THE CONFLICT OF CONSCIENCE.

THE CONFLICT OF CONSCIENCE.

ACT I., SCENE 1.

SATAN.

High time it is for me to stir about,
And do my best my kingdom to maintain,
For why I see of enemies a rout,
Which all my laws and statutes do disdain;
Against my state do fight and strive amain:
Whom in time if I do not dissipate,
I shall repent it, when it is too late.
My mortal foe, the carpenter's poor son,
Against my children—the Pharisees I mean—
Upbraiding them, did use this comparison,
As in the story of his life may be seen.
There was a man which had a vineyard green,
Who, letting it to husbandmen unkind,
Instead of fruit unthankfulness did find.
So that his servants firstly they did beat.
His son likewise they afterward did kill:
And hereupon that man, in fury great,
Did soldiers send these husbandmen to spill;
Their town to burn he did them also will:
But out alas, alas, for woe I cry,
To use the same far juster cause have I.
For where the kingdom of this world is mine,
And his on whom I will the same bestow,
As prince hereof I did myself assign:
My darling dear, whose faithful love I know,[26]
Shall never fail from me, but daily flow.
But who that is, perhaps some man may doubt;
I will therefore in brief portract and paint him out.
The mortal man by nature's rule is bound
That child to favour more than all the rest,
Which to himself in face is likest found;
So that he shall with all his goods be blest:
Even so do I esteem and like him best,
Which doth most near my dealings imitate,
And doth pursue God's laws with deadly hate.
As therefore I, when once in angel's state
I was, did think myself with God as mate to be,
So doth my son himself now elevate
Above man's nature in rule and dignity.
So that in terris Deus sum, saith he:
In earth I am a God, with sins for to dispense,
And for rewards I will forgive each manner of offence.
I said to Eve: tush, tush, thou shalt not die,
But rather shalt as God know everything;
My son likewise, to maintain idolatry,
Saith: tush, what hurt can carved idols bring?
Despise this law of God, the heavenly King,
And set them in the church for men thereon to look:
An idol doth much good: it is a layman's book.
Nembroth,[27] that tyrant, fearing God's hand,
By me was persuaded to build up high Babel,
Whereby he presumed God's wrath to withstand:
So hath my boy devised very well
Many pretty toys to keep men's soul from hell,
Live they never so evil here and wickedly,
As masses, trentals, pardons, and scala coeli.
I egged on Pharaoh, of Egypt the king,
The Israelites to kill, so soon as they were born:
My darling likewise doth the selfsame thing,
And therefore causes kings and princes to be sworn,
That with might and main they shall keep up his horn,
And shall destroy with fire, axe, and sword,
Such as against him shall speak but one word.
And even as I was somewhat too slow,
So that notwithstanding the Israelites did augment;
So (for lack of murthering) God's people do grow,
And daily increase at this time present;
Which my son shall feel incontinent.
Yet another practice, this evil to withstand,
He learned of me, which now he takes in hand.
For when as Moses I might not destroy,
Because that he was of the Lord appointed
To bring the people from thraldom to joy,
I did not cease, whilst I had invented,
Another means to have him prevented;
By accompting himself the son of Pharaoh,
To make him loth Egypt to forego.
The same advice I also attempted
Against the Son of God, when he was incarnate;
Hoping thereby to have him relented,
And for promotion-sake himself to prostrate
Before my feet, when I did demonstrate
The whole world unto him and all the glory,
As it is recorded in Matthew's history.
So hath the Pope, who is my darling dear,
My eldest boy, in whom I do delight,
Lest he should fall, which thing he greatly fear,
Out of his seat of honour, pomp and might,
Hath got to him, on his behalf to fight,
Two champions stout, of which the one is Avarice,
The other is called Tyrannical Practice.
For, as I said, although I claim by right
The kingdom of this earthly world so round,
And in my stead to rule with force and might
I have assigned the Pope, whose match I nowhere found,
His heart with love to me so much abound;
Yet divers men of late, of malice most unkind,
Do study, to displace my son, some wayward means to find.
Wherefore I marvel much what cause of let there is,
That hitherto they have not their office put in ure.
I will go see: for why I fear that somewhat is amiss;
If not, to range abroad the world I will them straight procure:
But needs they must have one to help, men's hearts for to allure
Unto their train: who that should be, I cannot yet espy.
No meeter match I can find out than is Hypocrisy;
Who can full well in time and place dissemble either part.
No man shall easily perceive with which side he doth bear;
But when once favour he hath got, and credit in man's heart,
He will not slack in mine affairs: I do him nothing fear.
But time doth run too fast away for me to tarry here;
For[28] none will be enamoured of my shape, I do know,
I will therefore mine imps send out from hell their shapes to show.

[Exit.

ACT I, SCENE 2.

MATHETES, PHILOLOGUS.

[MATHETES.]
My mind doth thirst, dear friend Philologus,
Of former talk to make a final end:
And where before we 'gan for to discuss
The cause why God doth such afflictions send
Into his Church, you would some more time spend
In the same cause, that thereby you might learn
Betwixt the wrath and love of God a right for to discern.

PHILOLOGUS.
With right good-will to your request herein I do consent,
As well because, as I perceive, you take therein delight,
As also for because it is most chiefly pertinent
Unto mine office to instruct and teach each Christian wight
True godliness, and show to them the path that leadeth right
Unto God's kingdom, where we shall inherit our salvation,
Given unto us from God by Christ our true propitiation.
But that a better-ordered course herein we may observe,
And may directly to the first apply that which ensue,
To speak that hath been said before, I will a time reserve,
And so proceed from whence we left by course and order due
Unto the end. At first, therefore, you did lament and rue
The misery of these our days, and great calamity,
Which those sustain who dare gainsay the Romish hypocrisy.

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.

MATHETES.
Go you before, and I will come behind with all my heart.

[Exeunt.