Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation / With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens

by Saint Thomas More

For in prosperity a man is well at ease, and may also, by giving thanks to God, get good unto his soul; whereas in tribulation, though he may merit by patience (as the other, in abundance of worldly wealth, may merit by thanks), yet lacketh he much comfort that the wealthy man hath, in that he is sore grieved with heaviness and pain. Besides, a wealthy man, well at ease, may pray to God quietly and merrily with alacrity and great quietness of mind, whereas he who lieth groaning in his grief cannot endure to pray nor can he hardly think upon anything but his pain.

ANTHONY: To begin, cousin, where you leave off: The prayers of him that is in wealth and him that is in woe, if the men be both wicked, are both alike. For neither hath the one desire to pray, nor the other either. And as one is hindered with his pain, so is the other with his pleasure—saving that pain stirreth a man sometimes to call upon God in his grief, though he be right bad, whereas pleasure pulleth his mind another way, though he be good enough.

And this point I think there are few that can, if they say true, say that they find it otherwise. For in tribulation (which cometh, you know, in sundry kinds) any man that is not a dull beast or a desperate wretch calleth upon God, not hoverly but right heartily, and setteth his heart full whole upon his request, so sore he longeth for ease and help of his heaviness. But when we are wealthy and well at our ease, while our tongue pattereth upon our prayers apace—good God, how many mad ways our mind wandereth the while!

Yet I know well that in some tribulation there is such sore sickness or other grievous bodily pain that it would be hard for a man to say a longer prayer of matins. And yet some who lie dying say full devoutly the seven psalms and other prayers with the priest at their anointing. But those who for the grief of their pain cannot endure to do it, or who are more tender and lack that strong heart and stomach that some others have, God requireth no such long prayers of them. But the lifting up of their heart alone, without any words at all, is more acceptable to him from one in such a state, than long service so said as folk usually say it in health. The martyrs in their agony made no long prayers aloud, but one inch of such a prayer, so prayed in that pain, was worth a whole ell or more, even of their own prayers, prayed at some other time.

Great learned men say that Christ, albeit that he was true God, and as God was in eternal equal bliss with his Father, yet as man merited not only for us but for himself too. For proof of this they lay in these words the authority of St. Paul: "Christ hath humbled himself, and became obedient unto the death, and that unto the death of the cross; for which thing God hath also exalted him and given him a name which is above all names, that in the name of Jesus every knee be bowed, both of the celestial creatures and of the terrestrial and of the infernal too, and that every tongue shall confess that our lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God his Father." Now if it be so as these great learned men say, upon such authorities of holy scripture, that our Saviour merited as man, and as man deserved reward not for us only but for himself also; then were there in his deeds, it seemeth, sundry degrees and differences of deserving. His washing of the disciples' feet was not, then, of like merit as his passion, nor his sleep of like merit as his vigil and his prayer—no, nor his prayers peradventure all of like merit, either. But though there was not, nor could be, in his most blessed person any prayer but was excellent and incomparably surpassing the prayer of any mere creature, yet his own were not all alike, but one far above another. And then if it thus be, of all his holy prayers, the chief seemeth me those that he made in his great agony and pain of his bitter passion. The first was when he thrice fell prostrate in his agony, when the heaviness of his heart with fear of death at hand, so painful and so cruel as he well beheld it, made such a fervent commotion in his blessed body that the bloody sweat of his holy flesh dropped down on the ground. The others were the painful prayers that he made upon the cross, where, for all the torment that he hanged in—of beating, nailing, and stretching out all his limbs, with the wresting of his sinews and breaking of his tender veins, and the sharp crown of thorns so pricking him into the head that his blessed blood streamed down all his face—in all these hideous pains, in all their cruel despites, yet two very devout and fervent prayers he made. One was for the pardon of those who so dispiteously put him to his pain, and the other about his own deliverance, commending his own soul to his holy Father in heaven. These prayers of his, made in his most pain, among all that ever he made, reckon I for the chief. And these prayers of our Saviour at his bitter passion, and of his holy martyrs in the fervour of their torment, shall serve us to see that there is no prayer made at pleasure so strong and effectual as that made in tribulation.

Now come I to the reasoning you make, when you tell me that I grant you that both in wealth and in woe a man may be wicked and offend God, in the one by impatience and in the other by fleshly lust. And on the other hand, both in tribulation and prosperity too, a man may also do very well and deserve thanks of God by thanksgiving to God for his gift of riches, worship, and wealth, as well as for his gift of need and penury, imprisonment, sickness, and pain. And therefore you cannot see why I should give any pre-eminence in comfort unto tribulation, but you would rather allow prosperity for the thing more comforting. And that not a little, but in manner by double, since therein hath the soul comfort and the body too—the soul by thanksgiving unto God for his gifts, and the body by being well at ease—whereas the person pained in tribulation taketh no comfort but in his soul alone.

First, as for your double comfort, cousin, you may cut off the one! For a man in prosperity, though he be bound to thank God for his gifts, wherein he feeleth ease, and may be glad also that he giveth thanks to God; yet hath he little cause of comfort in that he taketh his ease here, unless you wish to call by the name of comfort the sensual feeling of bodily pleasure. I deny not that sometimes men so take it, when they say, "This good drink comforteth well mine heart." But comfort, cousin, is properly taken, by them that take it right, rather for the consolation of good hope that men take in their heart, of some good growing toward them, than for a present pleasure with which the body is delighted and tickled for a while.

Now, though a man without patience can have no reward for his pain, yet when his pain is patiently taken for God's sake and his will conformed to God's pleasure therein, God rewardeth the sufferer in proportion to his pain. And this thing appeareth by many a place in scripture, some of which I have showed you and yet shall I show you more. But never found I any place in scripture that I remember in which, though a rich man thanked God for his gifts, our Lord promised him any reward in heaven for the very reason that he took his ease and his pleasures here. And therefore, since I speak only of such comfort as is true comfort indeed, by which a man hath hope of God's favour and remission of his sins, with diminishing of his pain in purgatory or else reward in heaven; and since such comfort cometh of tribulation well taken, but not of pleasure even though it be well taken; therefore of your comfort that you double by prosperity, you may, as I told you, very well cut away the half.

Now, why I give prerogative in comfort unto tribulation far above prosperity, though a man may do well in both, of this will I show you causes two or three. First, as I before have at length showed you out of all question, continual wealth interrupted with no tribulation is a very discomfortable token of everlasting damnation. Thereupon it followeth that tribulation is one cause of comfort unto a man's heart, in that it dischargeth him of the discomfort that he might of reason take of overlong-lasting wealth. Another is, that the scripture much commendeth tribulation as occasion of more profit than wealth and prosperity, not only to those who are therein but to those who resort unto them too. And therefore saith Ecclesiastes, "Better is it to go to the house of weeping and wailing for some man's death, than to the house of a feast; for in that house of heaviness is a man put in remembrance of the end of every man, and while he liveth he thinketh what shall come after." And after yet he further saith, "The heart of wise men is where heaviness is, and the heart of fools is where there is mirth and gladness." And verily, where you shall hear worldly mirth seem to be commended in scripture, it is either commonly spoken, as in the person of some worldly-disposed people, or else understood of spiritual rejoicing, or else meant of some small moderate refreshing of the mind against a heavy and discomfortable dullness.

Now, prosperity was promised to the children of Israel in the old law as a special gift of God, because of their imperfection at that time, to draw them to God with gay things and pleasant, as men, to make children learn, give them cake-bread and butter. For, as the scripture maketh mention, that people were much after the manner of children in lack of wit and in waywardness. And therefore was their master Moses called Pedagogus, that is, a teacher of children or (as they call such a one in the grammar schools) an "usher" or "master of the petits." For, as St. Paul saith, "the old law brought nothing unto perfection." And God also threateneth folk with tribulation in this world for sin, not because worldly tribulation is evil, but that we should well beware of the sickness of sin for fear of the thing to follow. For that thing, though it be indeed a very good wholesome thing if we take it well, is yet, because it is painful, the thing that we are loth to have. But this I say yet again and again, that the scripture undoubtedly so commandeth tribulation as far the better thing in this world toward the getting of the true good that God giveth in the world to come, that in comparison it utterly discommendeth this worldly wretched wealth and discomfortable comfort. For to what other thing tend the words of Ecclesiastes that I rehearsed to you now, that it is better to be in the house of heaviness than to be at a feast? Whereto tendeth this comparison of his, that the wise man's heart draweth thither where folk are in sadness, and the heart of a fool is where he may find mirth? Whereto tendeth this threat of the wise man, that he who delighteth in wealth shall fall into woe? "Laughter," saith he, "shall be mingled with sorrow, and the end of mirth is taken up with heaviness." And our Saviour saith himself, "Woe be to you that laugh, for you shall weep and wail." But he saith, on the other hand, "Blessed are they that weep and wail, for they shall be comforted." And he saith to his disciples, "The world shall rejoice and you shall be sorry, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." And so it is now, as you well know, and the mirth of many who then were in joy is now turned all to sorrow. And thus you see plainly by scripture that, in matter of true comfort, tribulation is as far above prosperity as the day is about the night.