John xiii. 14. Eccl. vii. 2. CHAPTER XV. TROUBLE AND ADVERSITY IS GOOD TO TEACH MEN PITY, To have pity and compassion of people that are in misery and distress, is a christian and a necessary virtue; Matt. xi. 8. but he that never felt temptation, adversity, or affliction himself, can have but little pity and compassion of other. One sick man can tell the lack and necessity of another, one poor man likewise of another; and also one that is in misery and affliction himself, knoweth the better the grief of another that is in like case. As for an example: why and for what cause can our high priest Christ have such pity and compassion upon us miserable wretches, that we dare be bold to come unto him cheerfully without fear, and to look for succour, help, and comfort at his hands? Forsooth, even for this cause and by this means, as saith St Paul, that he was also tempted, and Heb. ii. 18; suffered most bitter pain and grief himself. (Heb. ii.) And very experience doth teach even the self-same thing also. For whosoever hath once lien sick in a spital-house himself, can have the more compassion of other that are in like case afterward, and is ever after the more ready and prompt to help those that be in such case. v. 7. The noble and precious virtue called patience hath no place to put her head in in the time of prosperity. When a man hath been a long season healthful and without any manner of sickness, he cannot take sickness by and by so patiently as he ought to do: and likewise he that never felt any affliction or adversity, whensoever any happen unto him, he is sore vexed with impatientness. But adversity teacheth men patience, and practiseth them therein. First, when a man seeth that all goeth backward and against him, and that it will be no better, but rather worse and worse; what doth he, but of this necessity maketh a virtue, and so is content, and at a point, howsoever it goeth with him? Secondarily, when a man is continually used to trouble and affliction, this same use and custom maketh it light and easy unto him, especially considering that God will also help, aid, and comfort him. Paul saith, "Trouble or affliction bringeth patience, and patience bringeth experience," &c. (Rom. v.) Rom. v. 3, 4. The desperate and lost son learned such patience in his misery and affliction, that he said to his father, "Take nor use me not from henceforth as a son, but as an hired servant. I desire no more, but that I may remain in thy house." (Luke xv.) Even so ought we also to suffer all things willingly and patiently, whatsoever they be, so that God will not banish and put us out of his house. Unto that noble heathen man Socrates did his curst and shrewd wife serve for this use and purpose, that he, learning patience at home, might the better suffer, and the more patiently bear the people that he had to do with abroad. CHAPTER XVI. TROUBLE AND ADVERSITY MAKETH MEN HARD AND STRONG, AN Ox getteth himself harder hoofs upon rough stubble, and crabbed ground, and is able to draw and to labour better, than if he were fed in rank pasture. Those children that are nursed by fremde' men's fires, are for the most part more hard and strong than they which are daintily brought up in all excess, and wantonness, and superfluity, in their own. fathers' houses. Even so the wits and minds of men, through pleasure and abundance, wax tender and weak, and effeminate and wild; but being restrained through some painful necessity and affliction, they wax harder, stronger, and more manly and sober. For an example: the dear holy apostles, the more persecution and affliction they had, the more bold, strong, and constant were they, as the Acts of the Apostles do testify throughout. Paul saith, "I am content, and think myself well in infirmities, in rebukes, in persecutions, in anguishes for [ frembde: strange, foreign.] Christ's sake; for when I am in such weakness, then am I 2 Cor. xii. 10. strong." (2 Cor. xii.) The physician, when he perceiveth that and measure. his patient will eat over-much, and will wax too fat, he Temperancy measureth and restraineth him, and by breaking somewhat from him, he restoreth him to his health again, and so saveth him even so, when we do shamefully misuse wine, corn, bread, and drink, and other gifts and creatures of God, to maintain drunkenness, surfeiting, excess, and riot, then doth God punish us with hunger, dearth, penury, and with other plagues, that we should learn thereby to be temperate, and to keep measure, and to use his benefits thankfully. It is said, the hour of punishment and of correction maketh us to Ecclus. xi. forget all manner of pleasure and lust (Eccles. xi.): as David soon forgot his lusty pleasures and wantonness utterly, when Absalom drave him out of his kingdom. (2 Sam. xiii. &c.) 27. TROUBLE CHAPTER XVII. AND ADVERSITY TEACHETH MEN ΤΟ CONTEMN, DESPISE, AND DEFY THE WORLD, AND TO BE DILIGENT AND FERVENT IN ALL GODLINESS AND VIRTUE. THE cross and adversity taketh from us the love of the world, and driveth away all manner of dangerous and delicious lusts and pleasures of this transitory life. We would fain be rich, but God giveth us poverty; we desire health of body, but God giveth us sickness; and so nurtureth and nurseth us in misery and with affliction, that we can no more tell what a delicious and tender pleasant life in this world meaneth; and thus begin we to contemn and loathe all transitory things, and to desire another, better, more precious, and an eternal life, where all manner of misery shall have an end. He that taketh a journey in hand, and goeth into a strange country, when he cometh into a pleasant town, where he meeteth merry company and good companions, peradventure he spendeth away the time, and tarrieth too long among them, and so forgetteth his household and things at home. But if one hard mischance after another happen unto him, then he maketh the more haste home again to his wife and children, where he hath more rest and quietness. Even so, when these transitory things, as riches, health, beauty, much profit, honour, and dignity happen unto us, if we will once gape upon them and delight so much in them, that we do the less regard and esteem the heavenly life, then will God make the way rough and crabbed unto us here in this life, that we should not take and esteem this transitory life in this world for our right natural country, towards the which we take our journey. For example: the children of Israel had little lust to sing and to play upon any pleasant instruments, when they sat as prisoners by the rivers in Babylon. (Psal. cxxxvii.) And this may a man see and prove now-a-days by those that are in any dangerous sickness, or in any hard prison, or in any anguish and misery, who before were too fond upon eating, drinking, gallant apparel, dancing, toying, playing, and gaming, or upon such like worldly felicity. For the cross and its heaviness wipe away and lick off all such things as clean, as the hot sun licketh and melteth away the snow. Furthermore, they that be poor and in distress and heaviness, are always readier to forsake this world, and are more desirous to depart hence to God, than those that have riches, health, and felicity at pleasure. And therefore St Austin, in his book De Symbolo, writeth thus: "Behold, how God hath replenished and filled the world with so many afflictions, and so much troublesome adversity. It is bitter, and yet it is loved; it is ruinous, and ready to fall, and yet it is inhabited. O thou, my dear darling world, what should we do, if thou wert sweet, stable, and permanent, seeing we do thus now? O thou foul and unclean world, if thou art bitter, and yet deceivest and beguilest us, whom wouldest thou not deceive and beguile, if thou wert sweet ?"1 [ Ecce ruinosus est mundus, ecce tantis calamitatibus replevit Deus mundum, ecce amarus est mundus, et sic amatur: quid faceremus, si dulcis esset? O munde immunde, teneri vis periens: quid faceres, si maneres? Quem non deciperes dulcis, si amarus alimenta mentiris ? Augustin. de Symbolo, ad Catechumenos. Lib. IV. Cap. I. Opera. Tom. Ix. p. 246, G. Ed. Paris. 1541.] Psal. cxxxvii. 4. Diligence and fervency. And the cross doth not only drive and set us forward to all manner of virtue, and putteth us in mind of all godliness, but it quickeneth and kindleth also a diligence and fervency in us, to proceed and go forward in all goodness lustily, stoutly, earnestly, manfully, and not litherly or faintly. Like as a man sometime must spur his horse, although he be a good and quick horse, that he may go and run the faster and speedier; even so we cannot go forward in our vocation and calling so speedily nor so well as we ought to do, except we be pricked forward with sharp spurs and scourges. When the master striketh his slothful, dull, and sleepy servant, then he laboureth the more diligently, and is more profitable unto him: even so we all, for the most part of us, have the nature of such slothful and sluggish servants, which will do nothing well, except we be driven by compulsion, and even whipped and beaten unto it. Although those be evil servants, which will do nothing unless a man be ever upon their bones with a cudgel, yea, and then will do nothing well either; yet notwithstanding must a man never cease driving and forcing of them, until such time as they begin to amend and to serve willingly and with a good heart even so, although no compelled service, that is violently wrung out of a man, doth please God, yet the continual inuring and exercising in goodness may make it at length so pleasant and delectable unto us, that we shall have delight therein. CHAPTER XVIII. TROUBLE AND ADVERSITY IS ALSO AN OF MUCH TRANSITORY QUIETNESS OCCASION AND HELP IN HITHERTO have we taught of the spiritual profit of adversity, whereby the soul of man is endued and garnished with wisdom and all kinds of virtue: now let us see what transitory commodities do oft accompany or follow after [ Peterborough copy: nothing well.] |