MATHETES.
I have just cause, as hath each Christian heart,
To wail and weep, to shed out tears of blood,
When as I call to mind the torments and the smart,
Which those have borne, who honest be and good,
For nought else, but because their errors they withstood:
Yet joyed I much to see how patiently
They bore the cross of Christ with constancy.
PHILOLOGUS.
So many of us as into one body be
Incorporate, whereof Christ is the lively head,
As members of our bodies which we see
With joints of love together be conjoined,
And must needs suffer, unless that they be dead,
Some part of grief in mind, which other feel
In body, though not so much by a great deal.
Wherefore by this it is most apparent,
That those two into one body are not united,
Of the which the one doth suffer, the other doth torment,
And in the wounds of his brother is delighted:
Now which is Christ's body may easily be decided;
For the lamb is devoured of the wolf alway,
Not the wolf of the lamb, as Chrysostom doth say.
Again, of unrighteous Cain murthered was Abel,
By whom the Church of God was figured:
Isaac likewise was persecuted of Ishmael,
As in the Book of Genesis is mentioned:
Israel of Pharaoh was also terrified:
David the saint was afflicted by his son,
And put from his kingdom—I mean by Absalom.
Elias the Thisbite, for fear of Jezebel
Did fly to Horeb, and hid him in a cave:
Michas the prophet, as the story doth tell,
Did hardly his life from Baal's priests save:
Jeremy of that sauce tasted have:
So did Esay, Daniel, and the children three,
And thousands more, which in stories we may see.
MATHETES.
In the New Testament we may also read,
That our Saviour Christ, even in his infancy,
Of Herod the king might stand in great dread,
Who sought to destroy him, such was his insolency:
Afterward of the Pharisees he did with constancy
Suffer shameful death: his apostles also
For testimony of the truth did their crosses undergo.
PHILOLOGUS.
James, under Herod, was headed with the sword:
The rest of the apostles did suffer much turmoil.
Good Paul was murthered by Nero his word:
Domitian devised a barrel full of oil,
The body of John the Evangelist to boil,
The Pope at this instant sundry torments procure,
For such as by God's holy word will endure.
By these former stories two things we may learn
And profitably record in our remembrance:
The first is God's Church from the devil's to discern:
The second to mark what manifest resistance
The truth of God hath, and what encumbrance
It bringeth upon them that will it profess;
Wherefore they must arm themselves to suffer distress.
MATHETES.
It is no new thing, I do now perceive,
That Christ's Church do suffer tribulation;
But that the same cross I might better receive,
I request you to show me for my consolation,
What is the cause, by your estimation,
That God doth suffer his people to be in thrall,
Yet help them, so soon as they to him call?
PHILOLOGUS.
The chiefest thing which might us cause or move,
With constant minds Christ's cross for to sustain,
Is to conceive of heaven a faithful love;
Whereto we may not come, as Paul doth prove it plain,
Unless with Christ we suffer, that with him we may reign:
Again, sith that it is our heavenly Father's will
By worldly woes our carnal lusts to kill.
Moreover, we do use to loathe that thing we alway have,
And do delight the more in that which mostly we do want:
Affliction urgeth us also more earnestly to crave,
And when we once relieved be, true faith in us it plant,
So that to call in each distress on God we will not faint:
For trouble brings forth patience, from patience doth ensue
Experience, from experience hope, of health the anchor true.
Again, ofttimes God doth provide affliction for our gain,
As Job, who after loss of goods had twice so much therefor.
Sometime affliction is a means to honour to attain,
As you may see, if Joseph's life you set your eyes before:
Continually it doth us warn from sinning any more,
When as we see the judgments just which God, our heavenly King,
Upon offenders here in earth for their offences bring.
Sometime God doth it us to prove, if constant we will be;
As he did unto Abraham: sometime his whole intent
Is to declare His heavenly might; as in John we may see,
When the disciples did ask Christ why God the blindness sent
Unto that man that was born blind? to whom incontinent
Christ said: Neither for parents' sins, nor for his own offence,
Was he born blind, but that God might show his magnificence.
MATHETES.
This is the sum of all your talk, if that I guess aright,
That God doth punish his elect to keep their faith in ure,
Or lest that, if continual ease and rest enjoy they might,
God to forget through haughtiness frail nature should procure;
Or else by feeling punishment our sins for to abjure;
Or else to prove our constancy; or lastly, that we may
Be instruments, in whom his might God may abroad display.
Now must I needs confess to you my former ignorance,
Which knew no cause at all, why God should trouble his elect,
But thought afflictions all to be rewards for our offence,
And to proceed from wrathful judge did alway it suspect;
As do the common sort of men, who will straightway direct,
And point their fingers at such men as God doth chastise here,
Esteeming them by just desert their punishment to bear.
PHILOLOGUS.
Such is the nature of mankind, himself to justify,
And to condemn all other men, whereas we ought of right
Accuse ourselves especial, and God to magnify,
Who in his mercy doth us spare, whereas he also might,
Sith that we do the selfsame things, with like plagues us requite:
Which thing our Saviour Christ doth teach, as testifieth Luke,
The thirteenth chapter, where he doth vainglorious men rebuke.
But for this time let this suffice: now let us homeward go,
And further talk in private place, if need be, we will have.
MATHETES.
With right good-will I will attend on you your house unto,
Or else go you with me to mine, the longer journey save;
For it is now high dinner-time: my stomach meat doth crave.
PHILOLOGUS.
I am soon bidden to my friend: come on; let us depart.