Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation: With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica StevensMore, Thomas, Saint
Religion
Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation: With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens
More, Thomas, Saint
Consolation
ANTHONY: Nay, nay, my lord--Christ hath not so great need of your
Lordship as, rather than to lose your service, he would fall at
such covenants with you as to take your service at halves, to serve
him and his enemy both! He hath given you plain warning already by
St. Paul that he will have in your service no parting-fellow: "What
fellowship is there between light and darkness? Between Christ and
Belial?" And he hath also plainly told you himself by his own
mouth, "No man can serve two lords at once." He will have you
believe all that he telleth you, and do all that he biddeth you,
and forbear all that he forbiddeth you, without any manner of
exception. Break one of his commandments, and you break all.
Forsake one point of his faith, and you forsake all, as for any
thanks that you get of him for the rest. And therefore, if you
devise, as it were, indentures between God and you--what you will
do for him and what you will not do, as though he should hold
himself content with such service of yours as you yourself care to
appoint him--if you make, I say, such indentures, you shall seal
both the parts yourself, and you get no agreement thereto from him.
And this I say: Though the Turk would make such an appointment with
you as you speak of, and would, when he had made it, keep
it--whereas he would not, I warrant you, leave you so when he had
once brought you so far forth. But he would, little by little, ere
he left you, make you deny Christ altogether and take Mahomet in
his stead. And so doth he in the beginning, when he will not have
you believe him to be God. For surely, if he were not God, he would
be no good man either, since he plainly said he was God. But
through he would go never so far forth with you, yet Christ will,
as I said, not take your service by halves, but will that you shall
love him with all your whole heart. And because, while he was
living here fifteen hundred years ago, he foresaw this mind of
yours that you have now, with which you would fain serve him in
some such fashion that you might keep your worldly substance still,
but rather forsake his service than put all your substance from
you, he telleth you plainly fifteen hundred years ago with his own
mouth that he will have no such service of you, saying, "You cannot
serve both God and your riches together."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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