life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...

The mind of the
wicked is never in
quiet
Evil company
[81]
30 Thomas More’s Life of John Picus
paineth us? Doubtest thou, my son, whether the minds of wicked men
be vexed or not with continual thought and torment?— it is the word
of God, Which 1 neither may deceive nor be deceived: 2 Cor impii quasi
mare fervens quod quiescere non potest, —“The wicked man’s heart is like a
stormy sea, that may not rest.” 3 There is to him nothing sure, nothing
peaceable, but all things fearful, all things sorrowful, all things deadly.
Shall we then envy these men? Shall we follow them¦ and forgetting
our own country, heaven, and our heavenly Father, where we were free
born, shall we wilfully make ourselves their bondmen, and with them
wretchedly living more wretchedly die, and at the last most wretchedly
in everlasting fire be punished? Oh the dark minds of men! Oh the
blind hearts! Who seeth not more clear than light that all these things
be (as they say) truer than truth itself? 4 And yet do we not that that we
know is to be done. In vain we would pluck our foot out of the clay,
but we stick still. There shall come to thee, my son, doubt it not (in
these places namely where thou art conversant) 5 innumerable impediments
every hour which might fear thee from the purpose of good
and virtuous living and (but if thou beware) shall throw thee down
headlong. But among all things the very deadly pestilence is this: to be
conversant day and night among them whose life is not only on every
side an allective° to sin, but over that all set in the expugnation° of
virtue, under their captain the devil, under the banner of death, under
the stipend of hell, fighting against heaven, against our Lord God and
against His Christ. But cry thou therefore with the prophet: Dir umpamus
vincula eorum et projiciamus a nobis jugum ipsorum—“Let us break the bands
of them and let us cast off the yoke of them.” 6 These be they whom
⌐ (as the glorious apostle Saint Paul saith) ¬ our Lord hath delivered into
the passions of rebuke and to a reprovable sense, to do those things
that are not convenient, full of all iniquity, full of envy, manslaughter,
contention, guile, and malice, backbiters, odious to God, contumeli-
21 allective enticement / expugnation conquest
¦ 7 More omits obliti propriae dignitatis, “shall we forget our own dignity” (CW 1:344, 345).
1. Which: As Edwards notes, the Latin makes it clear that the antecedent is “God,” not “word”
(CW 1:230).
2. neither…deceived: Edwards claims that the Latin phrase from the original (qui nec falli potest nec
fallere) derives ultimately from St. Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos 88.2.6.45 (CW 1:230).
3. Cor…rest: Isaiah 57:20.
4. truer than truth itself: More’s rendering of the Latin proverb, ipsa veritate veriora, found in
Gianfrancesco’s original text (CW 1:230).
5. in…conversant: More’s translation of in quibus habitas, “in the places where you dwell” (CW
1:344, 345).
6. Dirumpamus…them: Psalm 2:3.
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