Thomas More - Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

T >> Thomas More >> Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

But now for our purpose: If, among any of the marks by which the
true revelations may be known from false illusions, that man
himself bring forth, for one mark, the doing or teaching of
anything against the scripture of God or the common faith of the
church, you may enter into the special matter, in which he can
never well flee from you. Or else may you yet, if you wish, feign
that your secret friend, for whose sake you come to him for
counsel, is brought to that mind by a certain apparition showed
unto him, as he himself saith, by an angel--as you fear, by the
devil. And that he cannot as yet be otherwise persuaded by you but
that the pleasure of God is that he shall go kill himself. And
that he believeth if he do so he shall then be thereby so
specially participant of Christ's passion that he shall forthwith
be carried up with angels into heaven. And that he is so joyful
for this that he firmly purposeth upon it, no less glad to do it
than another man would be glad to avoid it. And therefore may you
desire his good counsel to instruct you with some substantial good
advice, with which you may turn him from this error, that he be
not, under hope of God's true revelation, destroyed in body and
soul by the devil's false illusion.

If he will in this thing study and labour to instruct you, the
things that he himself shall find, of his own invention, though
they be less effectual, shall peradventure more work with him
toward his own amendment (since he shall, of likelihood, better
like them) than shall things double so substantial that were told
him by another man. If he be loth to think upon that side, and
therefore shrink from the matter, then is there no other way but
to venture to fall into the matter after the plain fashion, and
tell what you hear, and give him counsel and exhortation to the
contrary. Unless you wish to say that thus and thus hath the
matter been reasoned already between your friend and you. And
therein may you rehearse such things as should prove that the
vision which moveth him is no true revelation, but a very false
illusion.

VINCENT: Verily, uncle, I well allow that a man should, in this
thing as well as in every other in which he longeth to do another
man good, seek such a pleasant way that the party should be likely
to like his communication, or at least to take it well in worth.
And he should not enter in unto it in such a way that he whom he
would help should abhor him and be loth to hear him, and therefore
take no profit by him.

But now, uncle, if it come, by the one way or the other, to the
point where he will or shall hear me; what be the effectual means
with which I should by my counsel convert him?

ANTHONY: All those by which you may make him perceive that he is
deceived, and that his visions are no godly revelations but very
devilish illusion. And those reasons must you gather of the man,
of the matter, and of the law of God, or of some one of these.

Of the man may you gather them, if you can peradventure show him
that in such-and-such a point he is waxed worse since such
revelations have haunted him than he was before--as, in those who
are deluded, whosoever be well acquainted with them shall well
mark and perceive. For they wax more proud, more wayward, more
envious, suspicious, misjudging and depraving other men, with the
delight of their own praise, and such other spiritual vices of the
soul.

Of the matter may you gather, if it has happened that his
revelations before have proved false, or if they be strange things
rather than profitable ones. For that is a good mark between God's
miracles and the devil's wonders. For Christ and his saints have
their miracles always tending to fruit and profit. The devil and
his witches and necromancers, all their wonderful works tend to no
fruitful end, but to a fruitless ostentation and show, as it were
a juggler who would for a show before the people play feats of
skill at a feast.

Of the law of God you must draw your reasons in showing by the
scripture that the thing which he thinketh God biddeth by his
angel, God hath by his own mouth forbidden. And that is, you know
well, in the case that we speak of, so easy to find that I need
not to rehearse it to you. For among the Ten Commandments there is
plainly forbidden the unlawful killing of any man, and therefore
of himself, as (St. Austine saith) all the church teacheth, unless
he himself be no man.

VINCENT: This is very true, good uncle, nor will I dispute upon
any glossing of that prohibition. But since we find not the
contrary but that God may dispense with that commandment himself,
and both license and command also, if he himself wish, any man to
go kill either another man or himself, this man who is now by such
a marvellous vision induced to believe that God so biddeth him,
and therefore thinketh himself in that case discharged of that
prohibition and charged with the contrary commandment--with what
reason can we make him perceive that his vision is but an illusion
and not a true revelation?

ANTHONY: Nay, Cousin Vincent, you shall in this case not need to
ask those reasons of me. But taking the scripture of God for a
ground for this matter, you know very well yourself that you shall
go somewhat a shorter way to work if you ask this question of him:
Since God hath forbidden once the thing himself, though he may
dispense with it if he will, yet since the devil may feign himself
God and with a marvellous vision delude one, and make as though
God did it; and since the devil is also more likely to speak
against God's commandment than God against his own; you shall have
good cause, I say, to demand of the man himself whereby he knoweth
that his vision is God's true revelation and not the devil's false
delusion.

VINCENT: Indeed, uncle, I think that would be a hard question to
him. Can a man, uncle, have in such a thing even a very sure
knowledge of his own mind?

ANTHONY: Yea, cousin, God may cast into the mind of a man, I
suppose, such an inward light of understanding that he cannot fail
but be sure thereof. And yet he who is deluded by the devil may
think himself as sure and yet be deceived indeed. And such a
difference is there in a manner between them, as between the sight
of a thing while we are awake and look thereon, and the sight with
which we see a thing in our sleep while we dream thereof.

VINCENT: This is a pretty similitude, uncle, in this thing! And
then is it easy for the monk that we speak of to declare that he
knoweth his vision for a true revelation and not a false delusion,
if there be so great a difference between them.

ANTHONY: Not so easy yet, cousin, as you think it would be. For
how can you prove to me that you are awake?

VINCENT: Marry, lo, do I not now wag my hand, shake my head, and
stamp with my foot here on the floor?

ANTHONY: Have you never dreamed ere this that you have done the
same?

VINCENT: Yes, that have I, and more too than that. For I have ere
this in my sleep dreamed that I doubted whether I were asleep or
awake, and have in good faith thought that I did thereupon even
the same things that I do now indeed, and thereby determined that
I was not asleep. And yet have I dreamed in good faith further,
that I have been afterward at dinner and there, making merry with
good company, have told the same dream at the table and laughed
well at it, to think that while I was asleep I had by such means
of moving the parts of my body and considering thereof, so verily
thought myself awake!

ANTHONY: And will you not now soon, think you, when you wake and
rise, laugh as well at yourself when you see that you lie now in
your warm bed asleep again, and dream all this time, while you
believe so verily that you are awake and talking of these matters
with me?

VINCENT: God's Lord, uncle, you go now merrily to work with me
indeed, when you look and speak so seriously and would make me
think I were asleep!

ANTHONY: It may be that you are, for anything that you can say or
do whereby you can, with any reason that you make, drive me to
confess that you yourself be sure of the contrary. For you cannot
do or say anything now whereby you are sure to be awake but what
you have ere this, or hereafter may, think yourself as surely to
do the selfsame thing indeed while you be all the while asleep and
do nothing but lie dreaming.

VINCENT: Well, well, uncle, though I have ere this thought myself
awake while I was indeed asleep, yet for all this I know well
enough that I am awake now. And so do you too, though I cannot
find the words by which I may with reason force you to confess it,
without your always driving me off by the example of my dream.

ANTHONY: Meseemeth, cousin, this is very true. And likewise
meseemeth the manner and difference between some kind of true
revelations and some kind of false illusions is like that which
standeth between the things that are done awake and the things
that in our dreams seem to be done when we are sleeping. That is,
he who hath that kind of revelation from God is as sure of the
truth as we are of our own deeds while we are awake. And he who is
deluded by the devil is in such wise deceived as they are by their
dream, and worse, too. And yet he reckoneth himself for the time
as sure as the other, saving that one believeth falsely, the other
truly knoweth. But I say not, cousin, that this kind of sure
knowledge cometh in every kind of revelation. For there are many
kinds, of which it would be too long to talk now. But I say that
God doth certainly send some such to a man in some thing, or may.

VINCENT: Yet then this religious man of whom we speak, when I show
him the scripture against his revelation and therefore call it an
illusion, may bid me with reason go mind my own affairs. For he
knoweth well and surely himself that his revelation is very good
and true and not any false illusion, since for all the general
commandment of God in the scripture, God may dispense where he will
and when he will, and may command him to do the contrary. For he
commanded Abraham to kill his own son, and Sampson had, by
inspiration of God, commandment to kill himself by pulling down the
house upon his own head at the feast of the Philistines.

Now, if I would then do as you bade me right now, tell him that
such apparitions may be illusions, and since God's word is in the
scripture against him plain for the prohibition, he must perceive
the truth of his revelation whereby I may know it is not a false
illusion; then shall he in turn bid me tell him whereby I can
prove myself to be awake and talk with him and not be asleep and
dream so, since in my dream I may as surely think so as I know
that I do so. And thus shall he drive me to the same bay to which
I would bring him.

ANTHONY: This is well said, cousin, but yet could he not escape
you so. For the dispensation of God's common precept, which
dispensation he must say that he hath by his private revelation,
is a thing of such sort as showeth itself naught and false. For it
never hath any example like, since the world began until now, that
ever man hath read or heard of, among faithful people commended.

First, as for Abraham, concerning the death of his son: God
intended it not, but only tempted the towardness of the father's
obedience. As for Sampson, all men make not the matter very sure
whether he be saved or not, but yet therein some matter and cause
appeareth. For the Philistines being enemies of God and using
Sampson for their mocking-stock in scorn of God, it is well likely
that God gave him the mind to bestow his own life upon the
revenging of the displeasure that those blasphemous Philistines
did unto God. And that appeareth clear enough by this: that though
his strength failed him when he lacked his hair, yet had he not,
it seemeth, that strength evermore at hand while he had his hair,
but only at such times as it pleased God to give it to him. This
thing appeareth by these words, that the scripture in some place
of that matter saith, "The power or might of God rushed into
Sampson." And so therefore, since this thing that he did in the
pulling down of the house was done by the special gift of strength
then at that point given him by God, it well declareth that the
strength of God, and with it the spirit of God, entered into him
for it.

St. Austine also rehearseth that certain holy virtuous virgins, in
time of persecution, being pursued by God's enemies the infidels
to be deflowered by force, ran into a water and drowned themselves
rather than be bereaved of their virginity. And, albeit that he
thinketh it is not lawful for any other maid to follow their
example, but that she should suffer another to do her any manner
of violence by force and commit sin of his own upon her against
her will, rather than willingly and thereby sinfully herself to
become a homicide of herself; yet he thinketh that in them it
happened by the special instinct of the spirit of God, who, for
causes seen to himself, would rather that they should avoid it
with their own temporal death than abide the defiling and
violation of their chastity.

But now this good man neither hath any of God's enemies to be
revenged on by his own death, nor any woman who violently pursues
him to bereave him by force of his virginity! And we never find
that God proved any man's obedient mind by the commandment of his
own slaughter of himself. Therefore is both his case plainly
against God's open precept, and the dispensation strange and
without example, no cause appearing nor well imaginable. Unless he
would think that God could neither any longer live without him,
nor could take him to him in such wise as he doth other men, but
must command him to come by a forbidden way, by which, without
other cause, we never heard that ever he bade any man else before.

Now, you think that, if you should after this bid him tell you by
what way he knoweth that his intent riseth upon a true revelation
and not upon a false illusion, he in turn would bid you tell him
by what means you know that you are talking with him well awake
and not dreaming it asleep. You may answer him that for men thus
to talk together as you do and to prove and perceive that they do
so, by the moving of themselves, with putting the question unto
themselves for their pleasure, and marking and considering it, is
in waking a daily common thing that every man doth or can do when
he will, and when they do it, they do it but for pleasure. But in
sleep it happeneth very seldom that men dream that they do so, and
in the dream they never put the question except for doubt. And you
may tell him that, since this revelation is such also as happeneth
so seldom and oftener happeneth that men dream of such than have
such indeed, therefore it is more reasonable that he show you how
he knoweth, in such a rare thing and a thing more like a dream,
that he himself is not asleep, than that you, in such a common
thing among folk that are awake and so seldom happening in a
dream, should need to show him whereby you know that you be not
asleep.

Besides this, he to whom you should show it seeth himself and
perceiveth the thing that he would bid you prove. But the thing
that he would make you believe--the truth of his revelation which
you bid him prove--you see not that he knoweth it well himself.
And therefore, ere you believe it against the scripture, it would
be well consonant unto reason that he should show you how he
knoweth it for a true waking revelation and not a false dreaming
delusion.

VINCENT: Then shall he peradventure answer me that whether I
believe him or not maketh to him no matter; the thing toucheth
himself and not me, and he himself is in himself as sure that it
is a true revelation as that he can tell that he dreameth not but
talketh with me awake.

ANTHONY: Without doubt, cousin, if he abide at that point and can
by no reason be brought to do so much as doubt, nor can by no
means be shogged out of his dead sleep, but will needs take his
dream for a very truth, and--as some men rise by night and walk
about their chamber in their sleep--will so rise and hang himself;
I can then see no other way but either bind him fast in his bed,
or else essay whether that might hap to help him with which, the
common tale goeth, a carver's wife helped her husband in such a
frantic fancy. When, upon a Good Friday, he would needs have
killed himself for Christ as Christ did for him, she said to him
that it would then be fitting for him to die even after the same
fashion. And that might not be by his own hands, but by the hand
of another; for Christ, perdy, killed not himself. And because her
husband would take no counsel (for that would he not, in no wise),
she offered him that for God's sake she would secretly crucify him
herself upon a great cross that he had made to nail a new-carved
crucifix upon. And he was very glad thereof. Yet then she
bethought her that Christ was bound to a pillar and beaten first,
and afterward crowned with thorns. Thereupon, when she had by his
own assent bound him fast to a post, she left not off beating,
with holy exhortation to suffer, so much and so long that ere ever
she left work and unbound him (praying nevertheless, that she
might put on his head, and drive well down, a crown of thorns that
she had wrought for him and brought him), he said he thought this
was enough for that year. He would pray God to forbear him of the
rest till Good Friday came again! But when it came again the next
years, then was his desire past; he longed to follow Christ no
further.

VINCENT: Indeed, uncle, if this help him not, then will nothing
help him, I suppose.

ANTHONY: And yet, cousin, the devil may peradventure make him,
toward such a purpose, first gladly suffer other pain; yea, and
diminish his feeling in it, too, that he may thereby the less fear
his death. And yet are peradventure sometimes such things and many
more to be essayed. For as the devil may hap to make him suffer,
so may he hap to miss, namely if his friends fall to prayer for
him against his temptation. For that can he himself never do, while
he taketh it for none.

But, for conclusion: If the man be surely proved so inflexibly set
upon the purpose to destroy himself, as being commanded by God to
do so, that no good counsel that men can give him nor any other
thing that men may do to him can refrain him, but that he would
surely shortly kill himself; then except only good prayer made by
his friends for him, I can find no further shift but either to
have him ever in sight or to bind him fast in his bed.

And so must he needs of reason be content to be ordered. For
though he himself may take his fancy for a true revelation, yet
since he cannot make us perceive it for such, likewise as he
thinketh himself by his secret commandment bound to follow it, so
must he needs agree that, since it is against the plain open
prohibition of God, we are bound by the plain open precept to keep
him from it.

VINCENT: In this point, uncle, I can go no further. But now, if
he were, on the other hand, perceived to intend his destruction
and go about it with heaviness of heart and thought and
dullness--what way would there be to be used to him then?

ANTHONY: Then would his temptation, as I told you before, be
properly pertaining to our matter, for then would he be in a sore
tribulation and a very perilous. For then would it be a token that
the devil had either, by bringing him into some great sin, brought
him into despair, or peradventure, by his revelations being found
false and reproved or by some secret sin of his being deprehended
and divulged, had cast him both into despair of heaven through
fear and into a weariness of this life for shame. For then he
seeth his estimation lost among other folk of whose praise he was
wont to be proud.

And therefore, cousin, in such a case as this, the man is to be
fairly handled and sweetly, and with tender loving words to be put
in good courage, and comforted in all that men goodly can. Here
must they put him in mind that, if he despair not, but pull up his
courage and trust in God's great mercy, he shall have in
conclusion great cause to be glad of this fall. For before he
stood in greater peril than he was aware of, while he took himself
for better than he was. And God, for favour that he beareth him,
hath suffered him to fall deep into the devil's danger, to make
him thereby know what he was while he took himself for so sure.
And therefore, as he suffered him then to fall for a remedy
against over-bold pride, so will God now--if the man meek himself,
not with fruitless despair but with fruitful penance--so set him up
again upon his feet and so strengthen him with his grace, that for
this one fall that the devil hath given him he shall give the
devil a hundred.

And here must he be put in remembrance of Mary Magdalene, of the
prophet David, and especially of St. Peter, whose high bold
courage took a foul fall. And yet because he despaired not of
God's mercy, but wept and called upon it, how highly God took him
into his favour again is well testified in his holy scripture and
well known through Christendom.

And now shall it be charitably done if some good virtuous folk,
such as he himself somewhat esteemeth and hath afore longed to
stand in estimation with, do resort sometimes to him, not only to
give him counsel but also to ask advice and counsel of him in some
cases of their own conscience. For so may they let him perceive
that they esteem him now no less, but rather more than they did
before, since they think him now by this fall better expert of the
devil's craft and so not only better instructed himself but also
better able to give good advice and counsel to others. This thing
will, to my mind, well amend and lift up his courage from the
peril of that desperate shame.

VINCENT: Methinketh, uncle, that this would be a perilous thing.
For it may peradventure make him set the less by his fall, and
thereby it may cast him into his first pride or into his other sin
again, the falling in to which drove him into this despair.

ANTHONY: I do not mean, cousin, that every fool should at
adventure fall in hand with him, for so might it happen to do harm
indeed.

But, cousin, if a learned physician have a man in hand, he can
well discern when and how long some certain medicine is necessary
which, if administered at another time or at that time over-long
continued, might put the patient in peril. If he have his patient
in an ague, for the cure of which he needeth his medicines in
their working cold, yet he may hap, ere that fever be full cured,
to fall into some other disease such that, unless it were helped
with hot medicine, would be likely to kill the body before the
fever could be cured. The physician then would for the while have
his most care to the cure of that thing in which would be the most
present peril. And when that were once out of jeopardy, he would
do then the more exact diligence afterward about the further cure
of the fever.

And likewise, if a ship be in peril to fall into Scilla, the fear
of falling into Charibdis on the other side shall never hinder any
wise master thereof from drawing himself from Scilla toward
Charibdis first, in all that ever he can. But when he hath himself
once so far away from Scilla that he seeth himself safe out of
that danger, then will he begin to take good heed to keep himself
well from the other.

And likewise, while this man is falling down to despair and to the
final destruction of himself, a good wise spiritual leech will
first look unto that, and by good comfort lift up his courage. And
when he seeth that peril well past, he will care for the cure of
his other faults afterward. Howbeit, even in the giving of his
comfort, he may find ways enough in such wise to temper his words
that the men may take occasion of good courage and yet far from
occasion of new relapse into his former sin. For the great part of
his counsel shall be to encourage him to amendment, and that is,
perdy, far from falling into sin again.

VINCENT: I think, uncle, that folk fall into this ungracious
mind, through the devil's temptation, by many more means than one.

ANTHONY: That is, cousin, very true. For the devil taketh his
occasions as he seeth them fall convenient for him. Some he
stirreth to it for weariness of themselves after some great loss,
some for fear of horrible bodily harm, and some (as I said) for
fear of worldly shame.

One I knew myself who had been long reputed for a right honest
man, who was fallen into such a fancy that he was well near worn
away with it. But what he was tempted to do, that would he tell no
man. But he told me that he was sore cumbered and that it always
ran in his mind that folk's fancies were fallen from him, and that
they esteemed not his wit as they were wont to do, but ever his
mind gave him that the people began to take him for a fool. And
folk of truth did not so at all, but reputed him both for wise and
honest.

Two others I knew who were marvellous afraid that they would kill
themselves, and could tell me no cause wherefore they so feared it
except that their own mind so gave them. Neither had they any loss
nor no such thing toward them, nor none occasion of any worldly
shame (the one was in body very well liking and lusty), but
wondrous weary were they both twain of that mind. And always they
thought that they would not do it for anything, and nevertheless
they feared they would. And wherefore they so feared neither of
them both could tell. And the one, lest he should do it, desired
his friends to bind him.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22