the
sea to be beaten, because it was somewhat rough when he should have
sailed over.
Who will deny but Alexander the Great was mad also? He, the young god,
wished that there were many worlds, the which he might conquer--so great a
fever of vainglory had embraced his young lusty courage. And yet these
same men, the which Seneca doubted not to call mad thieves, warred after a
gentler fashion than we do; they were more faithful of their promise in
war, nor they used not so mischievous engines in war, nor such crafts and
subtleties, nor they warred not for so light causes as we Christian men
do. They rejoiced to advance and enrich such provinces as they had
conquered by war; and the rude people, that lived like wild beasts without
laws, learning, or good manners, they taught them both civil conditions
and crafts, whereby they might live like men. In countries that were not
inhabited with people, they builded cities, and made them both fair and
profitable. And the places that were not very sure, they fenced, for
safeguard of the people, with bridges, banks, bulwarks; and with a
thousand other such commodities they helped the life of man. So that then
it was right expedient to be overcome. Yea, and how many things read we,
that were either wisely done, or soberly spoken of them in the midst of
their wars. As for those things that are done in Christian men's wars they
are more filthy and cruel than is convenient here to rehearse. Moreover,
look what was worst in the heathen peoples' wars, in that we follow them,
yea, we pass them.