I just came across this meditation that he penned while he was a prisoner in the tower of London, in 1534.
Give me thy grace, good Lord, To set the world at nought, To set my mind fast upon thee. And not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary, Not to long for worldly company, Little and little utterly to cast off the world,And rid my mind of all the business thereof. Not to long to hear of any worldly things, But that the hearing of worldly phantasies may be to me displeasant.Gladly to be thinking of God, Piteously to call for his help, To lean unto the comfort of God, Busily to labour to love him.To know mine own vility and wretchedness, To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God, To bewail my sins passed, For the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.Gladly to bear my purgatory here, To be joyful of tribulations, To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life. To bear the cross with Christ,To have the last thing in rememberence, To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand, To make no stranger to me, To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell. To pray for pardon before the judge to come. To have ontinually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me, For his benefits uncessantly to give him thanks. To buy the time again that I before have lost. To abstain from vain confabulations, To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness, Recreations not necessary to cut off. Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at right nought, for the winning of Christ. To think my most enemies my best friends, For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred. These minds are more to be desired of every man, than all the treasure of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all upon one heap.
3 comments:
The same Catholic Sir Thomas More who had Protestants burned at the stake while Lord Chancellor of England, and who wrote vicious polemics against Luther and Tyndale?
Yes, that same Sir Thomas More. He certainly was not perfect and I would disagree with him on many very important theological issues.
He was also the same Sir Thomas More who was beheaded for his belief that "no temporal man may be the head of the spirituality (church)" and the same Sir Thomas More that Chesterton claimed to be the "greatest historical character in English history."
What I admire about More is that he was a man of great conviction who sought to be in this world but not of it. He worked to transform the society in which he lived, while maintaining an ultimate allegiance to what he considered as his Christian Calling.
The stain of More's persecution of Lutherans can not be overstated. But it must be understood in the context that More believed that these individuals were promoting heresy. More went on to lose his life because he refused to acknowledge Parliament's authority to legislate in matters of religion.
Our first Amendment rights (Free Speech and the Establishment clause) are arguably traceable to this man.
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