FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   213   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   >>  
er-dying and that shall yet never die. And therefore he addeth and repeateth in the end again, the fear that we should have of him, and saith, "So I say to you, fear him." O good God, cousin, if a man would well weigh those words and let them sink down deep into his heart as they should do, and often bethink himself on them, it would (I doubt not) be able enough to make us set at naught all the great Turk's threats, and esteem him not a straw. But we should be well content to endure all the pain that all the world could put upon us, for so short a while as all they were able to make us dwell in it, rather than, by shrinking from those pains (though never so sharp, yet but short), to cast ourselves into the pain of hell--a hundred thousand times more intolerable, and of which there shall never come an end. A woeful death is that death, in which folk shall evermore be dying and never can once be dead! For the scripture saith, "They shall call and cry for death, and death shall fly from them." O, good Lord, if one of them were not put in choice of both, he would rather suffer the whole year together the most terrible death that all the Turks in Turkey could devise, than to endure for the space of half an hour the death that they lie in now. Into what wretched folly fall, then, those faithless or feeble-faithed folk, who, to avoid the pain that is so far the less and so short, fall instead into pain a thousand thousand times more horrible, and terrible torment of which they are sure they shall never have an end! This matter, cousin, lacketh, I believe, only full faith or sufficient minding. For I think, on my faith, that if we have the grace verily to believe it and often to think well on it, the fear of all the Turk's persecution--with all this midday devil were able to do in the forcing of us to forsake our faith--should never be able to turn us. VINCENT: By my troth, uncle, I think it is as you say. For surely, if we would often think on these pains of hell--as we are very loth to do, and purposely seek us childish pastimes to put such heavy things out of our thought--this one point alone would be able enough, I think, to make many a martyr. XXVI ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, if we were such as we should be, I would scant, for very shame, speak of the pains of hell in exhortation to the keeping of Christ's faith. I would rather put us in mind of the joys of heaven, the pleasure of which we should be more
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   213   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   >>  



Top keywords:

thousand

 

cousin

 

endure

 

terrible

 
minding
 
heaven
 

pleasure

 

sufficient

 

faithed

 

feeble


faithless

 

wretched

 

matter

 

lacketh

 

torment

 

horrible

 

forsake

 
pastimes
 

childish

 

purposely


Forsooth
 
things
 

thought

 

martyr

 

ANTHONY

 

midday

 

forcing

 
keeping
 

persecution

 

Christ


exhortation

 
surely
 

VINCENT

 
verily
 

naught

 

threats

 
bethink
 
esteem
 

content

 

addeth


repeateth

 

shrinking

 

suffer

 

choice

 

Turkey

 

devise

 
hundred
 

intolerable

 
scripture
 

woeful