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

by Saint Thomas More

And therefore if we found any such religious person as was that father whom Cassian writeth of, who were of such austerity and apparent ghostly living as he was, and reputed by those who well knew him for a man of singular virtue; and if it were perceived that he had many strange visions appearing unto him; and if after that it should now be perceived that the man went about secretly to destroy himself—whosoever should hap to come to the knowledge of it and intended to do his best to hinder it, he must first find the means to search and find out the manner and countenance of the man. He must see whether he be lightsome, glad, and joyful or dumpish, heavy, and sad, and whether he go about it as one that were full of the glad hope of heaven, or as one who had his breast stuffed full of tediousness and weariness of the world. If he were found to be of the first fashion, it would be a token that the devil had, by his fantastical apparitions, puffed him up in such a childish pride that he hath finally persuaded him, by some illusion showed him for the proof, that God's pleasure is that he shall for his sake with his own hands kill himself.

VINCENT: Now, if a man so found it, uncle, what counsel should he give him then?

ANTHONY: That would be somewhat out of our purpose, cousin, since (as I told you before) the man would not be in sorrow and tribulation, of which our matter speaketh, but in a perilous merry mortal temptation. So that if we should, beside our matter that we have in hand, enter into that too, we might make a longer work between both than we could well finish this day. Howbeit, to be short, it is soon seen that in such a case the sum and effect of the counsel must (in a manner) rest in giving him warning of the devil's sleights. And that must be done under such a sweet pleasant manner that the man should not abhor to hear it. For while it could not lightly be otherwise that the man were rocked and sung asleep by the devil's craft, and his mind occupied as it were in a delectable dream, he should never have good audience of him who would rudely and boisterously shog him and wake him, and so shake him out of it. Therefore must you fair and easily touch him, and with some pleasant speech awake him, so that he wax not wayward, as children do who are waked ere they wish to rise.

But when a man hath first begun with his praise (for if he be proud you shall much better please him with a commendation than with a dirge) then, after favour won therewith, a man may little by little insinuate the doubt of such revelations—not at first as though it were for any doubt of his, but of some other man's, that men in some other places talk of. And peradventure it shall not miscontent him to say that great perils may fall therein, in another man's case than his own, and he shall begin to preach upon it. Or, if you were a man that had not so very great scrupulous conscience of a harmless lie devised to do good with (the kind which St. Austine, though he take it always for sin, yet he taketh but for venial; and St. Jerome, as by divers places in his books appeareth, taketh not fully for that much), then may you feign some secret friend of yours to be in such a state. And you may say that you yourself somewhat fear his peril, and have made of charity this voyage for his sake, to ask this good father's counsel.

And in the communication, upon these words of St. John, "Give not credence to every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they be of God," and these words of St. Paul, "The angel of Satan transfigureth himself into the angel of light," you shall take occasion (the better if they hap to come in on his side), but yet not lack occasion neither if those texts, for lack of his offer, come in upon your own—occasion, I say, you shall not lack to enquire by what sure and undeceivable tokens a man may discern the true revelations from the false illusions. A man shall find many such tokens both here and there in divers other authors and all together in divers goodly treatises of that good godly doctor, Master John Gerson, entitled De probatione spirituum. As, whether the party be natural in manner or seem anything fantastical. Or, whether the party be poor-spirited or proud. The pride will somewhat appear by his delight in his own praise; or if, of wiliness, or of another pride for to be praised of humility, he refused to hear of that, yet any little fault found in himself, or diffidence declared and mistrust of his own revelations and doubtful tokens told, wherefore he himself should fear lest they be the devil's illusion—such things, as Master Gerson saith, will make him spit out somewhat of his spirit, if the devil lie in his breast. Or if the devil be yet so subtle that he keep himself close in his warm den and blow out never a hot word, yet it is to be considered what end his revelations tend to—whether to any spiritual profit to himself or other folk, or only to vain marvels and wonders. Also, whether they withdraw him from such other good virtuous business as, by the common rule of Christendom or any of the rules of his profession, he was wont to use or bound to be occupied in. Or whether he fall into any singularity of opinions against the scripture of God, or against the common faith of Christ's Catholic Church. Many other tokens are spoken of in the work of Master Gerson, by which to consider whether the person, neither having revelations of God nor illusions from the devil, do feign his revelations himself, either for winning of money or worldly favour, and delude the people withal.

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.