Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation: With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens — John Shaqi
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
VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this is truly driven and tried unto
the uttermost, it seemeth to me. And therefore I pray you proceed
at your leisure.
XIII
ANTHONY: Cousin, it would be a long work to peruse every comfort
that a man may well take in tribulation. For as many comforts, you
know, may a man take thereof, as there be good commodities therein.
And of those there are surely so many that it would be very long to
rehearse and treat of them. But meseemeth we cannot lightly better
perceive what profit and commodity, and thereby what comfort, they
may take of it who have it, than if we well consider what harm the
lack of it is, and thereby what discomfort the lack should be to
them that never have it.
So is it now that all holy men agree, and all the scripture is
full, and our own experience proveth before our eyes, that we are
not come into this wretched world to dwell here. We have not, as
St. Paul saith, our dwelling-city here, but we are seeking for the
city that is to come. And St. Paul telleth us that we do seek for
it, because he would put us in mind that we should seek for it, as
good folk who fain would come thither. For surely whosoever setteth
so little by it that he careth not to seek for it, it will I fear
be long ere he come to it, and marvellous great grace if ever he
come thither. "Run," saith St. Paul, "so that you may get it." If
it must then be gotten with running, when shall he come at it who
lifteth not one step toward it?
Now, because this world is, as I tell you, not our eternal
dwelling, but our little-while wandering, God would that we should
use it as folk who were weary of it. And he would that we should in
this vale of labour, toil, tears, and misery not look for rest and
ease, game, pleasure, wealth, and felicity. For those who do so
fare like a foolish fellow who, going towards his own house where
he should be wealthy, would for a tapster's pleasure become a
hostler by the way, and die in a stable, and never come home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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