The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : Pt 5 of 5

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

Following recovery from a recent illness, I began reading the Four Last Things, a treatise which Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote in 1522. 

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are indicated by [ ] and my own by [ ].  

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

The Four Last Things (continued)

The Portal of the Last Judgement. Amiens Cathedral, 13th. century.
Andrew Dickson White, Cornell University Library.

But now to return to my purpose. Sith the remembrance of these four last things is of such force and efficacy that it is able always to keep us from sin, and sith we can never be long void of both, it must thereof ensue that we shall consequently do good ; and thereof must it needs follow that this only lesson, well learned and busily put in use, must needs lead us to heaven.

Yet will ye peradventure say that ye know these four things well enough, and if the knowledge thereof had so great effect as the Scripture speaketh of, there should not be so many naught[1] as there be. For what Christian man is he that hath wit and discretion, but he hath heard, and having any faith believeth these four last things ? Of which the first, that is to say, death, we need no faith to believe, we know it by daily proof and experience.

I say not nay[2], but that we know them either by faith or experience. And yet not so very thoroughly as we might peradventure, and hereafter undoubtedly shall, which if we knew once thoroughly, and so feelingly perceived as we might percase[3], and namely[4] as we surely shall, there would be little doubt but the least of all the four would well keep us from sin. For as for yet, though we have heard of the doom[5], yet were we never at it. Though we have heard of hell, yet came we never in it. Though we have heard of heaven, yet came we never to it. And though we daily see men die, and thereby know the death, yet ourselves never felt it. For if we knew these things thoroughly, the least of all four were, as I said, enough to keep us from sin.

Knowledge with out remembrance little profiteth.

Howbeit the foresaid words of Scripture biddeth thee not know the four last things, but remember thy four last things; and then, he saith, thou shalt never sin.

Many things know we that we seldom think on. And in the things of the soul the knowledge without the remembrance little profiteth. What availeth it to know that there is a God, which thou not only believest by faith, but also knowest by reason? What availeth that thou knowest Him, if thou think little of Him ? The busy minding of thy four last things, and the deep consideration thereof, is the thing that shall keep thee from sin. And if thou put it in a say[6] and make a proof, thou shalt well find by that thou shalt have no lust to sin for the time that thou deeply thinkest on them ; that if our frailty could endure never to remit or slake in the deep devising of them, we should never have delight or pleasure in any sinful thing.

For the proof whereof let us first begin at the remembrance of the first of these four last, which is undoubtedly far the least of the four ; and thereby shall we make a proof what marvellous effect may grow by the diligent remembrance of all four towards the avoiding of all the trains[7], darts, sleights, enticings and assaults of the three mortal enemies, the devil, the world and our own flesh.

Footnotes

[1] i.e., bad.

[2] I do not deny.

[3] i.e., perhaps.

[4] i.e., particularly.

[5] This is the noun from the word deem = to judge. A judge in old English or Lowland Scotch was called a dempster, and his sentence was a doom.

[6] i.e., put it to the test.

[7] i.e., stratagems. [train : an act or scheme designed to deceive or entrap, a trick, stratagem, artifice, wile. Also: a lie, a false story. OED 1.b. ?a1400–1838]

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.